Now we Fisk

Fishing is a huge part of the culture of Norway and certainly of our relatives, I am a pretty big fisherman myself, perhaps not as much as when I was growing up, but I still enjoy it and was super excited to try my luck in the Fjord.

Per, Bente's husband, and Terje took us out on a rather small boat...probably 15 feet or so...alot smaller than what I had imagined, but the Fjord is not so rough most of the time and we would stay very close to the shore as the sea bottom drops off quite fast.

I have to say I have had some major bad mojo when fishing in the Sea with my dad, not that I have done it more than once, but the time we went I caught nada, zilch, zip... I was having some deja vu thinking back to this and was hoping that history would not repeat itself...

Per, my dad and I each tossed our lines down to the sea floor... the lines have 4 hooks with typical lures for larger sea fish and a large weight to take it down. There is not much to this type of fishing, as Per said it... take it down then up then down again... no casting needed.

5 minutes into it Per had already landed 2 rather large Sei's... Haddock in EN... it was pretty cool, but 30 minutes later I had still not caught a fish... all that negative deja vu crap flew out the window pretty fast after that... I pulled in a good size Torsk... cod...and was off the shnide! Then the fish started rolling in we caught fish after fish after fish, it was nuts. In a 5 minute period we must have caught at least 25 Mackarel, you would literally drop your line and pull up a fish, but not just one fish but a fish on every hook... I only caught 3 at once, but dad and Per both caught 4 at once. Of course there was the one that got away, a Longe..not sure the translation or spelling, that was by far the largest fish of the day came off my hook as I was getting it in the boat. Regardless it was a kick ass fish day, we literally had a bucket of fish and not a small bucket but a big ass one.

We only fished for a few hours and we came back to the boat house to find a small crowd of our relatives waiting to see what/if we caught anything... I have to say it was very cool seeing the reception and the old school Norwegians so stoked on our good fortune. We got out of the boat and immediately Bente's dad (Ansgar) started cleaning the fish. To my surprise my dad jumped in to help, I am not sure if I have ever seen my dad clean a fish, it was cool and I think our relatives were pretty surprised that the American jumped in to do what many do not like doing. I had my turn as well, trying to keep up with Ansgar's 70 plus years of experience and trying not to cut my hand off as half the family looked on...a great experience that I will never ever forget.

Bad Blogger, bad...

Yeah I know, I am a complete failure of a blogger...no posts since last Thursday and the trip is almost concluded. Do I have a good excuse...like no internet access in Sognefjord, nope several of our relatives had wifi...what I do have is the best excuse, I was having a blast partying with Norwegians that would not stop serving me Hansa, Aquavit, Jaeger and cognac... so every night I went to bed (always after 2am) and I was in no condition to be typing anything. Yep I could have taken time during the day to capture what was going on, but I honestly I did not want to waste any of the time I had sitting in front of a computer.

So here I am 6 days later and will attempt to capture the events that have occurred...

I last left off taking the fast boat to Rysjedalvika having yet met our cousins, the Sætviks.

The fast boat kicked some serious ass, passenger boat with a split hull that went at least 40mph and carried as many passengers as a large plane. The boat carved its way from Bergen to Sognefjord thru passageways not much wider than the ferry itself, it was all quite impressive and very comfortable complete with a staffed mini bar (had a Hansa beer) and wifi. It is probably not worth trying to describe the scenery, but it was similar to the puget sound on steroids. The trip only took a few hours and we were off the boat.

Waiting for us at Rysjedalvika were our cousins Terje and Bente, from the minute we met them I knew this was going to be a good time. We were greeted with open arms and felt as if we had known them for years instead of minutes...of course interactions on facebook certainly made it easier. A few minutes later we were off to the family farm.

The road to the farm is interesting, it is well paved, but it really only has room for one car, very curvy as well... makes for an interesting drive when a fast moving truck is coming the other way.

The farm, not sure if I should really call it that as most people from the US would get the wrong idea, as is it is an old Norwegian farm that goes straight up from the Fjord, the land itself is uphill and there is not much farmable area... but it is literally one of the most spectacular pieces of land I have ever been to.

