Snowboarding in Åre

We have visited Åre, Sweden several times but this weekend was my first opportunity to go snowboarding there. I caught a ride with a very cool Swede from work and his friend. The weather was perfect and I even had the opportunity to purchase some bacon before we headed home. However, if you are a snowboarder you should be wary of any invitations to go skiing with Swedes.

Based on my experiences I'm pretty sure that the word Åre is Swedish for 'to stand in line.' Notice the huge line of people to the right of the ski lift (this is near the top of the mountain, not the main lift). There were similar lines for toilets, restaurants, etc.

We took one practice run and then the Swedes wanted to hike to the top of the mountain and make some fresh tracks on the backside. They put synthetic animal skins on their skis to add traction and make the skis function as snowshoes. I was on a snowboard so I just had to stomp through ankle-deep snow for 20 minutes while dragging my board, jacket, and helmet uphill (that's the main ski lift in the distance).

The backside of the mountain had great snow and plenty of space to make new tracks. Unfortunately, when we got to the bottom there was about a kilometer of mostly flat terrain to traverse (those little vertical lines in the distance are people). Gravity makes snowboards work. Walking through waist-deep snow is exhausting.

One of the Swedes lent me an avalanche transponder. You can see 'powder burns' at the top of this hill where they used explosives to trigger a small avalanche as a preventative measure.

Even though the area had received some new snow this week there were still plenty of exposed surfaces. The lack of snow this winter has been hard on the Scandinavians.

Science Fair

Becca's school had a science fair and I was one of the people that was asked to be a 'guest scientist.' I took the day off of work and thoroughly enjoyed myself. After Becca was off work we had dinner in town and some expensive beer at The Good Neighbor (including Sierra Nevada Pale Ale on draft for only $15 per pint).

Several of the students used Lego Mindstorms in their projects. I didn't get assigned to any of their projects, however.

The houses along the river look just as good in the spring time.

We happened to walk by Vår Frue Church right before it was closing so we popped in for a photo.

We like the beer at The Good Neighbor but the prices there are worrisome.

We sat next to the 4th window from the left on the bottom floor. The view of the river with falling snow is amazing.

 

The Old Town Bridge is adjacent to The Good Neighbor.

This bus stop (and it's corresponding version across the street) has played a non-trivial role in our Trondheim experience. Becca rides the bus here every school day and it's also the stop where I waited for a bus at 4am while I was in Trondheim for my interview.

Finally some snow worth skiing on

We woke up to fresh snow the morning after the Beer Tasting. On Sunday afternoon we had enough snow to allow grooming in Strindamarka! I couldn't ski on Sunday because I had a curling match (we won) but on Monday I grabbed my skis and headed out after dinner.

This was the view from my (new) desk at work. Once you've seen this landscape you have to choose to either go skiing or move out of Norway; This rule is enforced via peer pressure.

When we first moved here signs like this were just nonsense to us. Now they are a more-familiar nonsense.

Strindamarka has several trails that are challenging. And that's by Norwegian standards. This one, however, is peer bliss.

After looking at the view of the city from here I checked my watch and realized that it was almost 9pm. I was in bed by 10:30pm.

Sometimes I wear the USA headband as a warning to any foreigners in the area so they don't get too close or decide to follow me.

Novel Beer Tasting 2014

I joined a small committee at work called Novel this year and have been looking forward to organizing the second anniversary of our beer tasting event.

Last year's event was excellent and included a local beer guru as the guest speaker and a brewing demonstration by the Swedes. The presenter this year was a long-haired hippy from the Cascade Brewers Society and the Swedes provided some delicious homebrew for us to enjoy after we had worked our way through the commercial beers.

Even though 50 people attended the event it was relatively inexpensive (the budget was only $1340 (8000 NOK) and that included snacks).

Anders provided several of these little piggies filled with his brown ale. He is single-handedly getting people here addicted to homebrew. One of my other colleagues recently purchased a cooler-based homebrew setup and another is considering starting a brew crew with a few of his friends.

