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Most people probably barely remember, but late last November, one of the tourist expedition ships in Antarctica sank.  The crew and passengers were all fine, but they had to abandon the ships and head to the lifeboats while they waited for one of the nearby Hurtigruten ships to come and rescue them.

I remember seeing a bit of the news coverage when it happened, but I had mostly forgotten about it.  It turns out that one of the passengers on our QE2 trip a few weeks ago had actually been on the Explorer when it sank.  I never met them (as far as I know), but since there were only 100 passengers on that ship, it was something of a coincidence and that kind of information gets passed around a ship quickly.

Anyhow, something about traveling on the same ship as someone who had been through this kind of hammered in that it really happened, and since I never heard their firsthand account, I went looking for one and found a link to this photo essay by one of the travelers on Flickr:

Spirit of Shackleton. The last voyage of the MS Explorer

It’s a very interesting read, and if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to be in that situation, this gives a very detailed description.  And it made me decide that I should pay a bit more attention next time I’m at a ship’s muster drill.

I just saw this article after lunch, and I thought it was too funny not to share.  It sounds like a Darwin Award waiting to happen…

Railway changes orange strip to avoid mixup

In a MegDesk exclusive interview, a representative of the Dutch population responded to the incident saying, ”I must say that this is not a representative part of our population.  And not the most sober part.”

Last night Lucas and I ordered a new laptop for me, and one of the semi-cool features is that it can be engraved. This was too good an opportunity to pass up. I nixed Lucas’s original suggestion of

Meg Natraj
www.MegDesk.com

hoping instead to find a clever and appropriate quotation to carve onto the machine. We spent over an hour reading a variety of computer and technology quotations before settling on Douglas Adams’ simple “Don’t Panic!” With the power of the internet behind it, this would be my own shiny new Hitchiker’s Guide! Unfortunately, Sony didn’t allow apostrophes (which seems foolish, since it also blocks the presumably-popular “John’s Computer” type of message). The runner-up was a tribute to Arthur C. Clarke, who passed away earlier this year: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” We started typing it into the engraving field, and that was when we realized that we were limited to only about 25 characters per line.  Oops.  The moral of this story is clearly to check the limitations first!  In the end I opted for:

Meg Natraj
www.MegDesk.com

However, the search wasn’t a complete waste of time, because we did stumble onto some really fantastic quotations, many of which are well worth sharing. We enjoyed two lists in particular, 101 Great Computer Programming Quotes and 101 More Great Computer Programming Quotes. Some of them we’d seen before, and some of them are so-so, but many of them are quite clever or insightful and previously unknown to us (though admittedly we don’t spend a lot of time browsing the web for clever programming comments).

If you are a programmer, I urge you to read the entire lists (if you pick just one, I think the “More” list is better), but here is a random assortment that I feel like copying:

Those last two inspired us to go look up more Stephen Hawking quotes. This confirmed the opinion I formed after hearing him lecture in Beijing. In addition to being brilliant, he’s a surprisingly funny guy!

We had originally planned to do a trip up the coast this summer on the Hurtigruten coastal ferry.  However, as I was planning the trip last winter, I found that for the same price as 6 days on the ferry, we could do a 13-night cruise on the Queen Elizabeth II that also included a stop in Svalbard.  Not only would we be able to do a longer trip and spend more time in the major ports, but we got the chance to sail on this legendary ship before it retires later this year (to be turned into a hotel in Dubai).

Even though this wasn’t the final sailing of the QE2 from Southampton, the original Queen Elizabeth II herself was in town to officially bid the ship farewell.  Although we were on boarded before the Queen’s grand exit through the terminal, we were lucky enough to see her on board as she disembarked.

London
We spent a few days in London before traveling to Southampton to board the ship.  While we were there, we visited Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London and the Crown Jewels, the British Museum, and the changing of the Horse Guards.  On the way back, we had time before our flight, so we stored our luggage and visited St.Paul’s Cathedral and then met Lucas’s cousin Jonathon to visit the Museum of Natural History.

Bergen
I can’t believe the weather we had in Bergen (which is known for its ever-present rain).  Having visited the city before, we used the day to visit the Gamle Bergen outdoor museum and Troldhaugen, the home of composer Edvard Grieg.  We walked part of the way back to the city so that we could stop and see Gamlehaugen, the royal residence in Bergen.

Trondheim
With more beautiful weather in Trondheim, I was running out of “summer” clothes to wear.  This was our first visit to the city, so we walked around downtown and visited the Nidaros Cathedral. We also stopped to see the Norwegian Crown Regalia and then caught a bus to the Sverresborg Trøndelag outdoor museum.

Lofoten Islands
After calculating the costs of renting a car and driving around Lofoten on our own, we opted for an organized ship’s excursion instead.  We spent the day riding around the southern islands in a bus, and with a running commentary from the guide, we certainly learned a lot more about Lofoten than we would have on our own.  We visited the old church in Flakstad, the blacksmith in Sund, and the villages of Nusfjord, Reine, and Å i Lofoten.

