Hadeland Glassverk (updated! new videos)

First, Happy Veterans Day!  Thank you to all the men and women who are serving, have served, or gave the ultimate sacrifice for our great country, especially the ones in my family.

Hadeland Glassverk is just what it sounds like - glasswork.  It's the oldest glassblowing factory in Norway and it is gorgeous!  It's an hour northwest of the city and takes two buses to get there, but it is well worth it.  The drive alone is breath-taking, providing an amazing tour of the local fjords and still blue lakes.  I posted some photos and video from the drive up and the end of this entry.  Located just outside Jevnaker, they have made this into a mini-village complete with cafe, bakery, honey house, and Christmas shop.  It is set across the street from another amazing lake with the most phenomenal vista.  My iPhone picture does not do it justice, but Rett got some better ones on his camera and I'll upload that when I get them from him.

There's a neat glass museum when you first walk into the information center, showcasing various samples of the pieces created by different artisans over the years.  It's very diverse - my favorite was a set of vases that looked like melting candles!  See below:

Some of the different pieces - my favorite ones are on the far left

Checking out the museum

For about $16, you can go into the glassblowing factory, watch the artisans work, and then MAKE YOUR OWN piece of glass.  Ok, so there is an artisan there helping you and by helping you I mean he's doing most of the work, but you're the one who actually does the blowing of the glass.  He just heats its, spins it, molds it, and twists it all while you stand on a fixed spot and blow into the end of the tube...ok, so your only job is pretty much to remember not to inhale ;-) But seriously, it was fun and we all got a cool memento.  Tyler and I made glasses and Rett made a honey pot (but he plans to use it for drinking whiskey!)  Check out the videos of each of us blowing glass:

Rett went first...

...then me...

...then Ty.

The glass is still very hot when you're done and takes at least 30 minutes to cool all the way, so we walked over to the bakery, which looks like a cute little chalet inside.  They served huge cups of hot chocolate and a variety of baked goods.  We each had a large boller - a local pastry flavored with cardamom and nutmeg, SO good.  There was frost all over the ground and everything outside, our first time seeing this since we've been here.  We made our way over to the honey house where Ty and I got a bottle of honey and a jar of whipped honey, both from the local area.  We'd never had whipped honey before, but oh my gosh is it good!  Great to spread on toast in the morning as part of breakfast or for a little snack in the afternoon :-)

They had a variety of different little shops - pewter, candles, a Christmas shop, and of course, glass.  In the pewter shop they sold some yarn and I got a couple colorful skeins of alpaca wool.  The pewter was really pretty, but we think we'll go back and get some later.  Unfortunately, we discovered that not all the glass they sell is made there - they outsource some of it and we only realized it when Tyler saw one of the boxes said "Made in China."  Kind of a buzzkill.  They do have some pieces that are in fact made on site, but we decided not to buy anything after that and that our own pieces would make the best souvenirs :-) Here are our finished glasses:

As promised, some pictures from the drive up:

  

Oslo Whiskey Festival

Oh my goodness! SO much whiskey!  It was very fun and there were quite a few characters enjoying the event.  We had samples from distilleries all over the world - even Japan (I had no clue they made whiskey there).  Our entrance fee got us each a keepsake nosing glass, a ballot, a festival guidebook, a pen to make notes on the different samples we tried, and 10 tickets - each sample "cost" between 1 and 4 tickets depending on the price of the bottle.  There was one bottle there for over $3,000!!!  Most of the stuff we tried was only one or two tickets though.  There were two floors of booths, each with its own pleathora of bottles.  Guys were walking around in full Scottish regalia and I saw at least one set of bagpipes.  Besides Norwegians, I heard quite a few other American, British and Scottish accents, so they drew quite a crowd.  One of the most, shall we say, unique samples was a particularly smoky blend that tasted like a campfire in your mouth.  Our friend Rett really liked this one, but I wasn't entirely sold.  As the hours went by, the vendors at the booth became much more lax about their ticket enforcement and many were nice enough to give us free samples or samples of far nicer bottles for only a single ticket.  I drank more whiskey in one night than ever before (which really wasn't hard since its not normally my first choice from the bar), but it was a very fun way to spend a Saturday night.  We then hopped on a tram just across the center of town to our new favorite pizza place where the three of us shared a gyro pizza to finish off the night (yes, it is as phenomenal as it sounds!)

Here's some pictures from the evening:

The 3 of us trying to look "snooty" (epic fail)

Check out the kilts and tartans

Our handbook and nosing glasses

Random sculpture of a wasp that I saw on
the way to pizza and thought was cool



and we're back - and in our new home!

We got our keys on the first - a day earlier than expected. All our boxes got delivered yesterday so I'm busy unpacking and organizing our new home :-)

We stayed up late (bearing in mind Houston is 6 hours behind us) watching the polls come in on the 2nd and were elated at the results. The split Congress forces everyone to have to talk to each other now and prevents legislation from just being rammed down our throats. Don't let us down class of 2010! I even snapped this picture of the front page of a Norwegian paper the night of the 2nd before any official results were in:

The caption says, "USA's Pres. Obama likely to lose majority in Congress"

Definitely made me smile.

Anyway, more stuff about Norway...

We have two comforters on our bed.  One each.  It was the same way in our hotel.  Obviously found this kind of weird at first, until you think about once the weather gets colder.  When each person has their own comforter to wrap around them there is less air under the blanket than when two people share one comforter, so it makes sense.  But I've lived in cold climates before and never seen that, so kind of neat.

