My Matzah Came Strait from Holland

Turtles in the Madrid Train Station

Home-made Brumost

Well, I just got back from a string of amazing nights in Madrid. But before that, I found a farmer's market in Oslo. In it, I tried a moose burger, homemade brown Norwegian cheese (Brumost), elk sausage, and horse (didn't know it until after I'd eaten it, guys). Full of free samples (one of my favorite things in life) of things I've never tried, the market was one of my favorite finds in the city. After that, we finally explored the awesome Norwegian fort that was far too icy to explore even two weeks ago! Grass is apparent, and snow is turning into mudmudmud. Definitely an awesome thing to watch. This Norwegian winter is unbelievable long, so any inkling of change is great!

Madrid in a nutshell:

- No night ended before 6AM
- The first day, we woke up and it was 3PM. Sightseeing was cut a bit short.
- Spain does a fantastic thing that we should adopt in every bar in America. When you by a beer, they give you food! Real food! Potatoes, meats, cheeses, deliciousness! Tapas. The bomb.
- Irish people are crazy. Especially when they're on vacation.
- They have a bunch of little guys running around with grocery bags full of beers, sodas, and sandwiches all night since, other than Tapas, Spain's late-night food is a little lack.
- English = not prevalent. My talkingwithhands improved immensely during our trip.
- The train station is like a rain forest with a pond full of hundreds of turtles!

So Madrid was a lot of fun. But we also went on a nice little day trip to Toledo, the old capital of Spain. Unlike Toledo, Ohio, it was gorgeous, historic, full of stone buildings and windy streets, and specialized in selling decorated knives, scissors, and letter-openers. I bought the most ornate pair of beard-trimming scissors that I have ever seen. Other than that, we (my roommates Chris and Grant, Grant's girlfriend Sarah, and I) roamed Toledo stopping to check out rolling hills and great architecture in weather that will never reach Oslo. You can check out more pictures here.

After coming back and catching up on sleep, I went to the Oslo Chabad for the first night of Passover. Out of 800 Jews in Norway, almost 150 people were present to hear the story of the Jewish exodus from Egypt. Full of Jews from all around the world (Brazil, UK, Israel, Norway) along with Norwegian non-Jews present just to learn more about the Jewish culture, I had a passover Seder unlike any I've ever been to. And since the Hagaddah was in both Hebrew and English (as opposed to being in Norwegian), I was able to follow, sing familiar tunes, and have a grand ole time.

Today, I cleaned my room and did my laundry. It may not seem like an accomplishment, but you should've seen my room. And my clothes.

Holy Toledo!

My Matzah came from Holland,

Jonathan

Honeymoon in Italy

The Church in Orvieto

Joe and I in Florence

Last spring break, Joe and I were (for clarity's sake, I'll add) figuratively married. We had a lovely time in the great hat of Canada. During my weekend in Rome, it didn't take Joe long to say, "This is our honeymoon". And, in fact, it was. While our trip to Toronto was classy, Italy was full of romantic walks, bike rides in new cities, the gorgeous Italian country side, amazing meals, bed and breakfasts, small Italian cities, sharing beds, and wine. I'm pretty sure you're jealous at this point (unless you're Joe). And you damn well should be!

Italy was just plain awesome. I ate like a maniac (starting with a random decision to buy and cook a whole octopus before going out our first night) - Rabbit, escargot, meats, cheeses, pizza, pork sandwiches, kabobs, gelato, it goes on. The coffee was fantastic. And I completely lucked out on the weather. What was supposed to be a cold and rainy weekend was gorgeous and sunny - a much needed change from the snow and cold of Oslo (though I can now see little patches of green grass!). So with the context and setting established, the plot:

Arriving in Rome, I immediately noticed some major differences from Norway. First, people speak very little English. The essential people do (directions from the airport, hostel owners, etc), but shop owners speak very little, and people on the streets had no clue I was asking for directions. But eventually I made my way to my hostel and got a hold of Joe. He and Matt (One of his roommates) met up with me and we went to the Vatican to see churches, eat well-known gelato, and talk about Italian culture and how the semester in Rome's going for both of them. We then made our way to their student residence, sneaking past guards like ninjas, aimed to get ready and go out and see/meet other Temple friends and new friends from around the US.

