Jule i Nidaros

The Nidaros Cathedral is the architectural focal point of downtown Trondheim and, up to this point, has not yet received any of its due attention in our blog. We sometimes forget just how amazing it is to walk past a medieval cathedral every day. But the Christmas season brings up a very good reason to talk about it - the Nidaros Boys' Choir Christmas concert! The Nidarosdomens Guttekor is one of Europe's leading boys' choirs and is part of a 900 year old tradition (!) at the Nidaros Cathedral. Our friend, who used to live in Trondheim, highly recommended we attend a performance - and we did! Thanks Andrew!

We arrived for the concert a half hour early and already the Cathedral was packed with one thousand people. The seats were arranged in long rows running the full length of the church, facing the center. It seemed odd to be seated perpendicular to the performers, until the concert began...

Before we knew it, we were in the middle of a choir performance in motion! At the beginning, we were seated at the opposite end from the choir and the singing sounded so distant that we were a bit disappointed - it's a very long church. But after a few songs, the choir and orchestra (almost 100 people) walked to our end and continued the performance. Then, half of the choir moved to the center of the church for a true surround-sound experience!

The choir sang many of the Christmas classics: O Come O Come Emanuel, What Child is This?, O Holy Night, Silent Night, and, of course, Handel's Messiah. The concert ended with a sing-a-long to what we've gathered is the Norwegian Christmas song: Deilig er Jorden (Wonderful is the Earth) - we've sung it at every holiday event we've attended so far! (Singing along to hymns in Norwegian is also a great way to practice Norwegian pronunciation - nice and slow.)

So, if you ever find yourself in Trondheim in mid-December, we highly recommend you see the Nidarosdomens Guttekor! (The program cover is shown above. Sorry there are no interior photos - we weren't allowed to take photographs during the concert.)

The Christmas Market

Like many cities in Europe, Trondheim has an outdoor Christmas market in the town square, complete with craft and food vendors, activities for children, free concerts, and sleigh rides! In the photo below, check out the people in the sleigh getting their photo taken. The market was organized by the local Salvation Army as a fundraiser and ran for a week and a half.

Each craft and food vendor had a little hut from which to sell their wares - knit socks and mittens, pottery, wreaths, candy, and fine chocolates (Meghan's favorite hut!). While passing by the fish hut, we were somehow convinced by the vendor to sample his smoked salmon. It was the "best in the region," he boasted, but Meghan was not impressed. Even the best raw fish is still raw fish. At least we can check eating fish off our "Norway To Do" list! Phew!

Another hut sold steaming hot gløgg, the traditional holiday drink. Our neighbor, Sindre, had spoken very highly of gløgg, so we partook in the tradition and bought two glasses. We thought it tasted like hot apple cider mixed with berry fruit juice. Yum!

In addition to the vendor huts, there was a grouping of 4 connected teepees which housed a "children's corner" and a cafe. On the menu were grøtt (rice porridge), pølse (hot dogs), and bakt potet (very large baked potatoes). We ordered a bowl of grøtt with a generous helping of butter and cinnamon. We didn't think we could get so full on rice and milk, but we were stuffed!

The atmosphere under the teepees was very cozy with fur-covered benches, open fires, and music. It made for a pleasant place to spend an evening!

The Winter Solstice

Today is the shortest day of the year! Official sunrise 10:01 a.m., sunset 2:31 p.m. To illustrate what the shortest day of the year is like in Trondheim, we took a series of photographs on a clear day just before the solstice. The photos below were taken from the Prinsen's Gate Bridge, looking south across the river towards the NTNU campus. 9:00 A.M. - Venus is shining brightly near the top of the closest lamp post. Also, take note of the level of the river. NOON - It's hard to see with the glare of the sun, but the cars on the bridge have their lights on. We've noticed that most drivers leave their lights on during the day because the light is so dim!

