Europe - Norway, Finland, Eugene and Home

From Copenhagen, we could either have taken a boat to Oslo, or a train. The train took half as long, and we figured we'd see more. In retrospect, there is a reason that most people take the boat. It leaves in the evening so that you have a chance to see some stuff before bed, you sleep on the boat which is actually way cheaper than getting a hotel, and then you get a cruise of the Fjords along the way.  So instead, we took a train, found out that despite what the travel guides said about Oslo having a great tourist information center right at the RR station which can get you either hotel rooms or B&Bs, we find that a) they moved the information center 6 blocks away and b) they close at 6pm. So, Barbara finds some WiFi while I hang out with Delilah, and does manage to find a hotel for only a bit over $200 a night (but it DOES include breakfast). The good news was the beds were very comfortable other than this strange feature that the matress pads were taller in the center, so there was sort of a ridge you ended up sleeping on. Delilah actually rolled off of hers in the middle of the night with a thump.

Other than being expensive, Oslo is a lovely city in so many ways. People are friendlier, a real depth to the feeling of the place. We did a Fjord cruise and found so much beauty, so much respect for how they live with the land. There is a passion between the land and the sea there - a relationship that plays out both through the elements and through man. We will definitely return to Oslo some day, stay longer, see more.

Then, we were off towards Finland. We went through the center of Sweden, and spent a few hours in Stockholm waiting for our Ferry to Finland. Had enough time to figure out what bus (with help from the tourist info both at the RR station - what a concept) to ride to get to the terminal (oh, and BTW, taxi's in Sweden are NOT regulated), and find a nice cafe for dinner. Talked with the folks there and the shop keepers favorite city in the world turns out the be (drum roll....) Las Vegas. Wow. She's been there 7 times. Dang. I guess it's a Swedish thing...

I take this picture to say "do not rob". Hum, wonder how well that works? 

One of the strolling streets in Oslo. 

A piece of statuary on the water, supposed to look like a sinking ship. 

The Oslo Opera House - the only opera house that you can walk on the top of. Made to look like a glacier. 

Summer homes on some of the Islands in the Fjords. Because they don't have power, sewer, schools, or services, they are only zoned for short term usage - so people don't "live" there, just visit for a weekend or week. Turns out that the people of Norway have more registered boats than cars... They love their water. 

One of many classical buildings

An 8 rotored flying ROV hoisting an HD camcorder to take airiel shots of the buildings - in this case, and art museum. 

A fuel fire at the train station, the night before we were to leave... 

The ferry from Sweden to Finland was a fun adventure. Barbara was exhausted, so by the time we got on board, she was out, but Delilah and I adventured around, did the buffet (ended up being seated at the captains table, but he'd already left), did some shopping at the duty free, played some games on the arcade, and then slept very pleasantly until the porters actual opened the door to the cabin to wake us at 6:30AM before docking.
Once we got in to Finland, we were on Hagstrom Family time (Barbara's side). One cousin, Jerker met us at the ferry terminal and got us to the train, a 5 hour train ride to Jakobstad, where Bror picked us up. We stayed with him and Eva at their lovely house, and they were most cordial hosts. The second day, they took us out to the old family farm and houses (which they preserve as a family museum), and threw a party with about 20 relatives. One fellow was a mink farmer, and another was a trucker that collected hides for tanning. Turns out that the Hagstrom family has alternated between tanning and farming since at least 1400 (the church burned down which destroyed records from before then). Apparently, they would tan hides until they had enough money to buy a farm, and farm until they lost their money and had to tan again... We did Sauna, which Delilah loved, ate and drank at every opportunity, and spent some good quality time.

On the train to Jakobstad

Houses on Amerikagan - a street where there was emigration back from America for some folks that had earned some money there. Many houses on this street were made by craftsmen that returned from America, and made turn of the century American style houses

A nice park used both for community, and a school training area. 

The family museum 

Delilah in one of the "old houses" that her great-great-grandfather used to live in. 

To say that the family is important to the Finns, is an understatement. 

Kitchen in the old house

Us with some assorted tanned hides behind

The train that we took from Jakobstad to Helsinki. Ok, not really :) 

In Helsinki, with another set of relatives, Martin and Taru for lunch, then on to the Airport. 

The return flight took us through Iceland. Someday, we will return to Iceland. Then to Seattle for customs (only the second time someone looked at our passport - the first being when we LEFT the US), and transfer for Eugene. While in Eugene, after the memorial service, we learned that a possum had gotten in to the chicken coup and killed our chickens. Tough couple of days. 