After the first night of Octopus and a 5-liter jug of wine, we decided that we would continue make our way to Florence despite a city-wide Italian-laziness-driven public transit strike. So we (Joe, Matt, and I) met up at the Colosseum, got some food, and made our way to Termini (The central station). We found a slow train that we hoped would leave successfully, paid 16 euros, and ran down the platform to hop on and move slowly through the countryside. When we got to Florence, Matt had to meet up with one of his classes and we figured we'd meet up with him the next day. Little did we know that he'd get food poisoning that night :' (. But Joe and I began our romantic journey. We got a room in a hostel with a double bed and clearly the much better half of the painting. And after a nice dinner of wine, bread with real olive oil and balsamic vinegar, tortellini, and chats about living together freshman year, we wound up at a bar drinking dragon ale and ultimately buying late-night kabobs.

The next day, it was 11:30. So we opened up the windows, realized it was actually day time, slowly packed our things, and made our way to the outdoor Florence markets. Wary of pick pockets, I weaved my giant weekend-bag through leather-jacket salesmen, belt stands, Italian shoe makers, and tourist-trinket stands. We saw an awesome church and kept walking around Florence on the warmest day I've felt in months. We soon rented bikes and rode through the windy streets, taking turns leading and making stops to buy water and bike in circles in a small park. After we returned the bikes, we walked around the rest of Florence for a bit, seeing the fake David statue (the one that didn't cost 8 euros) and the Jeweler bridge. Then we made our way to the train station to make our way to see Karen in Orvieto.

A good family friend, Karen made Joe and me feel right at home as we toured the unbelievable 1000+ year-old house in the hills outside of Orvieto. And as soon as we finished seeing the house (including an ancient wine cellar, three stories, and super comfy beds), Karen's friends Jeff and Robin arrived to take us to a favorite rustic Italian restaurant for Jeff's birthday dinner. The meal was delicious (and 4 hours long - the Italian way!) - a local specialty lard on toast, onion soup, and rabbit, followed by a dessert of fresh ricotta with coffee, a sweet cake, and a great custardy thing. The entire menu/meal/experience was translated by everyone else at the table for me (since the only words I know in Italian are Grazie, Prego, Va Bene, Ciao). If you ever find yourself anywhere near Orvieto, make the trek to Lo Spugnone. Absolutely amazing.

After a beautiful night sleep, Karen then took us to the heart of Orvieto for lunch. She came to Italy to study Italian for a few weeks and get the amazing house we stayed in ready to start renting out. I recommend checking out her great blog about her experience! Joe and I really just had an awesome and relaxing time.

Soon enough, we found ourselves back on the train, bound for Rome. We made our way back, wound up in a small smallwoman-run restaurant eating pizza and watching soccer. And as the night progressed to beers, karaoke, being where Julius Caesar was killed and it being the Ides of March, we snuck back into Joe's place to pass out.

My last day in Rome, I just walked around and saw the Spanish Steps, The Trevi Fountain, old Roman stuff, The Pantheon, the Synagogue in Rome, the Circo Massimo, and wound up at the Piazza de Popolo to visit Joe and Kelsey at Temple Rome's campus to eat pizza and fried rice balls. Deciding to end my trip with a bang, we went out (just the two of us, of course) for a traditional Italian meal - antipasta, primi, secundi, dessert 3-hour meal. Meats, nosh stuff, and a whole pizza first. Pasta in a red sauce with veggies for primi 1, pasta in a spicy sausage sauce for primi 2. And since we chose the meat, we got pork with roasted potatoes, meatballs, and roasted artichoke for secundi. And for desert, frozen espresso shots, tiramisu, and a spread of little finger desserts. We passed up the espresso at the end in order to make the train to my flight, and waddled back to Joe's place to pack up and head out.

The conclusion: As I laid on a park bench outside the airport having been kicked out at 12:30 and waiting until it opened again at 4, I couldn't help but appreciate how lucky I was being in Rome visiting friends while studying abroad. This experience of going abroad and traveling around the world while you're already around the world is just so cool. There are so many practical reasons that a lot of people don't do this, but they're really missing out. I've been in 6 countries in 10 weeks...

The View from Karen's House

Where Julius Caesar was Killed. Also now a Cat Sanctuary.

