Why Does Santa Live in a Gift Shop?

Hello America. I hope you’ve been alright without me for the past couple of weeks. So much traveling since the last time I wrote, I don’t even know where to begin. Wait, yes I do. Stockholm. You know why? Because “chronologically” is a simple, logical way to structure narratives.

I got to Stockholm at about 10:30 at night. If you’re planning to travel to any unfamiliar cities any time soon and don’t have the budget for a cab to you hotel, I highly recommend arriving at a time when you can see landmarks or, you know, street signs. Had I been more on top of things, I would have used my awesome Boy Scouts of America sqilzz (the cool way to say “skills”), found the North Star, and been off in the right direction in a matter of seconds, but I guess I’ll just have to do that next time. In Stockholm, I stayed on a boat. An actual boat. Formerly one of those sail-around-the-harbor, have-a-bunch-of-drinks type small cruise ships. Now a hotel with one hostel-style dorm room. It was a great place, with the one drawback being that it was a 16 person dorm. The Law of Large Numbers states that when you get that many people together, you’re bound to have at least one weirdo. In my case, it was an individual who I nicknamed “Captain Hairyhaunches,” who insisted on walking around in tighty whiteys and speaking Russian or something.

Outside of the dorm, Stockholm was beautiful. I spent most of my time in Gamla Stan, the Old Town, where I could explore the narrow cobblestone streets, get fantastic views of the newer parts of the city, and be a total democracy nerd and visit the Riksdag, bringing the count of “buildings housing elected legislative bodies” I’ve visited up to: four. Also in Gamla Stan is the Royal Palace, where I witnessed the Changing of the Guard (Changings of the Guard I’ve seen: 3), complete with marching, shouting, and a military band. I know what I’m about to say will sound like a joke, but it honestly happened. Really, there’s no way I could have ever thought of something this good. The music the military band played?... Dancing Queen by Abba. John McCain would have loved it (number of people I expect to get that: 4).

Stockholm is also home to the Vasa Museum. The Vasa is a warship the Swedes built almost four hundred years ago. At the time, it was the biggest in the fleet. That was the general idea, anyway. They went a little overboard and the ship sunk as soon as it left port. The good news is that it sunk in mud and was perfectly preserved until it was recovered in 1961. It seemed kind of pointless to re-commission it for military purposes – it’s made of wood and driven by sails, after all – so it was placed in a museum, for the purpose of educating (done by the ship) and frightening (done by all the skeletons on board the ship. Again, not joking) Swedish children.

From Stockholm, I went on to Helsinki. This required an overnight voyage on a “ferry” which turned out to be one of those monstrosity, affront-to-God style cruise ships with seven floors of passengers, duty-free shops, and casinos. I guess I’ve been foiled in my attempt to go my entire life without sailing on a cruise ship, but, since it was actually for the purpose of transportation, I think it’s still OK. Next time I see Al Gore I’ll ask him if cruise ships are acceptable as long as they’re being used to get from point A to point B, not just making a big pointless circle.

A few things about Helsinki. First, it’s “Helsingfors” in Finnish. And Finland is “Suomi.” Really, “Suomi” isn’t even close to “Finland.” What’s wrong with these foreigners? I kept trying to tell them they were getting the names of both their country and capital city wrong, but they didn’t seem to appreciate my attempts at help. Same thing happened in Germany when I kept patiently explaining “Duetschland” can’t be right because it doesn’t even start with a “G.” Second, Helsinki was my number two choice of cities to go to for study abroad. It’s a nice place, but thank God I’m in Copenhagen. After two days, I got the impression I had really seen the bulk of what Helsinki has to offer.

Day one was a trip to Suomenlinna, a set of five small interconnected islands where the Finns built a fortress to protect Helsinki’s harbor. Today, there are a few buildings still being used by the Finnish military as well as an open-air prison. Originally, I assumed this to be an attraction that was part of the old fortress. But no, it’s a prison surrounded by a three-foot-tall hedge.

The second day I wandered around the city, ate Salmon in the city market, saw the Russian-inspired architecture, and even walked as far as the Olympic Stadium (which, it turns out, was closed). Helsinki, like all European cities, has a lot of art all around the city. In keeping with my habit of presenting funny statues, I thought I should pass this along. The official title is “Three Smiths,” but I prefer, “Careful with that hammer, dude.”

From Helsinki, I took a night train to Rovaniemi, a small city in northern Finland (very northern, on the Arctic Circle) where, according to many Europeans, Santa lives. This notion is just ridiculous, though. Everyone knows Santa lives at the North Pole because it’s outside of any national boundaries and therefore he can get around labor laws with his elf workshop. I will accept, however, that he needs a mailing address located somewhere with a post office, so he has a corporate branch set up in Rovaniemi. The innumerable gift shops surrounding the post office would deter any sane person, real or imaginary, from making it a permanent residence.