 Finally, on Sunday, we got on the last leg of our journey, from Eugene to Salt Lake, then finally back to San Diego.
A remarkable trip, loaded with so many emotions, stories. We packed a ton in to two weeks. The Finnish relatives would have liked for us to have spent the entire two weeks there, and I'm sure they would have joyfully shuttled us around to meet every relative and visit ever piece of family history they could fit in :)

Europe - Copenhagen and Tivoli Gardens

The conference that Barbara was attending had sessions that she was interested in for the first 4 days. During that time, Delilah and I had a number of adventures, ranging from Delilah playing with the children's toys in their room (legos of course, since it is Denmark, the home of Legos, along with other stuff), to touring around  Copenhagen, going to Tivoli Gardens (which is what Walt Disney based Disneyland on), seeing The Little Mermaid statue, and taking lots of pictures. I brought some cameras for Delilah to use, and she really took to it - interesting her pictures (which I will include in a separate blog entry) focusing mostly on flowers and birds, but a pretty cool angle on stuff.  

The apartment was very cozy, and having a full kitchen and a market near by, we were able to eat at least one and often two meals a day there. That's important when a hamburger, frys and soda is $18 (seriously). We had a reasonably nice family style dinner one night which was over $100 for three entres with some sides... Of course, food was actually more expensive in Norway - where the "cheap italian" place was close to $130 for pasta and pizza and a cheap (by quality standards, not by cost) glass of wine.  The most memorable was the high-falutin bar in Copenhagen where drinks were $35 each.  Turns out, houses are much cheaper, and wages are higher to compensate, since it turns out that their adjusted income is actually a little lower than average US. 

Copenhagen has many parks both for walking, and for children play. Denmark is the "home" of the Cohousing movement, and many of the building have the feel of "community on an industrial scale". 

Spring had sprung - many flowers, Orchids, Asters, Azaleas, Crocus  

 

Statue of the the forming of the city from the swamp by oxen. There was also a slain dragon in there somewhere... 

Delilah and the little mermaid 

One of many windmills. This one on its side :) 

Tivoli Gardens, over a hundred years old, has themed areas along with the rides. 

A very tired Delilah and Barbara at Tivoli

A rock concert at Tivoli

The hotel with the high-falutin bar

I love the iconography of this above the door to the city hall - a chicken brooding over her chicks; the social image of support and care. 

Turns out that Legoland was 4 hours out of town, so we didn't make it this time. However, there were lego stores EVERYwhere. 

A very European Plaza

Europe and the adventures of life - Paris to Copenhagen

Some months ago, Barbara found out about a conference which covered Constellation Therapy - which is a therapeutic process, where you use stand ins to represent players, feelings, obstacles  etc, and you arrange them in a constellation.  The conference was called "Connecting Fields" and was to be held in Copenhagen.  Since it's been a long time since we did a Big Trip, and since we'd never traveled to Europe with Delilah, we decided to make an adventure of it.

So, we planned - we talked with her teachers to figure if it would be better to take the week before or the week after off, we researched the Eurail Pass, got airline tickets into Paris, and out of Helsinki, contacted relatives in Finland, got a homework packet for Delilah, and dialed in the myriad of details to make it happen. We made arrangement for the critters, decided to let a friend stay in the house, visited dad and tried to explain to him that I'd be gone two weeks.  We packed, compressed, removed, repacked, and finally it was time.

John drove us to the airport in San Diego.  TSA greats us with open arms. Ok, technically, they had US open OUR arms, and they patted us down, but at least they smiled.  Passports, check. Tickets, check. Water bottles empty. Liquid stuff in tidy quart bags. Yeah, yeah... Kindle and iPad fully charged. First leg was to Chicago. My two best memories of Chicago were of good Pizza in the airport, and two people - a guy with striped black and white socks, sitting behind a gal with striped black and white sweater. I thought I found a plug to charge things, and realized the reason no-one was using it, was it was dead. Then, we were off to Paris.

Flight in to CDG. Delilah is a trooper - she's amused by the movies, the food, the tea (she's taken to tea). At the airport, we are trying to buy tickets on the intercity train but it doesn't take our new "Eurocard" credit card with a chip, nor does it take bills. Oh, there's a change machine, but it's broken. C'est la vie. So, we wait in our first line. Long, but efficient.  Then, need to activate our Eurail, and our egress from Paris - our second line. We take a shortcut since Barbara's legs are aching, but end up behind some confused English speaking person that takes an inordinate amount of time, and keeps changing his mind about things. The ticket lady is remarkably pleasant to him, despite it being Paris, and all... Reservations for overnight train from Paris to Copenhagen - 2nd class (sleeps 6), $150, or 1st class (sleeps 4), $275.  Hum, well if it's just a few more bunkmates, seems like we'll save the money... More on that later

Off to Isle de la Cite - we did an Airbnb thing where we rented a gals apartment, so we picked up the key from a shop keeper, and wandered down the streets to find it. Old place, double gates to keep out the revolutionaries et al, the place is on the 3rd floor. Bit of a huff to get up the stairs with all of the gear, but it's a cute place.  Unfortunately, the WiFi doesn't work and after several calls to the gal, we give up.  Bed is like a futon, but with a thin hard mattress. Yeah, like that. Jet lag, cold, haven't figured out the heater.