The night's presenters: I tried to keep everyone drinking in the same direction while Becca was on her feet keeping glasses filled, making popcorn, and collecting empty bottles.

Purchasing beer and snacks for 50 people and dragging it to work in shopping carts is kind of fun. Returning the empty bottles when there is several inches of snow on the ground is less fun.

The most difficult part, however, was selecting the beers for the event. I couldn't rely on getting beers that I know because Norway's alcohol monopoly makes custom ordering beers very complicated. And I couldn't do anything too technical because I was expecting that many of the people in attendance wouldn't even know the difference between a lager and an ale.

Then I realized that if I was stuck with the beers that the monopoly has selected then so are my coworkers. So I decided to inspect the monopoly's selection and base my presentation on whatever interesting things I could find. I used Python to scrape information (price, ABV, what each store has in stock, etc) from the monopoly's website and then find the rating for each beer on Ratebeer.

Then I created a handful of heuristics that I could use to sort the beers and added the ability to filter by price, location, stock, etc. It only took a weekend to write the code but I spent several weeknights interpreting the data.

For example, here is how I generated two top-ten lists that only include beers that I can purchase at least 5.3L of from the closest store. The first list ranks beer by their alcohol-per-kroner (APK) and also considers ratings. The second list is based on price-per-liter (PPL) and also considers ratings.

My advice to you: grab some data, install python-matplotlib, and start making yourself some 8x10 color glossy photographs. Here are a few that I presented.

The monopoly clearly plays favorites.

Beer is extremely expensive in Norway. According to this histogram you can expect to pay about $25 (150 NOK) per liter.

This scatter plot shows that even though you are paying $25 (150 NOK) per liter there is no guarantee that you are going to get a good beer. Once you get to $33 (200 NOK) per liter, however, it's mostly clear sailing.

Seriously, don't buy a Danish beer without checking its rating first.

When it was time to purchase beers I used the APK-Rating heuristic to select 9 strong beers for us to try:

• Abbaye des Rocs Bruin
• Chimay Trappist Blue 2011
• Young's Special London Ale
• Weihenstephaner Vitus Weizenbock
• St. Peters Cream Stout
• Nómada Royal Porter A La Taza
• Haandbryggeriet Dark Force
• Nøgne Ø #100
• Nøgne Ø #500

We also had a bonus beer, Paulaner Hefe-Weissbier, because it showed up as a top result almost regardless of the heuristic being used (it is excellent and relatively cheap).

I started the presentation at 7:15pm by handing out BJCP score cards so people could have an idea of what they should be considering with each beer. I also handed out some charts and graphs so we would have something fun to talk about while we got started. After each beer was served I talked them through the beer's BJCP style guidelines and then everyone talked amongst themselves until we were ready for the next beer. By the time the commercial beer was gone the homebrew was ready to be served and we gladly drank that while everyone mingled. Becca and I left the party around 2am. We got a text from someone that left around 4am and he said that people were still there. Great success.

If you made it this far in the post then you deserve this photo of a beefcake drinking homebrew.

Metalfest 2014

We didn't realize that Trondheim has a metal fest until this year. It took a little convincing but Becca eventually agreed to go with me for Saturday night.

On Sunday morning Becca and I were both complaining about cramps in our calves from jumping around. I, from all of the head banging, also experienced debilitating soreness in my neck and shoulder muscles; It sucks to get old.

2014 was the 5th anniversary

The hip, new, local Austmann microbrewery provided the only interesting beer for the event. The 'Three Rocking Witches' was actually pretty good. The 'True Kult Black Stout' was passable. The others were awful. But at least they were only $14 per glass.

Caliban is a German band. They were more radio-friendly than the other bands but they were a lot of fun.

For a brief period of time, probably due to the Balmer Peak, Becca became a legit metal photographer.

Another of Becca's excellent photos. So metal.

