Planes, trains and automobiles

Sigh. Being a globetrotter like myself can be PRETTY STRESSFUL sometimes. I'll tell you. After a hectic, all be it interesting, week in Helsinki with my new team of colleagues, I had to catch the early afternoon plane back to Oslo on Friday to catch a train.

After explaning to the gate crew that I had only 40 minutes between my ETA at Gardermoen and the train departing towards Dombås, I was even allowed to board the plain lugging four (!) pieces of cabin luggage. On Scandinavian. And this was without Mr. Incredible and his Eurobonus Gold in tow. Amazing.

Of course, the flight was delayed. By 30 minutes. Thanks to the cabin steward letting me stash all of my belongings up front, I was able to leave the plane before the remaining passengers, and RUN (ouch!) for the train station. Past the tax free shop. Can you imagine the PAIN?!

I just about made it. I even had a WHOLE MINUTE to spare before the train arrived (our national rail services are not known to ever be on time, which - although mostly annoying - CAN sometimes be a good thing). Wheew. To my great disappointment there was no restaurant car. Alas, no RED WINE. Weep.

After enjoying the scenic landscapes along the beautiful lake Mjøsa for three hours, I was greeted by the pre-booked taxi-diver at Ringebu station. One of the TWO taxi-drivers in this godforsaken place. Half-way up to the hotel at Kvitfjell, the taxi driver (who apparently also doubled as the taxi central booking service) asked if I would be willing to drive back down again to collect another hotel guest. He even offered to share the cost of the ride! How generous! Being a girl, of course I felt bad about having to turn the offer down politely. Although inside I wanted to SCREAM - "F*** you, I have been travelling for seven hours now, I COULD HAVE BEEN IN NEW YORK BY NOW!": But, of course, I didn't.

Arriving at Gudbrandsgard Hotel I was greeted by the newly appointed hotel piccolo, a.k.a. Mr. Incredible. And - waiting in our suite (with a humongous terrace facing the ski slopes) - was our old acquaintance - Mr. Perignon, too.

Being a globetrotter is perhaps not that bad after all.

Restaurant Ravintola

"Heeeeere's Mooooooomin!"

I know. Not quite as scary as Jack Nicholson in The Shining. You simply cannot go to Finland without bringing one of these adoring creatures back. This cute little guy is soon going to be adopted by another cute little guy - my friend's son born on April 1st. I tend to be the one buying my friends' kids drum kits and WHITE plush toys. Very practical.

It took me THREE days to figure out why so many of the restaurants in Helsinki are called "Ravintola". Until the OBVIOUS struck me. It means RESTAURANT. Gaaah. The Finnish language is weird. Normally I am able to understand bits and pices of foreign languages because they have some similar words. Ohno. Not the Finnish, no. They speak IN CODE. Most of them do not say much, though. So it is not really a huge problem. Until they try to speak English. THEN things start to get really complicated. "Would you like some FISS for LUNS?"

And, not knowing the language here, you might suddenly find yourself in UTTER danger. But what sort of danger?

• Getting too drunk?
• Break-dancing?
• Dying?
• Doing the funky-chicken-dance?
• Or.. simply... falling?

Who knows. I tried to be careful, though.

My self-imposed shopping-ban sort of fell apart on Monday afternoon. Hm. Having a house to fill with new stuff, and a summer in sunny France coming up very soon, it just got too hard resisting the cute psychedelic summer dresses. And the Marimekko cushion covers with COWS on them. And the Iitalla glass plates that I have never seen back home. And - last but not least - the sauna hats. A MUST when we go to my "cabin-in-law" for Easter, right?

Today I will be working on my "please-I-know-I-have-at-least-one-piece-of-hand-luggage-too-many" smile for my airport check-in this afternoon. After all, supporting the local economy is the decent thing to do when travelling. Hm. And there was a mid-season sale at the local Marina Rinaldi. Irresistible.



The master of the post-it dragon

I was supposed to get up at 4 this morning. To make things even worse - the alarm went off TEN TO FOUR. Just to spite me, I'm sure. Amazingly enough, I have been able to get through the first day of my training course without having to rely on substances like COFFEE. Dinner is in an hour, and I am still awake. Sort of.

Did not look that promising when I was waiting for the train this morning, though. I was in such a coma that I did not even recognize my own boss sitting down next to me at the airport train terminal. Talk about being a mindless (blonde) zombie. I just cannot help it. Before 5 AM I am just no good.