I stayed in Rovaniemi just long enough to buy a few Christmas decorations and walk across the Arctic Circle (it’s actually painted on the ground. Or perhaps those dashes that you see on maps really are marked on the Earth and Rovaniemi happens to fall on one of them), then took a bus across the border – or “Finnish line” – and headed on to Ostersund, Sweden. Ostersund is another small city with amazing hiking – I tend to visit a lot of those – and the lake, according to legend, is the home of a relative of the Loch Ness Monster. This one doesn’t have a catchy name like Nessie does so I’ll just call it Bjorn. In all my hiking, providing many excellent vantage points, I never saw any trace of Bjorn and the Bjorn sightseeing trip only runs during the summer (I guess they don’t think tourists want to spend a few hours in an uncovered boat on a lake when the temperature is below freezing). I guess, between the Santa thing and the Bjorn thing, the theme of those few days was “crushing the dreams my inner child still holds dear.”

From Ostersund, I continued on to Bergen on the West coast of Norway, the only city in the world surrounded by seven mountains and seven fjords. There is no doubt that this was my favorite stop of the whole trip. If you'd like to know why, just look at the pictures... all 167 of them.

The Torget is the central outdoor market in Bergen. I tried reindeer for the first time. The place where I got it had all sorts of sausages, ranging from standard American hot dogs to, as already implied, reindeer sausage. The menu item I’m about to suggest is so simple that I can’t believe it wasn’t already offered: a reindeer sausage served with a single cherry tomato, called “the Rudolph.” Sure, a few kids might cry, but that’s funny, right?

Again, I took a day for some beautiful hiking (I’ll stop rubbing that in eventually), then, the second day, decided to take the scenic route back to Oslo and hopped on a ferry from Bergen through the Sognefjord to Flam. I was thinking of recycling a joke I used about canyoning and calling the fjords “gorges,” but instead I’ll just say: I can understand why Slartibartfast won an award for those things (number of people I expect to get that: 2).

From Flam, there’s a railway up a mountain to Myrdal to reconnect with the Oslo-Bergen line, the highest rail line in Europe. The Flam-Myrdal railway line has 20 hand-excavated tunnels (I assume they also had tools) and is the steepest rail line in the world. One might even be inclined to call it “awesome engineering” (number of people I expect to get that: 1).

Anyway, this is far and away the longest post I’ve written so far and I’m sure I’m testing your patience, so I’ll just end abruptly.

Salzburg and Stereotypefest

It’s no secret that the only thing I find funnier than stereotypes is large crowds of people actually fulfilling these beloved stereotypes. So going to Munich to witness throngs of lederhosen-clad Germans drinking enormous steins of Spatenbrau out of one hand and eating bratwurst out of the other was a dream come true.

This past weekend I travelled first, as you may have already guessed, to Munich for Oktoberfest, then on to Salzburg, Austria (since I couldn’t find a hostel bed in Munich). I’m not sure what I was expecting from Oktoberfest, but whatever it was, I was still surprised. For one thing, I honestly didn’t expect lederhosen. And I didn’t realize it had the county-fair feel with roller coasters and other rides all around (in case the beer and brats weren’t enough to induce vomiting). There was one particularly cool roller coaster: five loops painted to resemble the Olympic rings.

Oktoberfest resembled, more or less, how I would imagine a utopian paradise. Lots of food, lots of happy people. Dozens of languages and, most importantly, everyone getting along. Even with Americans. It was fantastic. Everything was an excuse to shout “prost!” and take another swig of beer. Actually, even shouting “prost” wasn’t important, since anything that vaguely resembled a toast was followed by drinking (including at one point, I believe, “death to America!” Somehow, even that didn’t sound threatening in the context of Oktoberfest).

A liter of beer sounds like a lot. It is a lot, actually. But it lasts a surprisingly short period of time when etiquette dictates you take a drink every couple of seconds. More to the point, the stein in which the beer is served is enormous, which is why I’m so surprised three of them fit in my backpack and still looked inconspicuous enough that security didn’t stop me and search my bag on my way out of the Hofenbrau tent. Why would I need three? They, like that stupid lantern which is still sitting on my windowsill, seemed necessary at the time and that’s all the reason I need.

Since there were no beds in Munich, I was left with two choices: 1) find a relatively nearby city that was also worth visiting, or 2) drink so much that I’d get thrown in the drunk tank for the night. I opted for the former and headed down to Salzburg, Austria.

I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t see a single kangaroo my entire time there. Still, Salzburg was a nice place. There’s an enormous and very well-preserved castle overlooking the city. It is also the home city of Mozart. You know how Pabst Blue Ribbon has been coasting on their blue ribbon win for something like 110 years now? Well, Salzburg is a bit like that with Mozart. Yes, Mozart should be commemorated. But there’s a limit. At one point, I ate a Mozart Pretzel (“brezen” actually, which struck me as odd because “pretzel,” I think, already sounds German). While it was wonderfully delicious, it was not musically prodigious (note: that’s the best wordplay I’m ever going to come up with here, so brace yourself for a long, inexorable decline in joke quality).

