Melkevoll Bretun

Currently we are staying in an area of the Western Fjords called Oldedalan. It is almost impossible to find on a map, and in fact, we couldn't even find Oldedalen on Google Maps, but the town of Olden we could find, and that is about 24km from where we are. I cannot really even begin to describe how beautiful it is here.

We are staying in a cabin (the second on the left in the photo above) that is part of a large campsite called Melkevoll Bretun at the foot of the Briksdalbre Glacier. All around us there are mountains, raging waterfalls that cascade down the mountains and become the icy-blue rapids that rush by our door, and in the distance, the quiet fjordwaters.

It is truly an amazing place. Yesterday we walked up to the foot of the glacier. Well not exactly the foot, but close enough. The walk is about 60 minutes from where we are staying, and, is of course, a straight vertical ascent. People certainly are fit here. Along the way there are markers of where the glacier used to terminate in the 1700's, 1800's, 1900's and of course, now. It is incredible to see how much this glacier has retreated in the past few hundred years.

At the foot of the glacier is a still, peaceful pond of melted ice, and there are chunks of ice floating in it. Brave souls wade into the water to carry out as big a lump of ice as they can carry, and then everyone in sight takes turns picking it up and having their picture taken with it.

We are looking forward to taking some more hikes and to going kayaking in the fjords. This is such beautiful country, and I am so glad we decided to continue our journey. I would not have wanted to miss this.

The Norwegians here have all been extremely nice to us, and so far we are the only native English-speakers here.

I do have one question though: what on earth do the Norwegian people eat in day-to-day life?! Restaurant food that we had in Lillehammer was not good, and the only affordable item on the menus was pizza.

In the grocery stores, meat is incredibly expensive: two salmon fillets cost almost $50, and I'm pretty sure they were from frozen. I had the idea that fresh fish was going to be abundant and relatively inexpensive, but clearly I was wrong. Maybe this is why they eat so much ham and cheese and waffles-they are the only things that are affordable. And hot dogs. They LOVE hot dogs.

They do seem to also have a love for food in tubes. I saw many items in the grocery that were in tubular form: mayonnaises, both plain and in many different flavors like bacon and shrimp; all sorts of condiments; Nougatti (that wonderful Nutella-like spread); plus all sorts of caviar and fish pastes.

These caviar tubes are yummy. Well, the tubes aren't yummy but the stuff inside is. It's like a red caviar paste that you can spread on a cracker and it is tasty. Why we don't have more tube-fish in The States I will never understand. I'd buy it, that's for sure.

Leaving the Hammer

We left Lillehammer on Monday, the day after visiting the wonderful Maihaugen, otherwise known as the Norwegian Folk Museum. I confess to not exactly understanding why it is called a folk museum, unless it’s kind of their way of saying “Hey, this museum, it’s about Norwegian folk!”

So-called folk museums I have visited in the past seemed to contain a lot of raggedy furniture, and freaky straw-stuffed dolls with no eyes.

This museum was not like that at all, however, it was more like a visit to Plymouth Plantation or Sturbridge village, one of those “living” museums, where the whole shebang is outdoors, and you walk along wooded trails by ponds and fields through a collection of houses and villages., complete with farm animals and actor-villagers in costume who pretend they’ve never heard of a television before.

In the Norway version, the houses were either from the 1700’s or early 1900’s. I confess to being a total geek and loving these kinds of museums, though I know it’s just because they feel like a movie set.

You can often pick up a few interesting tidbits along the way, like what Norwegian flatbread is made of (potato flakes and sour milk), and that is sucks to be a milkmaid. I say this because on the rather warm day we visited her at this museum, she was stuck in a very small, very hot stone room, wearing far too many layers of clothes plus bonnet, and churning butter with movements so vigorous they made my arms burn just watching. I suppose for her, if she does that churning on a daily basis, her arms are probably used to it, and I bet she’s one hell of an arm wrestler, don’t let the bonnet fool you.

Anyway, we left Lillehammer on Monday, and after 45 minutes in the car realized that we had left our passports in the hotel safe, so we turned around and went back for them, thereby turning a four-and-a-half hour day of driving into a six-hour one.

