Spring In Trondheim

Spring has officially arrived in Trondheim. The days are getting longer and the temperature is rising. The sun now rises at about 4:20 am and sets at about 10:15 pm. Of course it is still light outside for quite a while after that. The temperature has been between 10 C and 15 C (between 50 and 60 F) the past week with one day getting all the way up to 20 C (68 F)!

Walking home at 9:30 pm and it is still light outside!

Though the weather has been nice lately, spring definitely got off to a crazy start. There were several days that we woke up to snow only to have it melt off within a few hours.

Wake up to snow in the morning...

and it is mostly gone by noon!

 It snowed again about two weeks ago. Since then we have had primarily blue skies! The trees are budding, flowers are blooming and we are starting to see some wildlife.

Leaf buds on the trees!

Pretty little whit flowers. There are also a lot of dandelions. 

Sverige!

Last weekend Becca and I met up with our favorite Swedes and went to Gothenburg, Sweden. Not only was Gothenburg hosting a whisky and beer festival but Anders and Anna are from that area so we knew that there would be plenty to see and talk about.

To get to Oslo we took a one hour flight from Trondheim. We had a few hours to kill in Oslo so Anders and I found some free wifi and purchased concert tickets for my mom as soon as they went on sale. Then we went to a grocery store and bought supplies for the bus ride before sitting down in a really cool bar.

The fellowship (from left): Anders, Bjorn, Anna, Becca, Daniel

To get from Oslo to Gothenburg we took a 3.5 hour ride on a really fancy bus. The bus had decent wifi and big, comfy, leather seats. In Oslo we checked into our hotel and were delighted to find out that the hotel was obsessed with feng shui in a modern, tacky, Scandinavian way: shag carpet trim, indoor water features, peep holes in the bathroom doors, and randomly-placed, expensive, Swedish furniture (art?).

Shag carpet: OK on the floor but not on the ladies

Feng Shui is Chinese for 'no privacy'

On the first night we went to the Swedish liquor store and purchased our quotas of cheap(er) beer. We also visited a really nice beer bar that had signs for Caldera Brewing (Ashland, Oregon) on the wall. Then we went out to a fancy dinner at a traditional restaurant and ate Swedish food including pickled fish and stuffed cabbage.

Beer in Sweden is significantly cheaper than in Norway

Four types of delicious, pickled herring

The festival itself had capacity problems on Friday night that prevented hundreds of people from getting in: thankfully, our tickets were for Saturday. Anders watched the line forming in front the building on Saturday via a webcam and we went and stood in line when we could see people starting to pile up. We got in without any issues and had a great time. We even managed to try a very rare beer and escape with extra tasting glasses to bring home!

You can tell that it's Swedish by looking at all of the dots above the letters

One excellent strawberry-flavored beverage

A beer with 32% ABV and a silly name

After the festival we went out to dinner and then sat down for coffee. The coffee shop had cigars for sale so we spent $10 to support the communists. That night we walked around to a couple of more pubs but turned in fairly early because we are old folks.

Cuban cigar with my cappuccino? Yes, please.

On Sunday we finished exploring Gothenburg and had gyros for lunch. Becca found a geocache and we took photos to use for her CV.

Dear Sir or Madame, I feel I am qualified for the position of ferry boat captain because of my many years of practice as helmswoman of giant, decorative, steering wheels as well as my affinity for spinach.

Finally, we hopped on the train back to Oslo. In Oslo we transferred to a train with two-person sleeping cabins at 10pm and woke up back in Trondheim at 7am on Monday morning. Overall, the trip was incredible and left us with an appreciation for Swedish furniture.

The expensive, Swedish chair in the hotel

Last weekend we got to see a very colorful display of the aurora borealis (nordlys). Since then it has been sunny and beautiful so most of the streets and sidewalks are clear of snow. There is still plenty of snow in the foothills for cross country skiing, however.

Yesterday I was home from work by 4pm and skiing by 5pm.

Strindamarka is within walking (or skiing!) distance of our apartment

Novel Beer Tasting 2013

Nordic has a group called Novel and its purpose is to make working at Nordic more interesting. Usually, this involves organizing (and paying for) events that include some combination of alcohol, skiing, hiking, bowling, and shooting guns. This group was recently infiltrated by a fellow homebrewer and thus Nordic's International Beer and Ski Festival was born.


The event is comprised of three parts:

1) A night of drinking and talking about curated (and company purchased) beers while brewing an IPA

2) A day of cross-country skiing on a sunny, Sunday afternoon

3) Reconvening to drink the previously-brewed beer and proselytize potential homebrewers

Torpedo, a delightful Norwegian rye IPA, some pink elephant, and a nice, homebrewed, black IPA while we set up the brewing apparatus

The beer nerd that chose the night's selection presenting to the 40 or so attendees

Our Swedish friends and brewing cohorts: Anna and Anders (not pictured: Fnutt the cat)

Anders professing his love for German engineering (the Braumeister)

The selected beers were interesting (but didn't align very well with what we would have chosen):

1) Brooklyn Lager

2) Wells Bombadier

3) Fuller's London Porter

4) Flying Dog Snakebite IPA

5) Trappistes Rochefort 8

6) Orval

7) Brew Dog Paradox Jura

8) Oude Gueuze Tilquin

Skidag

Once a year we take the entire middle school on a cross country ski outing. This year the trip took place on Thursday, March 7th. We had beautiful weather and even got some fresh snow the night before. I hadn't been cross country skiing in approximately 6 years. I was able to borrow skis from a colleague and had a wonderful time.

