Wednesday 10 October 2007

this blog seems to be all about norway

and here comes another post on the topic.

this weekend, anthony and i went to norway. we flew from "glasgow" (prestwick) to "oslo" (sandefjord) - that's right, ryanair.
so we spent quite some time on buses/trains to and from airports. then we walked around oslo, friday was a beautiful day. we had dinner with mum and then got on the night bus to aalesund (10 hours). in the middle of the night the bus stops in "mors kro" ("mother's inn"), in the middle of nowhere, and "mother" provides us with waffles and hot chocolate and various norwegian specialities such as "vestlandslefse". we opted for pizza though.
anthony was amazed that we can pay by credit card on the bus.
then we came to aalesund, and basically we spent the whole of saturday and sunday visiting people and having food and wine and beer and more food and more beer. saturday night was my dad's 50th birthday celebration, so we went by bus down to the beach where we made hot dogs on a bonfire (another very norwegian experience for anthony). then we got back on the bus and went to a mountain, took the ski lift up, and had a big party at the top. the party involved wellie boot throwing, nail hammering, music quizzing, drinking, eating and even a visit from elvis in the late hours.
very strange, yes.
the best part was taking the lift down in the middle of the night, together with a bunch of drunken 50 year olds. the wind was strong and we bumped into bushes/trees on the way, but it was such a beautiful night and we could see all the way out to aalesund town and all the lights were nice and bright.

we took the night bus back on sunday night, so it was quite a travel-intense weekend, but also a lot of fun.

norway is rather weird.

how do your parents celebrate their birthdays?

3 comments:

Shane said...

It's a tradition in my family to give the birthday person breakfast in bed. Last year on my mom's birthday I was at home, so I woke up at 8:30, & stumbled, in my pajamas, teeth still stained with wine (it was my birthday the day before, it's not that I get wine stains on my teeth every night), to the corner store to get eggs (because I had not seen american eggs in so long and they were too healthy so I thought they had gone bad). I forgot my glasses but I took my dog with me; unfortunately, he is blind too. In the store a man I didn't know saw us, and said, "Oh, hi PJ! How are you? Don't you look cute today!" to my dog. He did not say anything to me. This is the way it is in the Castro: dogs are more noticeable than women. & then I went home & I made my mom an omelet. The end!

PS: This is a blog about Norway, & the elliptical machine.

Else said...

For my dad's 60th birthday by mom arranged a surprise trip for him to Rome! He didn't know they were going until they were at the airport, where he thought they had gone to pick up my uncle. But, no, no. Rome. My mom spent a year planning this whole this thing, and it was pretty cute. But the other birthdays - we also have the breakfast in bed tradition. And nice dinner parties.

Sofie said...

breakfast in bed is always a winner.
especially in else's bed.