Is it any wonder I think our loan application work process mapped at the end of the day started to look a bit like a dragon? Please, please tell me you see the resemblance too, and that it is not just me hallusinating. Please?

On the positive side, I can mention that today I have added one more country to my list of "places I have been to". I am in Finland for the week, more specifically: Helsinki. After working for a Finnish-based company for three years, I guess that was long overdue. This addition means that I am now one meager country ahead of Mr. Incredible in our never-ending battle to be "the ultimate globetrotter" of our house. Yay.

Hm. And, you know what? There is a Marimekko store across the street from my hotel. Yaaaay.

Too bad I am travelling with just my carry-on this week. Which means:

• Serious cuts in the shoe department (brought TWO very lonely pairs - weep)
• Shopping will be extremely limited

Oh well. At least I will be a certified master of something quite cool by Friday.

Confession time

I love waking up early on Saturday mornings, because then I can allow myself to dose off again and really enjoy the fact that I DO NOT HAVE TO get up. Bliss.

Had a bit of a nerdy afternoon, with half of it spent analyzing some weird calculation results in an equity note I am currently working on, before my cousin came over to work with me preparing for her upcoming mid-term in maths. (Which makes me realize how long it really is since I was in the same situation myself, as I seem to have forgotten quite a lot).

At five I met up with my sis, the before mentioned cousin, and - of course - Mr. Incredible. Early dinner at Nodee. Tempura, crispy duck and black cod. Yum. Accompanied by a nice Puligny-Montrachet. Eh, well, ok - maybe we had two. A perfect little get-together before the highlight of the evening: Concert at Oslo Spektrum with the popular Norwegian band "Kaizers Orchestra".

I have been looking forward to this concert for MONTHS. These guys have a vision to be no less than THE WORLD'S GREATEST LIVE BAND (!). Ambitious, yes, but not totally unrealistic. They are actually quite popular even outside Norway, in spite of most of their songs being in Norwegian. Strange, yes. But enjoying them live is an experience. They really DO deliver the goods.

(And the lead singer is HOT-HOT-HOT.)

A great concert.

There is just one small problem.

Although Norway is a quite small country, we have quite a few different dialects.
And - this particular band sings in their local dialect - from somewhere close to Stavanger.
A dialect that is by no means foreign to me, but in the middle of the concert it suddenly hit me:

MOSTLY- I HAVEN'T GOT THE FAINTEST IDEA WHAT THESE GUYS ARE SINGING ABOUT!

Help.

Incredible. Indeed.

And - FINALLY -  the sidewalks are free of ice and snow! Shoe time! I have now started on the back row of my shoe wardrobe. Which contains some pretty weird mistakes, as well as - I hope - some hidden treasures. These are - I presume - something in between. From Norwegian "pretend-to-be-Italian" brand Enzo Poli. Shoes are Italian, yes, but try finding a pair of Enzo Poli shoes in Italy. Nope. No. Niente. I have not used these for quite a while. Due to a combination of toes being squeezed beyond recognition in them, AND the fact that they have been very much out of fashion. Pointy shoes have been a terrible fashion faux-pas for a while now, but according to my glossy magazines they are now coming back. Cool. Because they make my short legs look longer. At least that is what I say to comfort myself when my toes hurt like hell. The depressing part here is that I hang on to stuff long enough for them to go out of fashion and then back in again. Sad.

Being a bit swamped at work. Don't get me wrong, being busy when you work as a consultant is a good thing. So I am by no means complaining, absolutely not. And I do love my job. It is just that EVERYTHING always seems to happen at the same time. What is funny, though, is that times when I work 12 hours a day I get more done around the house, simply because I HAVE TO be very efficient, and cannot allow things to slide. And being the control-freak that we are, we cannot let that happen, can we?

What is truly annoying, though, is that quite a few unexpected things do happen when you least need them to. Like this morning. Mister Incredible, is - as I have described to you soooo many times - pretty incredible. Yes. On most occasions - this is meant in a positive way. But - of course - he is not by any means perfect. He is a MAN you know. With all the things that come with it.

I noticed a weird beeping sound getting out of bed this morning. (When I come to think of it, I might even have heard it on my way to the bathroom during the night as well.) It turns out that it was the freezer in our kitchen. Which was trying to tell me that the love of my life had been up during the night getting a glass of water. With ICECUBES. But he sort of FORGOT the minor detail of SHUTTING THE  FREEZER DOOR after him. Rightie. And it was not that he had sort of tried to shut it, but it just did not close properly, and he was unfortunate enough not to notice. Ohno. HE LEFT IT WIDE OPEN!