My colleague, Itziar, and I on the bus to Grånasen

Beautiful blue skies and fresh tracks.

Cooking pølser on grills

Keeping warm and drinking hot chocolate by the fire

Becca and I returned from the UK on February 24th. On February 25th I left for Nuremberg, Germany with my team from work to attend this year's Embedded World Conference. We spent three days attending classes and walking around a gigantic campus that was filled with all sorts of technology.

There was more snow on the ground in Nuremberg than in Trondheim

The snow was obviously atypical because there were still plenty of leaves on the trees

The fancy building is a restaurant and I had some wonderful spätzle there there on the first night

My colleagues (spätzle not pictured)

The theme of the conference may as well have been "M2M" or "the internet of things"

Downtown Nuremberg is rather pretty and surprisingly unscathed by the war

German beer tastes even better when you realize that you can purchase four of them for the price of a single, crappy lager in Trondheim

Good beer and and a healthy obsession with accordions is almost enough to compensate for the fact that people can still smoke in bars

Winter Holiday

Schools here in Norway have a week off in February that they call winter holiday. We decided to take a trip during this time and headed to London! I had never visited the city before so I was very excited.

We arrived on Sunday afternoon and after some train delays made it to London. We dropped our bags at the hotel then stopped in to a nearby pub to grab some fish and chips and a pint. Yum! That evening was spent wandering around the city, seeing the sites at night. London is very pretty after the sun goes down, very colorful with all the main attractions being lit up. At one point in time, we turned a corner and there was the Parliament building and Big Ben! At that point in time, I really realized that we were in London. We continued walking down along the river. It was quite cold but very pretty.

A very excited tourist on the top floor of a double-decker bus

The clock tower all lit up at night!

Down by the River

The next morning we got up and headed to the zoo. It was a really pretty (but cold) day and we enjoyed wandering around looking at the animals. Our favorite section of the zoo was the Rain forest house. Inside there was a open habitat that animals could explore in. Typically the animals hang out in the middle area, away from people but while we were there one of the sloths decided to 'escape' from the center area and go exploring. At one point in time she was just a few inches above our heads. The zoo keepers were totally freaking out and trying to figure out how to get her back into the center of the room. All of the visitors were excitedly taking pictures! There were also really cute monkeys, armadillos, flightless birds and other creatures in the area.

She was quite content climbing along the electrical conduit

We nicknamed him 'Wilford'

That evening we got dressed up and went to see Les Miserables. It was a really great show with beautiful sets. The actor who played Jean Valjean was very impressive!

The Les Mis spectacle begins where Chinatown ends

We woke up the next day to beautiful blue skies and sun, though it was still quite cold! After a full English breakfast we headed down to the river and got onto the hop-on-hop-off boat tour. We rode up to the Tower of London and Tower Bridge area to explore. The Tower of London was very interesting, much larger than we had realized.

Outside the Tower of London

There were a lot of interesting cannons on the grounds of the Tower of London

We also went up to the walkways at the top of the Tower Bridge. There was an impressive view of the river from the top of the bridge. I also never realized how colorful the bridge itself is!

Tower Bridge

That evening we went to see Monty Python's 'Spamalot.' It was a really funny show! Much different than our theater experience from the night before!

Right across the street from the Thames

Dressed up in her finest jewelry for the theatre

The next day we got up, packed up and headed to Kings Cross Station to catch a train to York. The only problem with that was that all trains to York were cancelled due to signaling issues. We were told that the only way we could get to York that day was to go to Euston Station, catch a train to Manchester then transfer to a train to York from there. So our 2 hour train trip to York ended up being a 4 1/2 hour train trip! 

That evening we went pub hopping! We had a lot of fun getting half pints and trying a variety of different beers over the course of the evening. We finished the night at the Royal Oak pub where a local couple was playing live music and Daniel's favorite British beer was on tap (Theakston's Old Peculier).

That's Monk gate in the distance

The next day we decided to head to York Minster. We wandered around the minster looking at all the impressive stained glass work and sculpture. We also climbed up to the top of the tower and got a great view of the surrounding area.

Part of the way up our tower climb.

All the way up our tower climb

We also took time to walk around most of the York city wall as we explored the city. We visited a few more pubs throughout the day and ate some really good Cornish pastys and toffee pudding.

A section of the York city wall

The next day we headed back to London on a nonstop direct train from York to London! However the train was so packed we couldn't sit down. Oh well! We spent part of the trip in the cafe car drinking some cider and the rest of the trip between cars hanging out with our luggage (drinking cider). 

Once we were settled into our new hotel, we headed out to experience Friday night in London. We ended up at Brew Dog, a Scottish brewery that makes west coast American style beers. We managed to snag a cozy couch in the corner and tried all the beers on their menu. I was very happy to drink some west coast style IPA!

On Saturday we met up with our friend Silas, who happened to be in London on business. Silas hadn't been out to see most of the city so we took him for a long walk to see the sights. We visited Trafalgar Square, walked through Hyde park to Kensington Gardens and the Italian fountains, walked along the river and visited Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Abbey as well as a couple of pubs.

Daniel visiting with the lions at Trafalgar Square

Becca hanging out with Silas' beard

 West Minster Abbey

The next day we checked out of the hotel and headed to the airport. Thankfully we didn't have any train delays and made it to the airport in time to have one last meal and pint before heading home. 

Overall it was a wonderful holiday. We got lucky with the weather. Even though it was quite cold the entire time it didn't rain on us at all (we did get snowed on a tiny bit). We enjoyed the theater, exploring the city, visiting York and sampling beer and cider.

Four seasons four vacations?