The drive however, was amazing, as the scenery just seemed to get exponentially more spectacular the further we went toward the Western Fjords. The surroundings went from Vermont on steroids, to Maui meets “Lord of the Rings” on steroids, and the scale of it is just not to be believed. I have included some pictures, but photos just don’t seem able to capture the scale of the place.

I will say that Norway seems to be home to some truly terrifying tunnels. On the drive here, we went through two of them in pretty rapid succession, and by the end of the last one both Steve and I were breathing into paper bags. Since Steve is normally a pretty unflappable guy, I realized that these tunnels really must be as scary as I thought they were.

I have never been particularly nervous in tunnels before, but something about these was just freaky. For starters, they are really dark and narrow, with only dim yellow lights above at rather sparse intervals. There were no lines on the road, so it was really hard to tell how close to the sides of the tunnel the car actually was. This was really scary when massive trucks and tour buses would come barreling towards us out of the pitch darkness.

The other freaky thing was that the walls of the tunnels weren't covered with any sort of concrete, so there was just the jagged, dark wet rock shining out at you. It even smelled dank in there. Never before had I been so aware of the fact that I was driving through a mountain. It really felt like being in the belly of the beast.

Both of the tunnels we went through were about 4km long, which was just too long for my liking. Apparently there is one that is 15 miles long somewhere around here.

I guarantee to get me through that I will need some serious sedatives. Or for the milkmaid to bash me over the head with her churn-handle.

Lillehammer

Instead of going to Oslo, we opted for Lillehammer until Monday, and I must say I am glad we did.

Lillehammer hosted the 1994 winter Olympics, and like all former Olympic villages, the memory of those games is kept alive and kicking.

We decided this morning to head to the Ski Jump Chairlift, which, as the name suggests, is at the former sight of the Olympic Ski jump.

We opted to walk to the site rather than drive, because it was only a 25 minute walk, and after the last three straight days in the car, it felt good to be outside in the sun. For reasons I will soon explain, I was walking at a fairly slow clip, since the route to the chairlift was, naturally, straight uphill.

Steve made a comment that he couldn't walk that slowly and was going to go on ahead, and my competitive streak kicked in and I decided to powerwalk past him up the hill. No one's going to call me slow!

This burst of effort turned out to be a bit of a mistake, because my pounding heart caused me to have a raging case of the head-sweats (this is what I had been trying to avoid by pacing myself and not getting overheated).

I'm not sure exactly what has happened, but my scalp seems to have decided, over the last year or so, to enter me in a head-sweating contest. I was not informed of this contest, and I certainly didn't decide to enter it, but it seems to be out of my control. All I can say is that the instant my heart rate gets above 125, my head seems to set off a very special sprinkler system, that releases sweat in amounts that to me seem unrelated to the task at hand.

The head-sweating definitely started when I was on the anti-anxiety meds, and apparently is a very common side effect of them, but I kind of expected it to subside when I went off of them. I have considered that it might be hormone related, but it's not happening when I'm sitting still, only when I exercise.

I know that the body releases something like 90% of its heat through the head, and I do have a scalp covered with a lot of dark hair, and let's face it, a brain like mine that's constantly ticking over with Mensa-like genius is apt to create a lot of heat, but the geysers that wind up coming out of my head seem a bit excessive. Plus I'm not really sweating anywhere else. It's odd.

I remember that my father, who is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon, used to say that when they took the cloth caps off of the babies' heads at the end of surgery, they were always filled with water. So I get it, people sweat from the head, but do I need to constantly look like I just got out of the shower every time I go for a walk?!

I have considered shaving my head, but I'm not sure. I believe that any big trip should bring about a corresponding physical change: a change of wardrobe, a new haircut, a new tattoo, a diamond-and-gold front tooth, something like that, so maybe my GI Jane buzzcut will be my new look. I'll keep you posted.

