Socialites in Norway: the food issue

The party begins...It's been a busy and social week for the family.  We had our first friends over to the house, the Lubinska's from Bath  England, for hiking, waffles, sausages, hot cocoa, and coffee last Sunday.  Picking the view over ease, we slogged up a steep and muddy mountain to reach the top of "old man" - Gråkallen. We felt like old men in our hips and knees afterwards.

On Monday, I was invited over to professor Egil Sakshaug's home for dinner with some other festive work colleagues.  We started the night with french champagne, then salmon with yummy cavier from Sweden in bernaise sauce.  The cavier looked and tasted fantastic, but was made from algae not fish roe --  a fact appreciated particularly by us four geeky phytoplankton biologists at the table.  Then we toasted the best of Norway with a beautiful rare reindeer sirloin served with roasted "poteter" and lots of red wine....mmmm...

On Tuesday, it rained.  Took the girls to MacDonalds to celebrate Melita's first Volleyball practice and finding her jacket in the lost and found at a very distant bus terminal.  Yeah!  The Happy Meal -- something familiar in the world finally.

On Wednesday, Annaliese had a playdate with her girlfriend Aasne from school and her mini-golden retriever puppy Fia...I'm not sure which one is cuter and bouncier.  Then we headed to some very old and dear Minnesotan friends Kjell and Uni Hagemark for coffee and a lovely apple tort with brown sugar/cinnamon crust.  It was fun for the girls to look at the old photo albums with pictures of mormor and morfar as young swingers in velour and ski suits and particular me and my sisters as teenagers.  Rikke had some sporting large-framed glasses that were particularly amusing to remember.

On Thursday, I picked up two other  moms from the bus station downtown and drove to Birralee school for our first parent committee meeting.  Yes, I am finally volunteering for a school committee -- seems appropriate when on "sabbatical."  Of course, my contribution was serious and insightful, particularly when I mentioned that we need to plan a big "housewarming" party when the renovated school opens up in January.  One of the other mothers was adamant that 11th grade class make more healthful lunches for the middle school during their weekly fundraiser...I didn't want to interject, but what's wrong with the occasional waffle for lunch?  or sausage and bread?  She also complained that they cooked spaghetti bolognese from a jar.  Really? 

Just put that thought in perspective to another more silent mom from Chechnya sitting next to me.  On our way home, she told me that she came to Trondheim as a refugee, pregnant and with a husband in jail in Russia.  Amazing story.  She got him out of jail and he's now here in Trondheim, her child is thriving at Birralee, and she is one of the few mothers who managed to get a job teaching.  Wow, inspirational.

 On Friday, that's today, I won the wine raffle at work!!!  Yeah, it's a beautiful Spanish red wine Raustino VII Rioja.  Who can make it over to drink with me?   I'm ready, willing, and able.  Just don't complain if I serve sauce from a jar.
 

Tigger got her bounce back

Annaliese, our boisterous tigger, suffered a bout of the blahs, hum drums, and overall Eeyore-like gloom.  Turns out she had some kind of low grade flu that the rest of us subsequently got.   On the mend, however, we have been hitting the trails and running as a family and of course scaling tall peaks.  Annaliese also discovered the ski poles and has been rollerblading like a native Langrenn skier in training. And believe me, there are tons of lean, fit individuals working out in skinny tights and roller skiis. 

Apparently world cup Langrenn happens in our very backyard and many world class Olympians come from here.  They must also do the special ski and shoot races here as well.  I saw a man carrying a sack the other day and realized it had quivers sticking out.  A man in skinny tights with quivers... oh mercy.  It's been inspiring though, lovely Melita has taken to jogging every day around the dam to keep fit.

Also, for those of you who keep asking me about whether the sun sets at 3 pm yet, I thought I would share a Physical Geography lesson 101 and point out that Sept. 22 is the Equinox.  On this auspicious day, all parts of the earth have roughly 12 hours day and 12 hours night.  Yes, even at 63 deg. north (7 am sunrise, 7 pm sunset).  Moreover, I took these photos just yesterday at the botanical garden where the girls and I strolled through the different exotic plants.   Yes, flowers are still blooming in Trondheim, butterflies still flapping, and young girls are still skipping through the daisies.  Of course, pretty soon we start losing 20 min of daylight EVERY DAY...aaahhh..  But for now, we suck up the sun like it is a drug and we are addicts about to go on rehab.

i dont know what to call it

um im getting used to norway and i know my way around and the city buses arent as confusing anymore. ive had sleepovers and birthdays and im friends with almost all the girls in the class. my sister refuses to write in the blog because she says she doesnt like the blog even though i dont think she knows what it is. i think shes having fun too though. so far norway is good even though i miss my friends a lot. the science fair is coming up so that should be fun even though it probably wont be. ok bye. :)

Steeped in History and Tankers

I took this video out of my little window/door in my office.   The view is a huge StatOil tanker filling up on the neighboring pier (red) completely dwarfing our NTNU research vessel (blue) docking at our pier.  This a nice illustration of science and industry creeping ever closer together.  I'm not saying this isn't true in the states, but the Norwegians don't seem to hide the fact.  NTNU is a very applied university.  At the official opening of the AUR (Applied Underwater Robotics) Laboratory a few weeks ago, the university representative said that the reason we study the oceans is for the "unexplored opportunities and unexploited resources."   He would have literally been eaten alive by the faculty at UConn, if he had presumed to suggest we do science to exploit the environment and not for basic research.  Maybe it is lost in translation, but the word "exploited" is really not something that most researchers want linked to their science.   We might do science to "understand", "manage", and "sustain" our resources, but not really to exploit them.