Joe Biking Away.

Way Cooly,

Jonathan

Jelly Belly Buttons

A bit of campus

Blindern Train Stop

Hei Hei,

This past week, I did not go on an exotic trip. Nor did I find a crazy music festival. I dreamed that polar bears were roaming the streets, but that didn't happen either. I've mostly been eating candy, making omelets, running around lakes, and going to the occasional class. I'm getting ready for Rome to meet up with Joe for a few days. And I've talked a lot about getting up and getting to the port at 7AM to buy fresh shrimp.

So in lieu of super cool events/explosions to tell you about, I figure I'll just throw out some more observations about life and sweeping generalizations:

1. As an American, it's pretty cool how differently I come off to Europeans. We tend to be much more goal-oriented and less in the present.

2. This week was the first week I've seen sidewalk! Bricks, really?

3. Taco night is awesome. Everything's expensive, but when split with 4 or 5 people, delicious tacos are super duper.

4. The beer we brewed in our closet was delicious. And strong.

5. I love my Scandinavian film class. I'm watching tons of movies that I never would have heard of, let alone seen. I still think Lars von Trier is a really weird dude (Antichrist was so messed up), but a lot of the other movies are fantastic and really portray Scandinavian life.

6. Norwegian life is incredibly deeply rooted in Christianity and its Christian history.

7. Norwegian history is pretty boring. It's mostly, "We really wanted to not get taken over, but then we did anyways." A lot of their culture (art, food, music) is a lot of striving for a Norwegian identity. They've been under other governments and cultures for most of their history, and establishing what is Norwegian is taking them a long time to figure out.

8. My cooking abilities are improving immensely.

9. My first born son will be named King Kong.

10. The internet is amazing. The amount of information and ways to communicate from anywhere in the world is unbelievable. I can stay up on all of my music blogs, read, write, video chat, call a real phone, share pictures, videos, and songs. I really hope we don't get taken over by robots.

Anyways, that's about it. I'm bout to watch a movie for my film class and then keep listening to an album by Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore that I've been addicted to. Check out one of their songs, Something Somwhere Sometime. Though it's not one of my favorites, it's the only mp3 I could find lol.

The only fraternity on campus. Just kidding, it's the music building.

<("), Jonathan

Snow, Music, Candy.

The Central Station Tiger with Snow-Stripes

by:Larm Music Festival Tent

We were sitting around a hookah, eating my new plethora of Pez, talking about life and love and meaning. And then Grant sat up and said, "Yo man, we've been here like 7 weeks. In Norway." I threw out a 'yeah, man,' and began to think about how much I've done. How many nights were fantastic. How I've been attaching and detaching myself to certain aspects of Home. How I'm taking classes. How I've taken advantage of being in Oslo (FYI, Oslo means 'Pasteur of the Gods'. Now you know!) and being in a gateway to the rest of Europe. Trips to Rome, Madrid, Berlin, Amsterdam are coming up sooner and sooner. I've already been to Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Tromso. I now have 2 Norwegian sweaters! I just experienced a Norwegian music festival called by:Larm. I've settled in. In Norway. Wicked.

The past few days, we just keep getting more and more snow. On Monday, I went for a run around Sognsvann - a beautiful lake a few kilometers from where I live. I finished with icicles clinging to my beard. But the frozen lake and blanket of pure whiteness was gorgeous. No cars. No muddy snow. Just cross country ski tracks and the occasional dog. During the run, I spent a lot of time thinking about the previous weekend. I bought a pass for a 3-day industry-geared festival featuring all types of Scandinavian (though mainly Norwegian) bands. Hundreds of bands were playing in dozens of venues, and the only band I'd heard of was Katzenjammer. So getting myself involved in a bit of the Norwegian music scene was cool. The bands were as anonymous to me as I am to Oslo. Everything was new - foreign band names didn't even tell me if a band was hardcore or a mellow singer/songwriter. Something I've never experienced anywhere else. I even ended up reviewing a mellow, expansive band called Pica Pica. You can check it out here.


But in other news, I just got a fantastic package from home filled with so much candy that I'm still giddy about it (though I guess that could be the sugar high...). Either way, the pile on my floor is slowly shrinking, but I'm still thrilled about it.

