land of the midnight sun

this weekend i met my parents at the airport to go skiing in norway. norway is a pretty country. mountains, perfect pine trees, little red houses. like those christmas specials with the pointy-nosed children. that's about all there is to say about it. then again, i didn't go to oslo. but i'm surprised someone as twisted as munch comes from a country where everyone is so sedate. disturbingly sedate. i would go back, if only because there's a town called hell. and i didn't see any fjords. i missed the oscars.

my mother pointed out that scandinavian food is a "bad parody of american food from the 1950s." while i think scandinavian food probably came first, i see what she means. at our hotel in lillehammer there was a weird gelatin with eggs and shrimp suspended in it. also scalloped potatoes, creamed spinach, liver and onions, and at least six kinds of smoked salmon. i think i accidentally ate liver. maybe that emboldened me, because today i finally caved and bought sliced ham at the supermarket.

my plane back to copenhagen was delayed two hours, so i sat with an insanely expensive norweigan airport beer and read the lonely planet guide to eastern europe. drinking alone in airports is surprisingly satisfying. you're stranded there, alone, wondering what labor disputes well-paid scandinavian baggage handlers could possibly get themselves into, and then there are all these other people sitting alone drinking. mostly wearing suits, which makes it funnier.

my spring break plan is finally coming together. i doubt anyone else cares about this, but i've spent days toggling between the polish, czech, and lithuanian national railways websites (least helpful award: lithuania) and i want to show off. from prague i'm going to take a train to vilnius, find my great-great grandparents, drink mead in a converted nuclear fallout shelter and go to stalin world. then i'll take a bus to riga and drink balsam with british stag partiers. then i'll fly to barcelona and see the sun for the first time in months before heading up to iceland, then london. no, i'm exagerrating. there's sunlight almost every day in copenhagen. it just only lasts an hour. still, i'm happy to be back.