Our hotel and every apartment we looked at all have heated bathroom tiles.  I have certainly been spoiled by this and it is very nice in the evenings as the weather gets colder.  Also nice to not have that cold shock on the tootsies when you go to the bathroom in the middle of the night.

Our oven is only about a third of the size of the one back home.  Don't ask me what I'm going to do for Thanksgiving!  They sell whole chickens here, but its not like buying them back home.  Chicken is not the cheapest thing at the grocery store - fish is (pretty obvious).  Plus chicken just isn't the same as turkey, but I have yet to see any turkey anywhere.  I have seen venison though.  Let's just say the menu is still TBD.

About our new home.  It's 2BR/1BA with a large open kitchen/living/dining area and a gas fireplace.  The owner furnished it for us and the 2nd bedroom, which was rather small, now has a HUGE desk in it so we can use it as a den/office.  There's lots of closet space in our bedrooms, but no dressers, thus no drawers!  Interesting to get used to, but the closets have shelves to help organize folded clothes.  The kitchen however does have large drawers for storing pots and pans and other goods.  It actually makes it pretty easy to get out what you need when you're cooking.  There is a big storage room in the basement, separated into what could pass as kennels - separate areas divided by strong mesh wire.  They're actually storage spaces for every resident.  Very nice because we can put things like our skiis and empty luggage down there to keep them out of the way when they're not being used.

Our building has a common area like the one back home, but apparently this is quite new for Norway.  It has a little gym, a coffee machine, entertaining areas that can be closed off from one another, and a larger kitchen for entertaining, plus two large patios, one of which is covered in grass.  The neat thing is there is a concierge.  Its apparently included in part of the fees that the owner pays to the building (like a HOA) and he can help arrange things like dry cleaning or help us find our way around town.  We haven't used this service yet, but sounds like it will come in handy.

Well, time to get back to unpacking boxes!  More later...

er, Happy Halloween? - Akershus Slott og Festning

In case you were wondering, no, they really don't celebrate Halloween in Norway.  Unless of course you count the 30 or so people in costumes that all appeared to be going to the same bar.  A few of the parents we talked to said their kids would be doing something at school, but they would not be going door-to-door trick-or-treating.

After a few dreary days in a row the weather finally cleared and it was a gorgeous fall day in Oslo :-)  Click on the picture to the right to get an idea of just how dreary it has been.  The building in the foreground that is all lit up is the new opera house - we were told it just opened in the past year or so.  There is a ramp on the outside that actually makes up part of the ceiling of the opera house; you can walk up the ramp onto the roof of the building to get a fabulous view of the fjords!  We plan to go up there later this week to catch a sunset.  If you're walking down by the water it reminds me of seeing the Kennedy Center at night with the tall glass windows lit from inside and right on the waterfront.

We intended to go to Hadeland Glassverk today to take advantage of their fall sale and try our hand at glassblowing, but after a confusing discussion with the driver of the bus we were told to get on (he insisted his bus did not go to the glassverk, despite the hotel and two guidebooks saying it did) we decided to skip going there today and try again later, not wanting to get stuck somewhere an hour outside of Oslo.

Instead we went to Akershus Slott og Festning, the castle and fortress.  It is literally right around the corner from our apartment.  They had a great self-guided tour with headsets and we enjoyed listening to all the details about the castle, as well as some ghost stories - seemed appropriate, it being Halloween and all.  It was originally commissioned in 1299.  There have been several renovations and its interesting to see the physical changes to the walls and the different building materials used each time.  There is a crypt where Kings Håkon VII and Olav V and their queens are entombed, as well as a dungeon, a chapel, and a banquet hall (the latter two of which are still used!)  The Castle Church has been in use since the early 16th century, its services are presided over by military chaplains, and military members can get married or have their children baptised in the chapel.  The Romerike Hall was last used in 2002 on the eve of the crown prince's wedding.  There's also the Hall of Olav V in the top of one of the towers, which I found to be the most impressive.  Granted most of it is not in the original condition, a lot of effort went into restoring it to what they believe to be a similar reproduction.  The ceiling is absolutely gorgeous with all of the wood detail.  Throughout the castle there were several intricate tapestries the size of an entire wall.  All in all it was very impressive.

Outside we watched one of the most beautiful sunsets from the wall of the fortress.  We looked out over the fjords and could see the balcony of our apartment from the wall.  Great ending to the fun day.

One of the towers

The other tower

Starting the tour

In the secret passage

A cell in the dungeon

Part of the detail in the crypt

The Royal Crypt

View through the bars

The Castle Church

Cool candelabra

Detail of the altar

The altar (Hebrew for
Jehovah on top; monarchs
initials in Latin below)

Gorgeous chandeliers

One of the tapestries (ca. 1940s)
depicting a scene from ca. 1740

The East Wing, where guests enter
for special functions

One of the 3 largest tapestries

Christian IV Hall

Close-ups of the tapestries

Another of the 3 largest tapestries

Detail of a mirror

The Prince's Chamber

The Romerike Hall

View of our apt from the Hall

Seating for up to 180

Just liked this arrangement

The Margrethe Hall

There used to be cannons in the windows

The tower in the first photo

Decor on the walls

Our hotel in the distance

Olav V Hall

Great stained glass against one wall

Panorama shot of the sunset - view from the fortress wall.

Just some beautiful colors - the changing leaves against the sky at sunset.