One of the things my dad and I were wondering about is whether our relatives drank alcohol....we knew that there are many religious folks in Norway that do not as well as the fact that alcohol is just damn expensive... this question was answered about 5 seconds after we got in the door to Bente's families cabin (shared by her dad and one of her uncles) they poured everyone shots of aquavit and brought us Hansa beer, it was a great welcome and we spent the night asking each other questions while Bente translated between us and her parents.... it was a great start to even better things to come...I think we ate dinner in there somewhere as well, some great fish soup...and I gotta say almost every fish dish I have had here has been incredibly good, especially the fish soup.

I am not exactly sure when I went to bed, but it was damn late...of course you could not tell this by looking outside as it never really gets dark...its like being in Vegas or something....tomorrow we fish!

Day 1, well kinda day 2...

Long day of travel....

13 hours in the air and 8 hours of sitting in airports, but no plane delays, no lost luggage (amazing!) and we made it to Bergen around noon on the 14th. I have to give it up to my dad, he smuggled tiny vodka bottles onto the long flight over the Atlantic, made it feasible to get a few hours of sleep in and we were not paying $6 a pop...so got a few hours, but that was it....tired but stoked...

Flying into Bergen...
was really cool, very similar to flying into Seattle, with islands dotting the sea and pine trees growing down the sea level. It did seem a bit more rugged, but gorgeous in the same way.

Took the bus into downtown Bergen with no issues, gotta love public transportation.. this city is not much bigger than Boise, but has bus routes going everywhere and lite rail as well...and since the cost of a cab ride is about $100, a way to save some cash.

Our hotel room...
is just off the Bryggen water front, the picture on my first post, we only had to walk a few hundred feet. We were able to check in early, which was great since we were seriously draggin ass and needed to stay awake at least until 8pm so we were not waking up at 4am...

The room was more or less what I expected, VERY small, but actually pretty nice. It is probably 10 feet wide and 15 feet long, two single beds (which is great, I love my dad and all but not that much) with the typical euro bed topper and a nice comforter... really I am not sure if any of that mattered, pretty sure I could have slept on dirt and all would have been well.

I took a quick shower and we took off to stay awake and walk around the town.

Bergen,
at least the waterfront area is a big tourist area, there were 2 giant cruise ships docked down the port and you could tell it by the mass of humanity running around the streets. This area of town is totally geared towards that, but we still had fun checking out the fish market (smoked whale available if anyone wants me to bring some back) the numerous sweater shops, trinkets etc... viking swords too...

We walked for what seemed like hours, looked down at the watch it was only 2pm.... staying awake was going to be a chore. We went up a visited one of the large churches, St. John's, very interesting on the inside which was almost completely made of wood. To tell you the truth, much of the day is a blur, but it was gloriously sunny... something we may not see again for a few days and we had fun playing the tourist part.

5pm finally rolled around and we went to Cafe Opera, pretty good food and I think fairly typical Norwegian cuisine.. I had the cod and my dad had the salmon, both of which (especially the cod) were much better than what I have had in the for a similar cafe in the states. We both had a glass of beer, mine was .6L of pilsner goodness that came it at $12.03... but it was probably worth it as it gave me a bit of a boost to make it to our 8pm sleep goal.

Took off from Cafe Opera and started heading back to the room. Made a quick stop in at the 7 Eleven...(yep 7 Elevens are EVERYWHERE here, I think I counted 7 just around the area we were walking, I am not sure if I have seen that many in the US in the last several years) we bought a few mixers for our duty free alcohol that we purchased just prior to arriving at Bergen.

Made it back to the hotel, poured a shot of Patron and mixed a gin and tonic... downed quick like and went downstairs to smoke our fine Cuban cigars that we had also scored at the duty free.

The cubans we FINE, but really probably wasted on me as I have a hard time determing the difference between any cigars, but this one was a bit tastier and certainly smoked well... nice time to share with my pops as we stared out towards the bay while some dudes were re-enacting viking warfare (real swords and all) in the park south of us.

