Oh Oslo

Have you ever been so frustrated that you are reduced to a crazed laughing fit? Oslo ripped out our souls & trampled them to a standardized pulp. And since its a country and not an actual opposing force, we could do nothing but sit back and decide to simply get thru the day & survive the barrage of horrific bad luck.

But Im not going to expand on all the bad things that happened. In a nutshell: food is ridiculously expensive (imagine paying 15 euro for a cruddy hot dog from 7 Eleven, because thats what we had to do), we missed a once-an-hour train by 10 seconds (literally watched the doors shut in our faces), got locked out of our hotel for 6 hours (when theres a specified check-in time, dont ever get there early), and lost Jons camera (left it on the 12 tram and spent the next hour and a half tracking it down). These are some of the worst things. The lesser things were just bonuses that Oslo decided were totally necessary to our trip. Like the heavy rain the entire weekend, making us move hotel rooms half way thru the night, and to top it all off the sun doesnt even set this time of year! Hell is an eternal day!

But we all agreed that once we were back in Dublin, we started to forget the pain. Like childbirth. Looking back through our photos, we started to remember just the good things: the way fresh pine permeated the air, photo bombing other tourists' pictures in the statue garden, cooking ramen noodles in a hot water kettle in the hotel room to save money. And of course our invented games of rubber-sock-umbrella golf/baseball in the park at midnight, under the gorgeous ever-lit sky. Raw boredom fosters creativity like nothing else can!

The biggest highlight of the entire weekend for us (other than rubber-sock-umbrella golf/baseball of course) was the incredible Norwegian fjords, and the trains getting there. We took the historic Flam Railway, which is said to be the most scenic one in Europe. And we think it truly must be! It starts in the snowy mountains of Myrdal, and takes about an hour to travel slowly back downhill to the town called Flam. On the way down we got to see serene nature, roaring waterfalls, and picturesque valleys. The town Flam itself is graceful in its tourist-trap position in life. At the mouth of Flam is the fjord called Nærøyfjord, on which we took a ferry to the other side.

Being inside the majestic fjords on a slow ferry was heart-stirring. The weather wasnt great for photos, but it was entirely something else in person. The boat ride was a long one, and it took us by innumerable waterfalls along the way. It was freezing cold, and we were the only ones on the boat to stay outside the whole time! We didnt want to waste the once-in-a-lifetime view looking at it all through some foggy glass windowpane.

Every minute I kept expecting & hoping to see a narwhal, or even a mermaid. The bottomless water was a darkly luminous green and navy blue. The carved mountain peaks loomed over us like so many imposing sentinels guarding something precious. The air was cold and clear, and deeply refreshing. Other than our ferry, the only other human life we encountered was a group of (super lucky) people on kayaks. We went away from this place happy to be alive, thankful to be together experiencing what Norway had to offer.

Overall I definitely think this trip was a big helping of bad, with a side dish of good. But sometimes even that little bit of good can be great, and can carry over into the memories that will last forever. We will most likely never go back to Norway, but we are very glad we went at all.

People Smells & Memories

What does home smell like? It isnt something I can ever put my finger on exactly, and simply saying that home smells like hot weather and faded cigarette smoke doesnt really convey the feelings attached to these smells. Its like that friend whose house just smells that certain way, its just their "people smell", and when you walk in you know youre in the right place.

There are quite a few places on earth that when I park on the steep driveway of one, or pass the white fence on the way to another, I get that flutter of home inside. That indescribable gut instinct of wholeness and safety, and somehow it brings back that feeling of a carefree childhood. Sometimes certain sounds and smells can appear quite suddenly, and startle me into profound longing for a place called home. Ill get a heady whiff of cigarette smoke walking behind someone on the street, and I know its bad for my health, but I breathe in as deeply as I possibly can, and hang on to the scent for just a moment. And in that moment Im transported back in time.

When I was little, my family lived in Orange County, and we had relatives Up North in a place called Oakhurst. A few times a year Mom & Dad would wake everyone up before dawn, pile all four of us kids into our family van, and we'd spend the next 5 to 6 hours watching movies and driving up to the place that would eventually become home to us all. We all knew we were on the way to see Grandma, and Aunt Celia, and cousins, and everyone. The one landmark we always looked for was The White Fence. Once we saw The White Fence fly by the windows, we all started to yell and get really excited, because it meant we were almost there!

You already know that Oakhurst is a typical small country town. In the summertime its as commonplace to see rusty old pickups loaded with hay as it is to see colorful tour buses in the Raley's parking lot loaded with tourists. Its the kind of place where youll see sun-wrinkled old men wearing cowboy hats, because they are actually cowboys. If I myself had made one or two different choices at key points in my life, I too would have become a cowgirl competitively barrel-racing my Arabian/Thoroughbred cross named Freedom.

Home smells like memories I guess. And horseflies buzzing in hot summer air. And cigarette smoke from my Aunts kitchen. And sunburns. And Christmas turkey. And penny-poker nights in the living room with brownies. When we walked into our hostel room in Estonia, I was shocked by all these memories in my nose all at once. The cool, dark hallway had that lingering scent of someone trying to hide a habit. The room itself was overly, deliciously still and warm. The only sounds coming in from the window was a couple happy birds, a faraway hammer, and balmy wind through the trees.

Usually taking trips outside of Ireland invigorates us, and we come back to our apartment happy to be living here in Europe. But something about Estonia made us feel the opposite, as if we were flying back into the wrong airport. Like the right one is really thousands of miles away. Like we werent flying home.