The first day was a blur, but we did make it to Notre Dame (the next island over), which Delilah was very impressed by. Little cafe, with real hot chocolate, and a light supper, including a re-calibration to European Finances.

We spent several days in Paris, cruised on the Seine on the tour boats, walked some of the old paths, went up the Eiffle Tour. Then, we traveled to the outskirts of Paris and met up with one of Barbara's  College Friends and wandered around a lovely park there called called Parc de Sceaux. Wonderful day - almost exclusively locals there. All sorts of interesting people watching, great cherry blossoms, and of course French Architecture. After wandering around, we spent some time with one of the families that she tutors in English - had tea and a lovely chat. Looks like they may be interested in swapping houses some time for a couple weeks :)

Then, it was time to leave Paris.  I'm proud of Barbara for not crying too much this time :) Getting on the train, we met our travel companions for the next 12 hours (which ended up being more like 14 with delays). A friendly Turkish fellow, living in Germany, and a pair of Austrian film makers. They plugged in a power strip in order to charge all their stuff (I counted 8 cords), but alas there was no juice. Early bed for all, but a long night of at least 3 people in the cabin snoring, machine noises, too hot, too cold, waiting for trains to pass, just nodding off and then going in to a tunnel and having your ears clog on you and waking...  By the morning, the 1st class upgrade was looking really good for next time - peeking in, they were certainly more roomy, would have been just the three of us, are better insulated, and certainly would have had power. All said, it was a good adventure.

After a train change, a bus hop around some complication and another train change, we were on the last leg, into Denmark towards Copenhagen on a train that actually had internet access. I log in and start checking my e-mail, and find a message from my brother - "Emergency, call me ASAP". I immediately assume that my dad died. He's been at the door for a while. In fact, it would figure that he would die while I'm in Europe. Ok, so I'll need to deal with that. We get to Copenhagen, figure out where to go for our second AirBnB place. To out delight, it's a very comfy apartment only a few blocks from where Barbara is having her conference. They have laundry, have told us we can pretty much eat whatever (way cheaper than eating out), and they have WiFi that works.  So, I set up my phone for VOIP over WiFi, call my brother.

Of course it had to be dad that died. We were prepared for that. But that wasn't the news. Dad was fine. It was wrong. There was some mistake. Instead, it was my brother in law - my sisters husband Brian. 52 years old, massive heart attack, no family history, no health issues - had been working in the yard, and went in for a shower of something.  My sister found him dead on the floor perhaps 15 minutes later... Two kids, 11 and 13... My sister a widower. Do they even use that word any more? Funeral is in a couple days, but the memorial service is in a week and a half in Eugene. My brother's wife Jan has already flown up to be with Suzie. Suzie lives in a Christian Community - great, supportive people. So much love. They are all mourning, all in shock. At least they have each other...

So, we call the airlines, which takes forever. Try to change our ticket, and then figure out that it will cost more to change our ticket, then to just cancel it, and get a new one... Sigh. Leaving a day early from Finland, and getting in to Eugene for the service the following Saturday, and another set of tickets home on Sunday. Need to be there for my sister. What else can we do? Really, not much, not much...

The strange mood permeated into our lives to varying depths on and off, but we were able to mostly have a good rest of our trip. It made us realize that we had made the right decision - that taking the trip, even if we had to pay it off, was the good life thing to do. To have these moments together, create these memories, etc. Ultimately, it will be the Europe trip, and the memorial service that we will remember, not the months of work or school or whatever in between more interesting events.

Burning Man 2012 - The Burn that almost wasn't

Last year, Burning Man sold out for the first time, and with that event, the event changed.  Suddenly, there was a chance that you couldn't go to Burning man, even if you wanted to, because there was a scarcity of tickets. In response to that event, this year's tickets for Burning Man were done differently. It was supposed to be fair, with a lottery system, allowing you to only buy a limited number of tickets. The problem is, that in a scarcity based economy, scalpers thrive. They cheat professionally, so they are very good at it. In contrast, the good people of the Burning Man Community obeyed the rules, and so it is that by some estimates over half of the available tickets went to the scalpers, leaving the other would be burners stunned and confused about how they didn't get tickets... What about the community? What about the theme camps that can't fill their ranks? Will it just be a bunch of rich yuppie frat kids? WHAT ABOUT BURNING MAN??? 