I was FINISHEd... went up to the room, started reading my book (girl with the dragon tatoo... pretty good BTW) next thing I knew I woke up at 4 am needing some tylenol and water...I had been PATRONED...

Arose for good at 8 am, tylenol did its job, Dad was still zonked, so I went downstairs for what I was hoping was a GREAT breakfast, similar to the ones we had in Italy (see BMW335 blog)... I was not disappointed, it had all the typical fixings... meats, cheeses, half boiled eggs, breads etc.... why can't US hotels have this...?

Went back upstairs, my dad was still passed out... I had to wake him up, this is ironic for several reasons which I am laughing about as we speak.

Today....
is pretty rainy, think Seattle in the spring, it was supposed to rain 1/4 " by noon and I am pretty sure it did... looking fairly nice, but overcast now.. again think seattle after heavy rain... so hopefully that will be the norm rather than the downpour of earlier for the rest of today.

We are taking off on the "fast boat" to Rysjedalsvika at 4:30, where Terje (3rd/4th/5th cousin not sure exactly) is picking us up to take us back to Saetvik (the family farm/summer home area) where they are having the reunion... VERY exciting to finally meet our relatives that we have been talking to thru facebook/email for the last year.... should be a superrific.

Taking off to the Funicular to burn a few hours until we leave on the fast boat to Sogn fjord up north...

Night Before

Preparing to leave for Norway.

Not sure if I have ever felt completely prepared to leave for any trip, however only having to worry about getting myself ready certainly eases the pain....or at least it should, right?

Flying across the Atlantic only intensifies this uneasiness, not really a fear of flight, rather a general worrisomeness about something that I can never really put my finger on and no matter how much preparation or how ready I am it never really dissipates until I am in the air. I am sure there is a name for this condition, I call it traveling.

The Trip...

I am sure everyone, well at least those who watch tv, have seen the Citi commercial of the father and son taking a trip to Norway only to find out that they are actually from Sweden... My father and I are pretty much doing that, but we really ARE Norwegian (well Dad is 50% I am 25%)..... Instead of going to the hall of records to confirm our heritage, we have been invited to a family reunion at the Sætevik family farm (in this area) of my great grandmother and her ancestors. Pretty cool, pretty, pretty, pretty cool.... now go sing happy birthday while you are washing your hands.

The Night before, well now...

Here is my plan for tonight, going to stay up late so I will be able to catch a few hours of sleep on the plane... having said this I do not believe I have ever actually fallen asleep on a plane, so this plan may backfire severely.... worst case scenario is college flashback to finals week for a night/day/night I think I can deal with that, or at least it sounds feasible as I type...

The Flight(s)....

Flight takes off tomorrow at 7am, to Chicago... 3 hour layover... 8 hours to Frankfurt... 3 hour layover... 2 hours to Bergen... fuzzy math tells me we will arrive 11am local time... then the fun begins. Hoping the excitement of new surroundings will enable my body to stay up until at least 8pm.... Good strategy, but it is all in the execution.

The Hotel...

Crashing at the Thon Brygge, cheap for Norway, but looks decent... assuming a flat surface is all I will need by that time, it also has wifi, which is becoming a must when traveling and having become iphone addicted and mentally dependent. Also helps with the phone bill to use skype.

My traveling companions...

Iphone 3GS

NewTrent IMP550 Iphone battery extender (pretty cool for a long flight)

2307 songs... currently stuck on Beirut, Andrew Bird, National...

6 movies... Avatar, Alice in Wonderland, The Conversation, Glengarry Glen Ross, Hot Tub Time Machine and the new Sherlock Holmes... decent popcorn shows... should delay the boredom.

3 books... The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Road and The City of Fallen Angels

1 Travel Guide... Rick Steves .. Norway

Sony HD Video Camera.... 1080p should make Norway pop!

Blogging has made the above plan... stay up late the night before... all too easy. Time to sleep, hope to be able to post often, but not sure how that will go....