But back to the Lillehammer Ski Jump. This was far more exciting than I had imagined. First of all, the location is stunning, and second of all, the ski jumps are still in use! I had expected an empty shell of a ski jump, but it's still quite a vibrant and active location.

The big ski jump is not in use (or at least it wasn't today), but the smaller one to the right is. The landing area is made up of what looks like the fake grass that Hawaiian skirts were made of, closely woven together, with the knapp all heading downhill. This fake grass is periodically sprayed with water, which must soften it and, I'm guessing, make it closer approximate the feeling of snow upon landing.

These jumpers must have been professionals, and it was really exciting watching them barrel down the ramp and then take flight. Everybody except one person landed perfectly. We watched one guy make the jump, and he landed pretty short, and Steve and I, in our infinite ski-jump-wisdom commented that it wasn't a very good jump.

We then watched this jumper take his skis and face gear off, and realized that this guy was 70 years old if he was a day. On a fricking ski jump. It put me to such shame, I broke out in a head sweat, just to have something to do.

You can take the chair lift up to the top of the large ski jump, and stand at the top of it, looking down, imagining all of the jumpers who looked at this same view before taking their Olympic runs.

If so inclined, it is possible to walk up the 972 stairs to the top, which we opted not to do: my head after all, just couldn't take it. We did, however, walk down. This was fantastic, as the stairs take you right alongside all of the different stages of the jump, so we could see the jumpers up close as the took off down the run, leapt off the ramp, were airborne and then landed.

The whole experience was very, very cool.

So far, the Norwegians have been very nice and they speak almost perfect, unaccented English. The food thus far is fine, nothing too impressive. There seems to be a very large Turkish population here, as almost every menu has a Turkish section on it.

The Norwegians also seem to have an unnatural fixation with waffles, and serve them at every meal. Our breakfast at the hotel features a make-your-own waffle bar, and they offer various jams and spreads alongside. One of these spreads is called Nougaty, which is their version of Nutella. Yum.

Roadworks

Hello from Sweden!

Yesterday we left Germany, took a ferry to Denmark and then drove into Sweden. I must say, Sweden could very well have been the American mid-west, all that flat farmland.

I must comment on the Roadworks insanity that was northern Germany. It was really not to be believed. Of the 500 or so miles we drove in Germany, about 400 of them were under Roadworks. I'm not kidding. They take their roads very seriously. This has the benefit of creating roads that are amazingly smooth to drive on, but the downside is that they must constantly be under some sort of construction in order to keep them that way.

We would drive along 4 km of roadworks, then have 2km of smooth road, followed by another 6km of works. It kind of took away from the amazing speeds we were expecting to see on the Autobahn, because on these roadwork stretches, you can only drive about 50 mph. And those Germans obey their speed limits.

This foiled our plan to gain loads of time by driving 190mph. And I was kind of disappointed after all I have heard of the famed Autobahn, to not get to see some cars traveling at the speed of sound. I will say that even on the stretches where you genuinely could go as fast as you want, we didn't see anything that crazy; certainly nothing that seemed dangerous. They are very safe drivers, the best we've seen thus far, even in the rain that pelted down during a portion of the drive.

In fact, most of the drivers on the road seemed to be doing around 80mph. I imagine that psychologically, if you are used to being able to drive as fast as you want all the time, it's not something exciting and new to be abused, it's just normal, so you choose a speed that's comfortable and safe rather than one that makes the car you're in shudder.

I have to admit that before I went to Germany, I harbored a bit of a prejudice. I don't like to admit it, but I had it in my head that I didn't like Germans, or the German language, and that therefore I wouldn't like Germany. I know that this comes from being Jewish and harboring old grudges, or being given an impression from war movies and war footage that just isn't a contemporary representation of who these people are. Everywhere we went, the people in Germany were so wonderful to us, and they were always happy to speak English, and never made us feel bad about the fact that we can't speak any German!

And, I must add, that Germany is home to the most fab toilet ever. At some point on the road, we stopped at a rather large rest area, complete with restaurants, shops, etc. Normally I fear public toilets, especially those off of interstates, but boy was I surprised.