3:00 P.M. - Goodbye sun! Even though it is the shortest day of the year, we are enjoying the beautiful sunrises and sunsets which last all day and cast an orange and pink glow over the city. Notice that the river level has dropped about 3 feet since the morning because of the tides, and will continue to drop a few feet more. Because of this movement, ice is a rare sight on the river even though temperatures are well below freezing.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

In the tradition of decorating for Christmas on the day after Thanksgiving, we set off in search of some Christmas greenery in the nearby forest. We found a power line cut in Bymarka where we could trim some branches free from guilt. In fact, we figured we were doing the power company a favor! Rolf came armed only with the small saw on his pocket knife, but he managed to saw through the branches fairly easily. His biggest worry was shaking the branches too hard and causing an avalanche of snow. In the photo above, all the snow on the boughs above did eventually come down, right on Rolf's head!

Here's Rolf holding his "saw". We weren't sure if it was exactly legal to cut branches on public land, so we carefully packed the boughs in Meghan's hiking backpack to hide them on our walk back.

To decorate our apartment, Rolf arranged the boughs on our dresser and in the living room, and Meghan added red ornaments and boughs. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas at Taraldsgårdsveita 6!

As we write this blog, the greenery has been up for almost 4 weeks and is getting a wee bit dry. And by dry, we mean that if you give the boughs even the slightest reason, they will instantly shed hundreds of needles. We call the the seat on the couch beneath the greenery the "booby trap" - unknowing visitors who lean too far back get showered with needles!

In addition to greenery, we've found another inexpensive decoration - Christmas food packaging. Although it's slightly more expensive than our free greenery, at least we get to eat the contents! We started noticing "Jule" goods on display in local grocery stores sometime before Halloween. Norway may soon surpass the United States in the race to start the Christmas shopping season early. In the photo above are some of the treats we bought: Pepperkakehus (a gingerbread house kit), Pepperkaker (gingerbread cookies in the traditional shapes of man, woman, tree, heart, and star), and gløgg (pronounced "gluhg"), the Scandinavian Christmas drink.

Like True Norwegians

One week before Thanksgiving, we had a truly Norwegian experience - cross-country skiing at dusk and elg (moose) meat for dinner! We began by walking 30 minutes to the start of the ski trails in Bymarka, the natural area outside of town. There are dozens of ski trails in Bymarka, some prepared and lit, others little more than a narrow opening through the trees. In the photo above, Rolf is blazing his own trail through a field.

Here is Meghan at the top of a very large hill overlooking Trondheim under a full moon. We spent 3/4 of our time skiing laboriously uphill, and 1/4 of our time skiing with exhilarating speed downhill. Cross-country skiing in Norway is anything but level!

On the far side of the field, we discovered a narrow trail through snow-laden firs, shown in the photo above. It was like skiing through a winter wonderland!

We finished skiing after the sun set - at 3:30pm!

In the evening, Rolf cooked 2 pounds of moose meat to make for a truly Norwegian day! (We have been told that moose are as common in Norway as white-tailed deer in Minnesota.) We were given the moose meat by a Norwegian graduate student in Rolf's department, and it looked like the meat was prepared at home - very Norwegian, indeed! The moose meat reminded us of gamey beef and made for excellent fajitas.

Thanksgiving

We may have been an ocean away for Thanksgiving, but thanks to our Fulbright friends, we had a wonderfully American celebration right here in Norway! In the photo above, Rolf is carving the turkey with Nate looking on. It was our first time baking a turkey and, if we do say so ourselves, it turned out really well. Thanks for the great instructions, Mom! Nate flew in from Minnesota to celebrate Thanksgiving with his girlfriend, Alyssa, and he brought the American food items you'll see later that made our meal possible.

Here is Kristine warming up the potatoes she spent hours the night before mashing with a fork, by hand! But, my oh my, were they ever creamy and delicious!

Our Thanksgiving spread (from left to right): Eirik's Norwegian green salad, green bean casserole, turkey, cheesy broccoli bake, Stove Top stuffing, and canned cranberry sauce. Not shown in the photo above are Kristine's mashed potatoes (regular AND sweet) and Andy's homemade apple and blueberry pies.