My friend Molly at the Univ. Texas recently posted a link on the benefits of "basic" research from Lowry and Kirshenbaum. "During tense economic times, arguments over the federal budget and national debt have caused many Americans to lose sight of the tremendous value of science." Without basic research funding through the National Science Foundation, for example, we would not have the internet that we are all using to read this.  When you look at the numbers, Medicare and Medicaid collectively cost about $2,746 annually per person, Social Security $2,364, Department of Defense $2,981, and the war on terror $7,486.  The entire National Science Foundation budget costs an individual only $22/year -- less than the cost of one month of internet service.  This is really cheap considering that many of our biggest intellectual leaps have been from basic research.

Somewhat ironically, I have been steeping myself in scientific history lately.  I've been working on writing yet another encyclopedia entry, but this one is on bathymetry.  The history involves Lord Kelvin and a brilliant piano-wire machine used to measure ocean depths from a chemical reaction of seawater with a silver chromate-lined glass tube.  The foundations of using sound or acoustics to estimate bathymetry came about even earlier with yet other famous "dudes."   Leonardo da Vinci  in 1490 wrote, “If you cause your ship to stop, and place the head of a long tube in the water and place the outer extremity to your ear, you will hear ships at a great distance from you.”  Benjamin Franklin, to my mind probably the most influential person in history (at least U.S. history) in 1762 disputed claims of the day about the speed of sound: “two stones being struck smartly together under water, the stroke may be heard at a greater distance by an ear placed under water in the same river,than it can be heard through the air....I think I have heard it near a mile; how much farther it may be heard, I know not; but suppose a great deal farther, because the sound did not seem faint, as if at a distance, like distant sounds through air, but smart and strong, and as if present just at the ear. … ”  It is amazing to think of the curiosity and experimentation of these individuals way back in time.  Who listens anymore to anything???  

As a feminist, I can only imagine that more than one uncredited woman forged the scientific pathway as well.  Marie Tharp who with Heezen created the modern view of the ocean floor that led to the theory of plate tectonics has quite a history (panel D in the figure I put together below).  She was one of a handful of students recruited to the University of Michigan’s petroleum geology program during World War II and graduated with a master's degree.  Not finding a job, she then finished a B.S. in mathematics.   However, she wasn't hired afterwards as a scientist, but as a general drafter.   

On a final note, a great marine historian Albert Theberge compiled much of the forgotten history of the world's great bathymetrists.  He ends with this excellent quote from the 19th century between two great oceanographers (Aggasiz and Haeckel):  “In some way, men who have made their mark in the history of science disappear from the very history of the centers where they have been most active, because their successors are always in a hurry to show how much wiser and more learned they are than their predecessors” (Agassiz 1913).

Elections and coffee

We just finished our first hike since the elections happened in Norway and I can say that we were are still in mourning that election season is over.   Yes it's true  -- we miss election season.   What possible connection could there be between hiking and elections?  Food of course.  At the start of our hiking trails, there would be a collection of colored booths with people handing out coffee, juice, cookies, and chocolate.  I guess it is perfectly legal to "buy" your votes in Norway by handing out freebies.  No commercials on TV thankfully, but lots of  free handouts.    Actually, the friendly Norwegians seemed surprised that this would be considered unusual, but I must admit that election season would be much better with free coffee around.  

I would mess with the volunteers and say that I wasn't going to vote for them because the other booth had better coffee.  Not sure they appreciated my humor.  One team really outdid themselves with a plastic coffee-dispensing backpack  - no joke, I drink tons of black norwegian coffee.  Actually, I must admit that the red party (the one with the rose icon) was my favorite because they gave out free red roses at the grocery store (I'm not picky these days ;-)  

The actual parties were hard to follow in that there seemed to be a multitude each with its own color and hip logo.  The chart above is the election results showing how the rose team (yeah!) pretty much won out over the blue teams, but there was a little doled out to everybody (including the green shamrock party).  The Arbeiderpartiet or "worker/labor" party  (more liberal) seemed to have their day over the Høyre or "right" party (more conservative).  Those red roses and coffee really paid off I guess. 

The only other big news in town is that one  of the coastal express ferries, MS Nordlys ("northern lights"), caught on fire and is now close to a watery grave unless they can right it with a giant crane.  We were thinking of heading out on a ferry one of these weekends to taste the reportedly excellent pancakes.  Having once lived through a ferry that nearly tipped over in Long Island Sound, I think that maybe the pancakes aren't worth it.  But, then again, what better way to go down on a sinking ship...