Midnight Sun
We stayed up late the night we sailed from Lofoten and watched the Midnight Sun dip towards the horizon and start back up without ever touching the sea.  This was the beginning of our five nights of sunlight.

Svalbard
Since the ship didn’t offer any excursions in Longyearbyen, we arranged ahead of time to do a kayaking trip.  Lucas and I had never kayaked before, so our first experience was in Arctic waters!  We bundled into dry suits and paddled across the fjord to an old abandoned mining village where we had lunch and explored the ruins before paddling back to town.  More brilliant weather meant the scenery was even more spectacular, and we hope to take a longer trip sometime when we can see more of the area.

Tromsø
Another beautiful day and we couldn’t believe our luck with the weather!  We started out at the Arctic Cathedral and then took the cable car up the mountain to do a little hiking.  In the afternoon, we toured the Mack Brewery and enjoyed a few samples before heading to Polaria, where we watched the seal training (and had to drag ourselves away to get back to the ship on time).

Geiranger
At last we hit some typical Norwegian weather! Overcast with a little rain.  The fog covered the tops of the mountains, so we didn’t realize how high they were until we started climbing, and a few breaks in the clouds let us see the tops.  After the sail-in, we had half a day in Geiranger, which we spent hiking up to (and behind) the waterfall Storseterfossen.  We hiked from sea level, unlike the ship’s excursion that included only a few hours’ hiking after a bus ride up the mountain, and the sense of accomplishment (especially when we arrived first) was well worth it.  Unfortunately, a rushed hike to one of the scenic overlooks led us through some serious water and mud, so we were soaked and filthy when we returned to the ship!  We soothed our tired muscles by watching the beautiful fjord scenery from the hot tub during the sail-away.

Stavanger
After strolling through the narrow lanes of Gamle Stavanger and exploring the Stavanger Cathedral, we spent the rest of the morning at the Oil Museum learning more about all the offshore platforms we’d been seeing from the ship.  Later, we visited Valberg Tower and the old waterfront, where we met Hallgrim for a drink before heading back to the ship for the last days of the trip.

Yesterday was Lucas’s birthday, so I enlisted Cassie’s help to make a Lego birthday cake.  We left work and headed straight to the grocery to buy supplies.  We didn’t want to put in hours making a cake from scratch, so we bought an imported cake mix for a ridiculous price ($9 - Don’t you love Norwegian prices?) and tried to save money buying packets of Norwegian icing mix.  Once we mixed up one packet, we realized we’d need a lot more, so we might as well splurge for some tasty imported frosting too.  Back to the grocery to pick up an $8 can of frosting!  It definitely turned out to be one of the most expensive cakes I’ve made!

We completed our impromptu birthday party with some balloons and party poppers and one of the cool birthday candles we brought with us from Beijing.  I somehow missed the sparkler wick the first time I lit it, and we ended up with a torch-like flaming birthday candle at first (I ended up blowing it out and relighting it to make sure the fireworks bit went off).

Once again, we failed to figure out how to make the candle stop singing “Happy Birthday” through its tinny little speaker.  In Beijing we pretty much destroyed it trying to get it to stop.  This time we decided to experiment, and we put it out on the balcony (still playing music).  Thanks to the fantastic construction of our apartment building, we couldn’t hear it anymore.  Two hours later, I went out to check on it, and it was still singing.  Another hour later, and it was still going!  At this point we did start disassembling it to make it shut up, but this morning while we were getting ready for work, it started singing again!  Persistent little things!

For more photos, click here.

Friday was the first of our two 5-year wedding anniversaries, so we decided to mark the occasion in the same way we did the original event:

2003:   2008:

We had to use the photobooth at the T-bane station, so we had to settle for four copies of the same pose. But we’ll take what we can get, especially since it was rather late at night!  Incidentally, we realized on the way home that with the time difference, we took the new photo almost exactly 5 years after the first one!

The background story:
If you didn’t already know, Lucas and I actually had two seperate weddings… Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday was another cold day in Oslo, but we braved the weather and headed across the street to the park so that I could do more of my part in the American election process.

Thanks to the online Democtraic Global Primary, I’ve already voted in the first round of elections.  Despite being in India at the time, on Super Tuesday I was able to log on and cast my vote along with other US Democrats scattered around the world.

Sunday’s event was Oslo’s contribution to the worldwide “Bridges for Obama” campaign, which symbolizes Obama creating a bridge between the US and its allies overseas, especially those that may have become alienated in recent years.  Democrats Abroad members in a number of international cities gathered at some of the world’s most famous bridges to take a collection of photos that will be shown as a montage at the Democratic National Convention.

Here is a copy of the Oslo addition (taken on the bridge in Vigelands Park) as posted on democratsabroad.no:

(the copy on the website is slightly larger)

According to something Lucas saw, this year was the coldest May 17 in Oslo in fifty years!  It actually snowed in some parts of town!  Since the weather was generally unpleasant, we stayed inside until the afternoon.  When we finally did get dressed up and leave the apartment, we headed up to Hovseter to meet Jørn and company and head over to watch the King’s Guards perform.