Meghan's Thanksgiving dinner plate.

Our Trondheim Thanksgiving Family (from left to right): Andy, Meghan, Rolf, Eirik, Nate, Alyssa, and Kristine.

Norway by Sea - The Coast in Color

Now, the coast with all its colors. Click on a photo to see it enlarged.

The last sunset of our Hurtigruten voyage.

Norway by Sea - The Coast in Black & White

We'll let the beauty of Norway's coast speak for itself. First, in black and white.

Click on a photo to see it enlarged.

Norway by Sea - What's for Breakfast?

The only meal we purchased on the Hurtigruten was Frokost (Breakfast). Reason? Cost. Lunches were about $50 per plate, and dinners were even worse - $80. In comparison, breakfast was a bargain at only $20 per plate! In the photo above, Meghan is enjoying her breakfast and the grand view in the dining room at the stern of the Polarlys.

This is a picture of one of the buffets on the Polarlys. Now, I know you're thinking this is lunch, right? Actually, it's breakfast. The Norwegian breakfast buffets include a variety of sliced cheeses and cold cut meats, flavored cheeses in squeeze tubes, jellies, sliced fruits and vegetables, drinkable fruit yogurts, soft and hard boiled eggs, frankfurters, meatballs, pancakes, granola, oatmeal, and bread.

This is Meghan's selection from the buffet: coffee, a hard-boiled egg, pancakes with jam, frankfurters, and cookies!

This is a view of the dining room on the Vesterålen. Unlike the Polarlys, this dining room was located at the bow of the ship.

One of the major distractions while eating breakfast is the early morning crossing of the Arctic Circle on both the north and southbound voyages. On the northbound leg of our voyage, we crossed the Arctic Circle at 7:45am, while we were still sleeping. But on the southbound leg, we crossed later in the morning and saw the monument erected on the Arctic Circle, shown in the photo above. By chance, there was a random group of people on the island waving at the passing Hurtigruten.

Norway by Sea - The Vesterålen

The ship we took southbound from Tromsø, the Vesterålen, was one of the older, smaller ships in the Hurtigruten fleet. Compared to the Polarlys, the Vesterålen was 20 years older, one deck shorter, and two-thirds its weight. We thought the ship looked like a cargo ship retrofitted for passengers - all the windows and common spaces were smaller and the interior decorations less luxurious than the Polarlys. Sometimes it felt difficult to see out, even when we were in the "sightseeing" lounges! The photo above shows the Vesterålen. The row of large windows on the top deck of the ship, above the life rafts, was the best sightseeing lounge and was obviously added to enhance the passenger viewing experience. To get to that lounge from our cabin, we had to walk up the front stairway two floors, down a hallway all the way to the rear of the ship, and up another stairway four floors. Getting around the Vesterålen sometimes felt like walking in a maze!

This is a view of our cabin on the Vesterålen, which was on the lowest passenger deck - steerage class! Our porthole was located right at water level and so a metal plate was soldered over the glass to permanently block the view. At night we heard the waves pound against the hull of the ship, which was discomforting. It would have been worse to see the waves splashing over the top of our window!

This is a view of the original panorama lounge at the bow of the ship. Compared with the panorama lounge on the Polarlys, the windows were much smaller and the room darker. But the leather chairs were mighty cozy, and we enjoyed playing cards here at night.

Given the limited view from inside the ship, the deck in the photo above is where we ended up spending most of the daylight hours aboard the Vesterålen. You can see Meghan sitting on a chair against the wall of the ship trying to stay out of the rain. She's eating her lunch, having given up waiting for Rolf to stop taking pictures and just eat!

This is a view of the top deck of the Vesterålen. We didn't spend much time on the top deck because it was exposed to the wind and cluttered with machinery. But this is one of our favorite pictures from the voyage because it captures the true likeness of the other passengers - gray haired and wrapped in blankets, napping!