Argh.

So. To my great joy, this morning I have been trying to rescue some of the food that was in there. Cooking EIGHT hamburgers and frying up a kilo of moose - at 6 AM - is not my idea of a dream morning, I'll tell you.

For some reason I really don't feel like having breakfast today. Yuk.

PS. If you are reading this, dear, picking up some flowers for your little wifey on your way home from work this afternoon, might be a very good investment.

The last night of the vultures

My dear husband and I may not be the most eager skiers, but we are surely good at one thing - overall "gemütlichkeit". Sunday was spent mostly at the hotel, as my dear husband had caught a terrible cold, and I had some work that I needed to finish (cyber-commuting is awesome). But, to get the perfect end to a perfect mini-week, we crawled out of our Austrian nest for a rendez-vous at the local fondue place in the evening. After close to a week of long lunches followed by five-course gourmet dinners back at the hotel every night (with short guest performances at the aprés-ski in-between), you should think that we could handle a simple three-course on the last night. Yeah, right.

At the Montjola we were greeted by the "jättetjusiga Gunilla". Which is, of course, not her real name. Still, most attractive blonde Swedish girls happen to go by this name (as opposed to her not-quite-so-attractive friend "Ulla-Brit"). It was quite surprising to be served by Gunilla wearing the local Tyrolean dress at this quite modest establishment, as rumour has it that most of her fellow countrymen in St. Anton work at the Krazy Kangaruh, serving belly-button shots. So I guess this was the one respectable exception. Or, maybe I am just not able to tell the difference between a real "Gunilla" and an "Ulla-Brit", as the latter would most probably never get a job working at the Kangaruh.

Anyway. We started off with the Fondue Paysan. Veal, beef and chicken in oil. With fries. Then we followed up with a huge serving of the local cheese fondue. This was when we started to feel our limitations. But, as yours truly is known to have the will-power of a daffodil (only living thing I could think of without ANY at all), chocolate fondue soon followed.

It was a good thing the restaurant was up the hill, and our hotel was at the very bottom of the hill. So we went with gravity and almost rolled "home".

Although we have had a great time, it will be good to be back home. Without any of the "apfelstrudel" temptations lurking around.

And I will NOT miss the smell of the ski/boot depot. Oh. My. God.

Beware of the flying deer

Getting close to the end of March, the skiing conditions are not at their best, even above 2000 meters above sea-level. Snow is scarce, and the little that is left is artificially made during the night. Fortunately, there are other options. As soon as you have made it down the mountain through the so-called "Happy Valley", you are in "après ski" heaven. With each place catering to their very specific audience. As I am neither a fan of Austrian "ompa-ompa" (Sennhütte), nor watching "The Swedish Bikini Team" have body tequila shots off each other's boobs (Crazy Kangaruh), we have found our "home turf" at The Mooserwirt.

Take-off is at exactly 1530, to the sound of "The Final Countdown" (Europe). And - BOOM - you are on a different planet altogether. Suddenly it makes perfect sense to be downing a shot of the local specialty "Fliegende Hirsch". Followed by another. And another. And - before you know it - you are dancing on the table to some obscure Austrian song which mostly goes "lalalalalalala". Or something about polar bears ("Wir haben die Eisbären so gern"), or the truly annoying song about Anton (so schön/so toll/aus Tirol). While still enjoying this terrible concoction consisting of a mini-bottle of Jägermeister submerged in a glass of Red Bull. A typical proof of the mathematical rule that two minuses multiply into a plus, I guess. Because, separately, I hate both of them.

Another weird thing about this place is that it is perfectly ok to wear the pathetic souvenir t-shirt that you once thought was so hilariously funny, but NEVER wear. Like these, randomly selected from our very own household collection:

"Pimp" - Sydney 2000
"It does not suck itself" (with arrow pointing downwards) - Crete 2007
"Pornstar Professional" - London 1999
"Take me drunk I'm home" - Kos 1998
"Ten reasons why a beer is better than a woman" - Kos 1998

Oh well. I found some very wise words on the first page of the hotel wine list:

Bordeaux makes you think of silly things,
Burgundy makes you talk about them,
and Champagne makes you do them.
(Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin)

Hm. It really says it all, doesn't it? Now I know why it made perfectly sense to buy that stupid hat resembling a cow's head. AND wearing it walking all the way down the Dorfstraße back to the hotel.


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Location:Arlbergstraße,Sankt Anton am Arlberg,Austria