Oslo Adventures

(Photo Andrii Zherebko)

My recent trip to Norway was a bit of an impulse. I hadn’t left Turkey in seven months and was getting a bit stir-crazy. I searched for cheap plane tickets out of Istanbul, found a direct round trip flight to Oslo for only 130 USD, and clicked “purchase”. It wasn’t until later that I learned that Oslo is one of the most expensive cities in the world. This was problematic, as I’m paid in a currency whose value is steadily declining. I might have baller status on this side of the Bosphorus, but I plummeted to serfdom the moment my feet touched Norwegian soil. 

Merde. 

I arrived quite late in Oslo and my only option to get into the city center was a shuttle that set me back 60 TL! As the exchange offices were closed, I had to pay with my credit card...which got declined...twice. A string of words my mom hates played on repeat in my head. Just as I was contemplating hitchhiking for the first time in my life, the guy behind me got his card declined as well. 

“Oh, forget it”, the mustachioed bus driver said in flawless English, “Save your money. Everybody on!” 

What the [heck]? Is this really happening? 

I took my seat on the bus and the friendly driver (who was my new best friend, he just didn’t know it yet) announced, “Everybody, please put on your safety-belts”. 

My fellow passengers and I obediently buckled up. 

I have entered an alternate universe.

After careful consideration, I decided to spend my first two nights in a hostel and the latter two Couchsurfing.  I'd been meaning to try CS for years, but it just never happened.

I once met a girl who spent three months Couchsurfing throughout Europe and she said the only downsides were that you always had to be engaging with your hosts and never had any private time.  This is the exact opposite of things that make me happy.  

I needed to have a couple days and nights to be antisocial more antisocial than usual.  What better way to achieve solitude than paying an exorbitant amount of money to share a hostel dormitory with three strangers?  

As I was checking in, I asked the Scottish receptionist, “Is it true that you can drink the tap water in Oslo?”

The tap water in Istanbul won't kill you, but it definitely won't make you stronger.

His eyes got wide as he leaned in and said, “You could drink the toilet water if you wanted to”.

“Nice.  That’s what we normally do in America anyway.”

Super groovy tapestry at the National Gallery

I started my first day at the absolutely superb National Gallery.  The Scream by Edvard Munch, Norway’s most globally recognized artist, is the museum’s crown jewel.  The permanent exhibit started with limbless statues from Ancient Greece and built chronologically, from room to room, finally reaching its zenith with the 1893 tableau of The Scream.  It was presented as though Munch was the end all of art evolution and everything that predated the distressed skeletal man was merely simian.  It was forbidden to photograph the painting, but fret not, you could just purchase a Sceamified mousepad, toothbrush holder, putty toy, or magnet from the gift shop.  

The Oseberg ship, which dates from the 9th century (and maybe earlier) was the burial vessel for two unidentified women.

After saying farewell to the tableaus of peasants, prostitutes, and sea monsters, I took a small ferry to the Viking Ship Museum. IT. WAS. UNBELIEVABLE. The ships in the museum were discovered underneath burial mounds around Norway in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

KON-TIKI!!!

The next stop on my sightseeing adventure was the Kon-Tiki Museum, which featured the original Kon-Tiki raft used in the 1947 expedition led by Thor Heyerdahl.  My knowledge of the expedition was limited to the 2012 film and the Wikipedia page, but it was still pretty special to see in person.

The Fram museum was adjacent to Kon-Tiki and I honestly just went there to get out of the rain.  Yet again, Norway amazed me with its explorers and sea vessels.  The Fram was used in both Arctic and Antarctic expeditions in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  No other wooden ship has traveled further North or South. Its museum was beyond incredible and allowed visitors to explore the deck and interior of the ship.

I was struck by one placard in particular, which read, “Blank areas on early maps were filled with imaginary monsters and nonexistent land and sailing routes, but explorers, scientists and hunting expeditions (particularly whaling) gradually filled in many gaps.”

I’m a big fan of science and the accomplishments of humankind.  Seeing something this applicable to much of history (and hopefully the near future) gave me goosebumps.  Yeah, the whaling puts a bit of a damper on the sentiment, but nothing’s perfect.

Next was the Nobel Peace Prize Museum, which highlighted this year’s winners Malala Yousafzai and Kailash Satyarthi.  Learning about 2014’s laureates was great, but the main exhibit was this weird room in which every Nobel Peace Prize recipient had a personal iPad that alternated between their face and a motivational quote.  I found it to be extremely ‘meh’.  

That night, as I lay on my top bunk back at the hostel, I reflected on my day that had been filled with artists, explorers, innovators, and laureates.  When I thought of all that these people had accomplished, I started to feel bad that an average evening for me consists of being horizontal on my bed, eating lunchmeat directly from the package, and staring at my computer screen. In my 27 years, what had I done to contribute to world peace or further human knowledge?

"Nothing", I thought to my lateral self.

My portrait would never end up on an iPad next to Al Gore’s in a lackluster museum display. My likeness would never become a bronze statue for birds to crap on.  The stick-figure drawings in the margins of my daily to-do lists would never be hung in a national gallery.  I would never become a hallowed explorer, as any place left for white people to “discover” is set in some extreme climate that I would undoubtedly find very off-putting.  

I was still contemplating my insignificance when I drifted off to sleep.

Norwegians in traditional bunad (Photo Andrii Zherebko)

I was fortuitously in Oslo for Constitution Day, a holiday filled with parades, traditional folk costumes, champagne, fancy clothes, and impending high school graduates (called Russ) dressed in blue and red overalls reminiscent of the Super Mario Brothers. Olesia, the girl I stayed with for my second two nights, invited me to celebrate with her and her friends.