Salzburg is a very small city with an amazing amount of history, even by European standards. The hill on which the castle is built was the first permanently inhabited place in Austria. There are two enormous churches and a monastery directly below the castle. And, most important from an historic perspective, The Sound of Music was filmed here. Though a stone quarry destroyed much of the hill on which the castle is built, there is one very pleasant side-effect: the steep and sudden drop off means the hiking trails have beautiful, unobstructed views.

I did find one person who was obviously a little confused:

You’re in Austria, not Australia. The didgeridoo is a little out of place.

It'll be two weeks until my next post. But the reason for that is an upcoming 9-day trip around Scandanavia, so I'll have plenty to write about once I'm back. I hope you, dear reader, will be able to survive this absence.

History, Culture, and Other Things to Which I am Unaccustomed (Part 2)

I’m not sure how much of this will be about history and culture, but since I had a “Part 1” I felt like I needed a “Part 2” and it sort of fits here. I mean, I spent the weekend travelling to other Danish cities besides Copenhagen and those cities must have some kind of history and culture, right?

Six of us from the residence travelled to Skagen – the northernmost point in Denmark unless you go to Greenland (it’s part of Denmark, like Canada is to us) – via Arhus, Aalborg, Frederikshavn, and the hilariously named Middelfart. We didn’t stop there, but when I looked out the window and saw the sign for that city, I may as well have been handed a ticket for a two-hour ride on the giggle train.

Jutland, the part of Denmark that is connected to the continent, reminds me a lot of the Midwest (in a good way). Green rolling hills, expansive farmland, and even the big cities (Arhus being the biggest and “big” being a charitable term since the population is only 280,000 – roughly Corpus Christi, TX) are quiet, mostly empty, and apparently go to bed at about 8:30. In fact, if you were to superimpose an image of Europe over an image of the United States and stretch and rotate it so that the two more or less fit on each other, you’d see that Denmark lands right in the heart of the Midwest. It’s scientific fact.

Not helping the Midwest comparison was the farmers' market (and possibly tractor pull) we came across in Arhus. Arhus, the Milwaukee of Europe, was pleasant but sparse on sightseeing. The main attraction is Arhus Cathedral, Denmark’s longest cathedral featuring the most frescoes of any cathedral in the country, not to mention Denmark’s largest organ (All aboard! The giggle train is now departing for sixth grade).

Stop two was Aalborg, home to the largest Viking burial ground ever uncovered. I hope they aren’t angry ghosts, since we wandered around for long enough that we’re bound to have stepped on a whole bunch of graves. And at one point nature called, so I was forced to dig a hole, urinate on the remains, and rebury them face-down (note: this post has been up for only a couple of hours and I've already gotten a question, so I'll clarify. Every part of that last sentence was a joke). Aalborg also contains a very well-known pedestrian street where literally every establishment for two blocks is a student bar. From a cultural and historic perspective, this is clearly equal to the Viking burial grounds.

Skagen is where the currents of the Baltic and North Seas meet, crashing together with the fury of two professional wrestlers in a car accident. It was extremely stormy when we were there (on the bright side, the wind was strong enough that the rain only came from one direction, so while the front of my pants were drenched, the back remained bone-dry. Even when not stormy, the currents make swimming impossible. Or, rather, it’s possible for a short time but remaining alive and getting back to land is tricky.

It is just coincidence (though one that works well) that both posts involving “culture” seem to include me defending American culture. Parts of it, anyway. I’m not going to defend Paris Hilton or My Super Sweet 16. Or conspicuous consumption, willful ignorance of the rest of the world, and the inability to speak more than one language. I could list a lot more things here, but I’ll just say that, paradoxically, I’m still extraordinarily patriotic and wanted to relay what I found to be a culturally revealing moment that again made me proud to be an American.

At one point in the weekend, we were in a bar. Sitting at the table were three Americans, one Dutchman, one Belgian, and one Dane. Suddenly, two tables over, a guy (obviously intoxicated) jumped up and started yelling furiously at a girl (I’m again running into the problem of a lack of a feminine “guy” word) at the same table. He stormed out of the bar and, after a few moments of stunned silence we resumed our conversation. The guy stormed back in, looking even angrier, yelled some more, and again left. Once again, this time angrier.

The three Americans among us readjusted our seats and one of us said something to the effect of, “I hope he doesn’t take a swing at her; I don’t want to have to jump into anything.” The three Europeans stared at the three Americans with a, “well then just leave it alone,” look. After a bit of discussion (which I won’t try to recreate, since I’m sure I’d get the dialogue completely wrong and the written version would be much less interesting than actually being there), we all came to a realization: if the guy had taken a swing at the girl, the Europeans at our table wouldn’t have stepped in because 1) they don’t know the background of the situation and why the guy is angry in the first place, and 2) it’s dangerous to jump into a bar fight. For the Americans, we admit 1) we don’t know the situation and perhaps the guy has a perfectly valid reason to be angry, and 2) yes, it’s very stupid to jump into a bar fight, but if we see a drunk guy hit a girl, it would never occur to any of us to not throw ourselves in the middle of it. So I’ll end by basically restating what I said the first time I commented on American culture: whether the end results are good or bad, I’m proud that most Americans I know are willing to step in and attempt to do the right thing.