We know a number of Burners. Most of them didn't get tickets.We didn't get tickets. So, we started looking on ebay, and found the $300 tickets going for upwards of $3,000.  Not only were we not willing to pay that much for tickets, but we also weren't interested in helping out scalpers.  Thus it was, that we decided that we weren't going to Burning Man this year...  Several of our friends that had gotten tickets, were so disappointed with how things were going, they sold theirs. 

Time goes by, Barbara has a job commuting to the bay area, it's the Sunday Night that Burning man is starting. We've heard rumors that there are a few tickets floating around that aren't scalpers. Barbara is frustrated with her job and the recent corporate take over. She wants a vacation.  Since I wasn't going to Burning man, I had already used up much of my vacation time - only had a few days.  Delilah wanted to visit her cousins in Oregon, even if we weren't going to Burning Man, so she was already set up to fly up there... We started talking out loud. It may have sounded a bit like an argument, but it was more about momentum, and overcoming that which was, for that which could be... We decided that we would try to make it happen... 

So, Monday, we start calling around about tickets, get cash in hand, start e-mailing about who can watch Delilah after she flys back from Oregon on Friday - we find that her friend Sophie's family would be able to watch D Friday till we return the following Monday.  Barbara finds some tickets - one in Temecula, and another in Encinitas, and hops in the car to buy them, as I start furiously throwing boxes into the RV, filling the water tank, loading some food, a bucket of clothes, the essentials, but without the planning for any of the luxuries - none of the extra water for daily quick showers, just enough to drink and clean, no light sticks, no playa gifts (other than the Thom Kha Guy soup which I took fixings for).  By midnight, it was as loaded as it could be on such short notice, and I had to go to bed, since we were waking up at 5AM to take Delilah and Barbara to their separate flights in the morning... 

Tuesday, 5AM. Up, last minute checks - boarding pass and ID, added some extra laundry to D's bag for the extra days, off to the Airport - Barbara escorts D to her flight, then takes her own flight to SFO.  I head home and finish off the RV loading, and drive the RV to work. Dad calls, computer problems.  Crap. Have to stop by and check out his computer. Ok, leave work even earlier 1PM, stop by dads, his cable TV and cable modem are both out. Work with cable guys for an hour, sure enough, it's a real problem - cable guys coming tomorrow, I'm outa here... North, hit a WalMart for oil change (woops - a bit overdue on that) and supplies, dinner then back on the road - sucking down energy drinks, got to Coalinga about 2AM and sleep in a rest stop. 

Wednesday, 7AM. Up again, talk with Barbara on phone, plans have changed - trying for noon pickup in SFO instead of east bay... On the road again, after a GPS debacle, backup on the Bay Bridge, and some political intrigue at her work, I rescue Barbara from Agesong, and we're on the road to Burning Man... Barbara actually drives the RV once were in line, as I organize and make munchies. Line only takes 3 hours. It's Wednesday night. A few days ago, we weren't going.  Now we're here.  Yes, it's a shorter trip this year. Yes, we're traveling lighter.  Yes, it's a different experience - more newbies, many of the theme camps are under staffed, a few have folded. But, we're here. 

Every year, Burning Man is different. It is measured in disconnected moments, not in linear events. Instants that impress a mark on you - most positive, some hard, many remarkable.  So, how did it compare? It's apples and oranges.  It was amazing - but in a different way from other years. It seemed both smaller and bigger. More personal and more distant. Things kept vanishing - sometimes they'd come back, other times never seen again.  But always, something else was there, some other image, moment, person, art, image, thoughts.

We've decided that in the future, we shouldn't bother to try to fool our selves that we aren't going.  We just need to go.  Hopefully the ticket debacle will be resolved, and next year, we'll just buy tickets on the first round, and now that we are going, and it will be different, just like every year. Different - Just like this year. 

View of the Temple from the Burning Man Dias

This years theme was Fertility, so there were signs of virility scattered around

Barbara and Joe, our part time camp mate

One of a number of wind storms. There were "more, lighter" storms this year, few white outs, but almost always a persistent dust blowing. 

I actually used the umbrella to propel the bike ala wind surfing for a while

Art Project with The Man in the distance

A "city" built in the sand 

Barbara enjoying the view

A few examples of night life - a torus made of LED rings, a spinning wheel of fire, and the full moon on the playa

Barbara resting on an art structure, harkoning to a spiders egg sack, made of zip ties and glowing balls... 

And with the shorter trip, I took fewer photos - but I was there. And it was good. Heck, it was great.