The king has his own guards, who train at a center just down the hill from our office.  They hold a public performance on Constitution Day that one of our colleagues attended last year and really enjoyed, so a group of us made plans to attend this year.  After a few glasses of wine (and some cooing over the baby) at Jørn’s, we bundled up to head over to the Guards’ center.

The event began with a parade of the Guards’ band from Hovseter station, which we trailed along behind.  After that, a few local school choirs performed, and the king and queen arrived.  I’ve heard that they don’t come every year, so I’m glad we went in one of the years that they did!  Standing 2 meters away, this was definitely the closest I’ve ever been to the King and Queen (or any royalty, come to think of it).  I was definitely more excited about this than the Norwegians in our group!

Standing around in the cold, it wasn’t too long before the baby (and the adults) started to get fussy, and a decision was made to head back to the apartment.  On the way out, Lucas asked about the Guard’s performance and was told it would be starting shortly, so he, Rob, and I decided to stick it out.  After the parade area was cleared of spectators and a school music corps performed, there was a show by a youth motorcycle drill team from the UK.  Good fun!

Finally the Guards performed, and it really reminded me of the high school marching band.  Having never been in marching band, I’ve gotten to watch a number of performances by my sister and my friends.  In this case, the music was excellent, and the marching spot on!  I kind of miss the flag-tossing of the color guard, but the military paraders have bayonets and working guns, which certainly adds to the excitement!

I’m glad we stayed, but I was extremely grateful afterwards to head back inside!

A few more photos from the day…

Birgit’s bunad is from the west coast of Norway - ”Westside!”

What the King’s Guards are really for:

Tomorrow is May 17, Norwegian Constitution Day, which is vaguely similar to the American 4th of July.  They’re both national holidays that celebrate the formation and independence of the respective nations.  They both includes lots of flags (both red, white, and blue incidentally).  There are parades.  There is an underlying current of national pride and celebration.  I think that’s about it.

When I think of the 4th of July, the first things that spring to my mind are fireworks, barbecues, and my mother’s “Red White and Blueberry Salad,” which isn’t really a salad so much as a sugar-laden Jell-o dessert that managed to get itself misassigned to the healthy-food table at church picnics.  Oh, and a day off work to spend at the lake!

May 17 is nothing like this.  The idea of having a barbecue in the park (an otherwise very important part of summer life here) is almost ridiculous, because May 17 is a “dressing up” day!  Most Norwegians break out their bunad (national costume) and run around downtown looking charming in a 19th-century Dickens-novel kind of way (complete with top hats).  I love it!  And even those of us who don’t own bunad (it’s ridiculously expensive) are expected to wear our Sunday best when we head downtown to watch the parade!

Then there are the flags.  Sure, the 4th of July season is littered with flags.  There are flags everywhere!  On t-shirts, tablecloths, napkins, plates, cars, umbrellas, lapel pins…  But how many actual flags are there?  And when we’re not using them as a decorative motif in home accessories and picnic ware, what do we do with them?  People toss around the term “flag-waving American” a lot, but I rarely see an American waving a flag outside of international sporting events and political rallies.

Flag-waving is very big here.  First of all, they’re cheap, and not just by Norwegian standards.  I picked up an individual-waving-size flag at the grocery the other day, and it cost me about $2.  A comparable US flag (made in China) would probably cost me twice as much!  I guess there’s just not enough demand for them.  But here, if you go to the May 17th parade downtown, everyone has a flag!  Not just the children in the parade but all the spectators standing along the road have them and wave them for hours!  I’ve been to American parades, and the only flags I saw were the enormous pole-sized varieties being carried along by 10-year-old Girl Scouts trying to look as solemn and respectful as possible while hauling a flag that weighs more than they do along a 5-mile parade route.  I was once one of those solemn Brownies, taught to show respect for the flag.  Fold it correctly; salute it properly; don’t let it touch the ground.  Where does the jubilant emphatic waving fit into this?

And if waving your little flag isn’t enough to show how thrilled you are to be in Norway, you can shout about it.  “Hip hip hoorah!”  I’ve never actually heard this used outside of comic-strip speech bubbles, but the revelers use it in all seriousness!  It still makes me giggle a little.  I guess it is, however, a bit more refined than the “Woohoo!” style sound we’ve tried to replace it with.  I suppose that a slightly higher degree of decorum is vaguely appropriate when wearing a traditional dress that costs thousands of dollars.

Of course, the same rules don’t apply to the Russ, who for one year get to shirk the traditional activities in favor of stumbling around drunk in their overalls and parading along in stolen shopping carts.

Speaking of, I hear loud stereo music coming from outside…

…Yes, it’s a russ bus!

Since I’m sure you always wanted to know, the average airspeed velocity of an unladen European swallow is:

Roughly 11 meters per second, or 24 miles an hour

While I was waiting on a particularly slow build this afternoon, I happened upon an exhaustive calculation of the above figure, thereby answering the age-old question.

Unfortunately, insufficient data is widely available regarding the African variety.