Snow, Music, Candy.


<3,

Jonathan

Fulfilling Unconscious Dreams

Welcome to Tromso

The View of the City

A Gorgeous Sunset

It started with the most beautiful landing I've ever experienced. A gorgeous sun over a lake surrounded by snow-covered jagged mountains, a bright blue sky, and rolling clouds. I was in awe - snapping pictures with my camera as we landed. Then we got up (Laudry, Lieneke, Neil, and I), only to realize that we had only finished the first leg of the flight. We were unaware that our flight to Tromso had a stop! But it did. So we sat back down, and enjoyed the take-off as much as the landing.

But this was only the beginning. We soon landed in Tromso, found our 4-person cabin, and booked a trip to try and see the Northern Lights. So at 4PM (the sun was beginning to set), we got onto a bus, drove along a mountain and watched the sun set over the city. We were on our way to a boat that would then take us back to Tromso, getting us out of the city lights in an attempt to see the infamous bright green and blue Northern Lights fill up the sky. Four hours later, across two ferries and two buses, we wound up on a cruise ship determined to see the northern treasures. So we made our way to the top deck of the ship. We sat in lawn chairs in a circle on the deck - the four of us facing different directions. I sat in my mustache ski mask, bundled in two pairs of long underwear, staring at a blankly dark sky, determined to wait the full 3 and a half hour boat ride on a freezing and windy deck. Pretty soon, everyone got cold, and I was the only one left braving the cold (I came much more cold-prepared than the others. Thanks for the tips, Mom ; ). Anyways, 3 hours into sitting on the deck, me and one other person were still out there. She came up and said, "I think I see something." So I got up, saw a wisp of whiteness grow brighter in the sky. I called the crew, and continued to watch the white vapor grow a bit and change for about 3-4 minutes, snapping pictures that came up as completely blank shots. Then we went under a cloud, and that was it. A 7 and a half hour journey for 3-4 minutes of white light. But a cool experience nonetheless. Not completely satisfying, but I saw something!

Luckily, that was only the first part of our trip. The really cool part was dog sledding. In sixth grade, we followed the Iditarod (A 12-day dog sledding race in Alaska). We all picked a person and I don't remember how mine did, but I remember thinking about how cool it would be to drive a dog sled. And that's exactly what I did last Friday. I drove a dog sledge with an experienced dog team - two of the six dogs had actually been on the company's Iditarod racing team. I stopped them with my hard brake, slowed them down with my soft brake, and drove them across the track in the middle of a snow storm. Laudry and I were a team (we switched drivers half way through) and had an unbelievable experience. The smell of dog poop was in the air, the snow was making it difficult to see, and dogs barking created the atmosphere I'd definitely never experienced anywhere else.

After the sledding, we then ate reindeer and vegetable stew - a traditional Sami meal (the northern Norwegian indigenous people). We sat in a giant tent with an open top around a birch-wood fire and really got a chance to digest what we'd just done. They talked about how they treat the dogs (hundreds of dogs each have names and their own houses) and how they gear them for racers or trainers for younger dogs. I felt like I'd just fulfilled an unconscious dream of mine.

Later that day, we went to the Polaria museum - a museum of arctic animals. It was a cool shaped building with seals, king crabs, sea urchins, and arctic cod. A little kid-oriented, but still really interesting. As we left, I soon realized that I was experiencing the warmest weather yet. It was raining. Which means it was above freezing! Wow! This was fantastic until I was drenched and then it got cold again, turning Tromso into a giant sheet of ice. This made for interesting walking/shuffling. But it also made for another cool element to the trip.

Overall, the trip to Tromso was really awesome. Even as we left the city with a 2-hour delay because of a snow storm, I couldn't have been happier with how unique and exciting the trip was.

Neil, Laudry, and Lieneke in our Cabin

Norwegian Frost Fighters De-Icing our Plane

Flying Back into Beautiful Oslo

Freezingly,

Jonathan

Sup, Stockhomie?

Mr. Gnome, please don't say anything.