Norwegian mosh pits are adorable.

Metal must not pay very well because many of the musicians had holes in their clothes.

The blackest band we saw was Carach Angren. Remember: it's not a concert, it's a ritual.

Around midnight the darkness was seeping into Becca's soul and she started to power down. Or maybe she was just sleepy. A security guard checked on her because she was sitting down but he decided that she had sufficient angst to proceed.

Becca was guided along the remainder of her journey by her spirit animal, the ghost of Bob Ross.

The headliner for the night was At The Gates. As far as we are concerned they are another reason to move to Gothenburg, Sweden.

After the show we grabbed a kebab and then took a taxi home.

We ended up seeing:

    At The Gates
    Carach Angren
    Electric Wizard
    The Browning
    Caliban
    Tesseract

Swiss Fondue

Our Swiss friend (and curling ally) invited us and The Swedes over for an authentic fondue dinner. The supplies were all hand-delivered from Switzerland and it was delicious.

The only thing better than cheese is 2 kilos of melted cheese.

If cheese was transparent you would see that Becca brought the beer bread that we received from Jason and Christy.

Verifying his nationality was easy because this was sitting on his desk.

Nordlys

It has been an extraordinarily warm and dry winter in Norway; Trondheim set a new record for the warmest Christmas Eve, driest January since 1950-something, and warmest day in February. Additionally, the sun is near the maximum of its 10-year activity cycle so the conditions are about as good as they can get for seeing the Northern Lights in Trondheim.

But luck is still required. While riding my bicycle home after volleyball practice I noticed a hint of green in the sky. After grabbing the girl and a camera we proceeded along the bike path to a dark area near our apartment.

The patch of trees on the edge of the cemetery was especially creepy because many Norwegians are superstitious about the nordlys. It is, for example, bad luck to wave at them. And savvy kids remember to stuff rags into any cracks or keyholes that lead to the outside to keep the lights out after you are asleep.

The red color is produced by excited atomic oxygen atoms at high altitudes.

The green color is more common and is produced lower in the atmosphere.

Unfortunately, the lights of Trondheim made taking photos over the city difficult. That's why these photos were taken facing east.

Adding tree limbs to photos is nice because it gives the viewer a sense of reference. Unfortunately, even a mild breeze will cause the limbs to appear blurry during long exposures.

Each photo in this animation required 2 seconds of exposure. The lights are rarely static and can move very fast!

We later learned that a solar event on February 25th had sent a hot mess of plasma right at us.

Rørosmartnan

The Swedes invited us along on a road trip to visit the annual market at Røros (~2 hour drive from Trondheim). Røros is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and popular tourist destination due to its unique old-world architecture. We spent a great, sunny day there (it was about 32 degrees F).

Røros is an old mining town. This building is a reproduction of the original copper smelting facility that was active between 1646 and 1953. The original building burned to the ground in 1975.

Most of the buildings in the old part of town look like they are made out of old railroad ties that have painted accents.

The market lasts less than a week but it draws tens of thousands of tourists. It feels like an American state fair being held in a museum (notice the cotton candy).

Certain situations were eerily similar to the Scandinavian Festival in Junction City.

$1.67 is a surprisingly reasonable price for a stick of roast-your-own-marshmallows in Norway. Adults, on the other hand, were encouraged to purchase little wooden cups that can be used to hold unreasonably priced shots of hard alcohol.

I'm glad that foreign children are also able to grow up with Pizza Roof.

One girlfriend, accessorized with gløgg and dobbel sjokolade amerikansk smultring.

There is a microbrewery that is located in the cellar of a hotel. The beer isn't great but the pub is cozy and it's definitely worth a visit if you are in town.

We were delighted by all of the musicians that were stationed around town.

Most of the musicians were situated around fires with free coffee near by.

This mural reminded me of something that would be located in Eugene. Or Sweden. It's hard to say why.

Bicycle lights save lives.