I had to pay .70 to get into the bathroom, but then you are given a coupon for .50 off of anything in the shops, so really you're not paying very much. The stalls are all spotless, and after you do your business and stand up, the toilet automatically flushes itself. It is then that the magic begins.

While the toilet is flushing, an arm extends from behind the seat, and releases a cleaning solution into the bowl. The seat then begins to turn in a circle-a full circle. The bottom of this arm has a kind of a squeegee on the underside of it, and this rests against the seat. So while the seat is turning, it is being cleaned with disinfectant and squeegeed dry.

It is my dream toilet. I think I may have cried a little as the seat rotated and cleaned itself. Seriously I want to figure out how to install one in my home. Although I do think, what if it broke, or just went rogue, while someone was still sitting on it, and it started turning and squeegeeing? You could wind up upside down on the seat with your feet against the wall and your head on the floor or something.

I would risk it, though.

Today we might drive up to Oslo and spend a couple of days there. Hopefully I will have internet.

All Work and no Play

Here are some shots of our lovely Landhaus St. Urban Hotel.

If you are wondering why it looks like there’s no one there….it’s because there is no one there. And when I say no one, I mean NO ONE!!

On Monday the receptionist informed us that Tuesday and Wednesday were their Days of Rest, and that the kitchen was closed. She also informed us that we could just take our key to open and close the main door to the hotel.

It began to occur to us that it was everybody’s day of rest, not just the kitchen staff’s, but then we thought, well surely they can't just leave us alone in the hotel. But sure enough, Tuesday morning, they gave the remaining guests breakfast before they checked out, cleaned the rooms and everywhere else, and locked the door behind them.

There were no other guests staying, so we had the entire hotel to ourselves all day yesterday and all night. I sort of couldn’t believe how trusting they were: the kitchen door remained unlocked, as did all of the booze at the bar. They trusted us to lock the door of the hotel behind us when we came and went.

It was kind of cool having the run of the place, and at the same time a bit eery. It was hard for me not to look down the long hallway to the rooms and imagine those freaky blond twins from The Shining standing there holding hands saying “Come and play with us, Danny. For ever. And ever. And ever.”

Not to mention the freaky naked woman in the bathtub.

Today we start our drive to Norway. We will miss Germany. The people here have been the friendliest of anywhere on the trip, the Schitzel has been delicious, and the drivers are all excellent.

Riesling Riesling Riesling!!!

Today was a festival of Rieslings.

Luckily Steve was feeling better and we were able to go to two different wineries for tastings.

They couldn't have been more different from each other.

The first place we went was Maximin Grunhaus. The website declared that they were open for tastings from 8am-12pm, and so we just showed up at around 11:15. We knocked on the door, and walked around the whole property, but no one was there.

We decided to try somewhere else, and as we drove away, my brilliant hubby observed that the sign at the driveway for the winery actually pointed up toward another driveway just up the hill. This driveway took us to another side of the property with an open cargo door in which you could see crates, bottles, cases of wine, etc.

Inside we found one lone guy, in his working overalls, who led us into a small office with a table and chairs. He brought us glasses, a brochure and price list and told us we could taste whatever we wanted, at no charge. All told, there were 64 wines from which to sample. We tasted about 10. And he opened whatever we asked him for, he never said we couldn't taste something. He even opened a half bottle of their wonderful Icewine, which they were selling for 75.00 euros a half-bottle.

He spoke very little English and we speak essentially no German, so it was impossible to get any great details about the wine maker, or winery itself, but I guess the point is for the wines to speak for themselves.

We tasted all Rieslings, from two different vineyards, and at varying levels of ripeness. The wines ranged from dry to sweet. It was interesting to taste that the wines from one vineyard were far more mineral-tasting then the wines from the other. Yet another perfect illustration of Terroir.

After that we went over to Dr. Loosen Winery. This was a completely different animal, with a formal table set up, and an English-speaking host. We were there with another American family, the parents who currently live in Illinois and their son and his wife who live in Huntington Beach, CA. The son and wife were, unfortunately dull as dirt, but the mother was lively, as was our host.