Well, it finally happened. My addiction fed, my pride reinstated, my taste buds back to normalcy. Last night, I made popcorn kernels successfully on the stove. It involved about 6-8 minutes of shaking the pot over the med-high heat and periodically taking the pan off of the heated burner and moving it to a non-heated burner as to not burn the delicate love-kernels. I'll admit, I did use a lid that didn't fit, and so some popped out of the pan and onto the stove-top/sink/floor/mouth on accident. But I did succeed in making delicious popcorn that reminded me of the fact that the only reason I have friends at school is because I make them popcorn. Who da man??

Also, I just got back from Stockholm, Sweden on Sunday. It was a fantastic four days of traveling, sight seeing, eating (much more affordable food), and wandering the streets of a new city. We stayed in The Number 1-Rated hostel in the world, complete with free pasta, free internet, hot check-in ladies, and rude Spanish fools who decided to get up at 6am and be incredibly loud as they got ready for 2 and a half hours. Though weirdly, Pablo's girlfriend is in her second year at Temple studying Spanish Theatre...

But anyways, Stockholm is a beautiful city. Clean, old, bustling, and full of energetic, fun people. I was talking to a friend the other day, and we decided that Norway is like the good, no fun older brother - high-esteemed, self-complimenting, reads the paper, drinks the coffee, likes to be better than the rest. Sweden is like the hot little sister of Norway who wants to have a good time and that everybody loves. And then Denmark is like the youngest brother who nobody paid any attention to. And he's pissed about it.

So now that that's been put into perspective, here's what I did in Stockholm. I ate kebabs the first night, then pizza from a different kebab place later that night. For breakfast the next day, we made it a brunch since it was noon when we woke up. I had a seafood soup that was yellow. It also tasted pretty solid. For lunch, I had a cheap day-old sandwich from a cart, and then for dinner we went to Taco Bar - a sort of much much-worse Chipotle, before we went to a casino (the same one that wouldn't let us in the night before at 4AM since we appeared intoxicated). Later that night, I had two hot dogs from Swedish street vendors (one before, one after going to a 3-story club that made me feel awkward. They also played a rap version of Shenandoah going into Cotton Eye Joe...). The next morning, I started off with a ham and black olive quiche and coffee, along with a delightful little lemon meringue tart. I didn't have lunch, but enjoyed a huge cup of coffee in a fantastic old part of Stockholm by the main palace. We met a fantastic gay couple from Toronto/NY who wanted to talk about Obama and his health care reform. Hooray for American politics in Sweden! For dinner, we went to an awesome Swedish meal (complete with losing half of our group along the way forcing me and Grant to run up and down the surrounding streets trying to find them before our table was ready). I got a stir-fry type thing of potatoes, meat (unspecified as to what kind), onions, and some other stuff topped with a fried egg. That night, I went back to the hostel to get some sleep when the rest of the crew (9 of us total) went clubbing again. I then woke up the next morning and got a bagel-esque roll with smoked salmon. The shmear was sub-par, but it was a really tasty sandwich. For lunch, I felt like I had to get some Asian food since it was abundant and affordable in Stockholm. So I hopped on the bus back to the Stockholm airport with a to-go order of pad thai and a set of chop sticks. And now back to not eating out ever. But now that I have popcorn, I guess that's okay!

Some pictures from Stockholm:

Welcome to Stockholm

The Royal Palace

I hope you enjoy!

Jonathan

All Aboard the Copen-Wagon!

The View Down a Canal

It was a rather short trip to Copenhagen. On Friday afternoon, we boarded The Crown of Scandinavia - bound for a 6-hour journey in Copenhagen. The boat came complete with a pool, sauna, karaoke bar, club, family restaurants, and duty free stores. We didn't make it to the pool, sauna, or family restaurants. But I did sing karaoke while successfully rocking my new Norwegian Sweater.

Anyways, as we got off in Copenhagen, we decided the best thing to do was to walk across the city, stopping at various sites along the way. So for six hours, we walked through the freezing wind. But the sun was out, I ate a Danish, and we really got to see a lot of the city. We saw the palace, the Little Mermaid statue, Christiania (A kind of old hippie area that used to be solely bartering), and the outsides of a lot of museums. Cool!

So even though I didn't get to spend a full day in Copenhagen, the trip was a lot of fun. Tequila's a bad idea. Copenhagen's beautiful.

The Little Mermaid Statue

A Cool Canal - weird that the area that doesn't get sunlight is the melted part...