He gave us 9 wines to taste from almost as many different vineyards, each of which has a different soil composition. There are blue slate vineyards, grey slate, and red volcanic soil (this red vineyard is called Wurzgarten, which means spice garden, and imparts a slight spicy aroma to the wines).

Ultimately, there are a lot of subtle differences in all of these wines: from the sweetness levels, to the exact types of fruits and mineralities, but I can generalize and say that these wines were very bright, fresh, acidic, with a nice balance of fruit and minerality. Overall I would say the fruits ranged from green apple and gooseberry, citrus pith and peel, kumquat, and green plum to unripe pineapple. A couple of the wines were surprisingly tropical. And they age these wines on the lees, so a few of them had that pronounced toast crumb aroma.

I also learned a fun fact: I had noticed that almost all of the vines in this area are trellised upright in sort of a tall stalk, and I asked him why this was. He told me that they do "single stalk training" with these vines because it allows them to plant the vines closer together and therefore get more vines per hectare. They can do that here because with the super steep slopes that the vines grow on, there is access to sunlight even when vines are closer together.

He did say that they have to be careful to not let the vines grow too tall, otherwise the plant is spending more of its energy on growing and less on producing excellent fruit.

On a completely different note, please observe the photo. That is the toilet in our hotel room. Have you ever seen anything more odd? I just don't quite understand the theory behind it. It's like a bench....but with a toilet in the middle of it. It feels very bizarre, sitting on it, and your body has this initial reaction like "wait, I can't pee here...this is a bench!!"

It reminds me of a bad dream I would have when I was a kid, in which I would be sleeping on a toilet (as one does), and would start to pee, only to suddenly realize I wasn't on a toilet at all, after which I would start awake to realize with dismay that I had wet the bed.

To the left of the toilet is a ceramic jar filled with wine corks, and a book. Now, I understand why the book is there, but what on earth are they expecting me to do with the wine corks while I'm sitting there? There are only a couple of things I can think of, and none of those are particularly appealing. Or G-rated.

Mosel

We are currently in the Mosel region of Germany, and it is absolutely stunning.

We are staying at a wonderful small hotel called Russel's Landhaus St. Urban, and it is exactly what we were looking for: quiet, in the middle of trees, with a little pond at the back where we can sit and read, have tea or lunch and just relax.

The amazing thing was that yesterday, we spent the afternoon lounging at the hotel and then drove toward a small village for dinner; we had driven about 4 miles through woods, and came around a corner and suddenly there was this spectacular view of the valley, the Mosel River, two small villages and vineyards as far as the eye can see. It just seemed to appear out of nowhere.

These vineyards are wild; they are almost vertical in places, and the vines seem to cling to edges of rock. I can only imagine how difficult and dangerous the harvest must be.

The nice thing about this area is that where we are staying doesn't feel touristy at all: nothing is written in English, which can make reading a menu challenging, (though I was able to figure out that schwein was pork, because it sounds like swine), and everybody in the hotel and restaurants we have been to is speaking German.

For dinner I had the pork schnitzel with spaetzle and an absolutely delectable sauce made from Chanterelle mushrooms. It was probably one of the most delicious things I've eaten on this whole trip. Spaetzle is impossible to describe; it's kind of like a very firm egg pasta, and it is just delicious with the schnitzel. I can say this for Germany: they know how to Schnitzel.

The one dark cloud over the whole thing has been that Steve is still not fully recovered yet from his stomach bug or food poisoning, whichever it was. So he's exhausted and not really able to do much, and since I still (yes, still) can't drive a stick shift car, I am a bit stuck as well, and not able to be very helpful when he needs something.

A big thanks to my parents, who spoke to him on the phone for a while tonight, my dad giving doctorly advice along with my mother's motherly advice, and together they sang the praises of the jam sandwich and banana diet.

I also had a rather funny session of charades with the German woman at the pharmacy as we both did the "I don't speak your language" dance of poop gestures until we figured out that I needed the German equivalent of Kaopectate. I think it's going to catch on, that dance. It's going to be bigger than the Macarena. Trust me.