Yours truly.  My bunad was at the cleaners.

The parade was mostly school marching bands that made their way down Kristian IVs Gate all the way to the palace. Each group would pause briefly before the balcony and the royal family would wave. We were pretty far back and the monarchs were just blurred dots. 

The Royal Palace

“They could really be anyone”, I commented. 

“It would suck to just stand there waving all day”, one of us added. 

"Maybe they switch out body doubles every hour", someone guessed.

“Maybe they’re robotic arms”, I said.
"The king just waved at me", Olesia concluded.

Norwegians looking fly as hell in their bunad (Photo Andrii Zherebko)

Olesia is originally from Kiev and is getting her masters in Strategic Marketing Management. People like her will one day successfully run the planet, so people like me can continue to eat turkey slices in bed.

The Oslo Opera House, where we walked on the roof. NBD.

After the parade, Olesia and her friend Andreii, another Ukrainian masters student, showed me around.  Olesia is an Oslo expert and gave me a lot of background on the area and Norwegian culture. Andreii knew a ton about the city’s history and graciously let me use some of the photos he took that day. 

Akershus Fortress (Photo by Andrii Zherebko)

Olesia is a photobomb GODDESS!

It was actually nice to see Oslo through non-Norwegian eyes.  I think foreigners are better at identifying cultural idiosyncrasies, as we’re oblivious to our own culture when we’re living in. For example, when I’m in the States, I never think, “I’m speaking loudly because I’m American” or “I’m smiling at strangers because I grew up in the Midwest”.

The Oslo public transit system operated on an honor’s system. You didn’t have to show anyone your pass when you boarded a train, but you faced a hefty fine if you were caught without one. Although in the four days I was there, I didn’t see a single ticket agent. 

“This would never work in Istanbul”, I told Olesia, “and probably not in America”. 

“Not in Ukraine either. But everyone here can afford a pass, so why wouldn’t they just buy one?”

Essentially Olesia's backyard

Olesia’s place was located next to a breathtaking lake called Sognsvann.  I sat there for a while, writing in my journal like a weirdo,  as gaggles of aspiring olympians jogged around the lake’s perimeter.  These spandex coated people had 0% body fat and the only thing that moved were their blonde ponytails swishing back and forth.  Curious ducks came to investigate, me, the lethargic humanlike creature.

The National Gallery should swap “The Scream” with this photo.

I like visiting grocery stores when I’m in a foreign country, partly because you can get candy marginally cheaper than at the airport, but also because it gives you a good idea of what’s common in that country’s diet. I swooned when I saw this entire shelf of Tex-Mex food. 

Norway didn’t seem to have much in the way of national cuisine that wasn’t seafood, but it was home to a huge array of international food. I, of course, ate pork products at every affordable opportunity. 

My mom called this "a little x-rated". I don't know where she gets her filthy mind.

I expected everyone in Oslo to be white, blond, and blue-eyed, but there was a surprising amount of ethnic diversity. I read that about 40% of the city's residents were from other countries.  

I didn’t see a single street dog or cat, but I did see plenty of purebred dogs with their Westminster Kennel Club hopeful humans in tow.

I hereby decree that henceforth, my coffee shall be served in a bowl.

To me, the Norwegian language sounded like someone took a page of English text, ran it through a shredder,  carelessly taped it together, and added a few German vowels.  In the four days that I was there, I only retained the adorable greeting, "hei hei". 

Gustav Vigeland sculptures in Frogner Park

A culture section on a map Olesia gave me explained that Norwegians may come across as timid and stated, “We’re not Americans. We don’t strike up conversation with strangers on the bus.” 

Is this an actual American stereotype? 

Is it true?! 

I know we’re known for being a bit too friendly and over sharing, but jeez. I can’t think of any personal friendships I have that blossomed from smalltalk on a crowded subway car. When I’m in public, the words “please don’t talk to me” cycle through my head on an endless loop.

Frogner Park

I admired Oslo's symmetry and right angles. It was a nice break from Istanbul’s labyrinth. I found the lack of people on the street strange though. Granted part of my vacation was during the workweek, but I still found the empty sidewalks odd. Istanbul has at least 25 times as many people as Oslo, so it was bound to seem less crowded to me.

More naked sculptures by Gustav Vigeland in Frogner Park

By the third day of my trip, I started to think about what I’d write for this blog post. Much to my disappointment, I realized that I hadn’t had any terrible experiences that with the passing of time would become a funny story. Nothing went wrong. Nobody, to my knowledge, had bamboozled me. Oslo was perfect.  

I started to compare everything in the city to Istanbul and it really upset me. I told myself to stop thinking about Turkey and just enjoy Norway as its own thing, but I couldn’t help it.  

I felt like Daenerys in Game of Thrones, when she’s in the House of the Undying. But instead of being tempted by visions of sexy Khal Drogo and a would be baby, it was impeccable infrastructure and polite drivers. And rather than dragons and the promise of the Iron Throne calling me back, it was feral felines and my lumpy mattress in Istanbul. Just call me Laurel, Mother of Street Cats.

The 12th century Gol Stave Church at the Folk Museum

I began to wonder how happy Norwegians really were. They rank number one on the Human Development Index, whereas Turkey is sixty-nine (still considered “high development”, thank you very much). As I walked the pristine streets, I asked myself if a person could be truly happy, if they don’t know what profound unhappiness feels like? Of course Oslovians experience universal tragedies such as the death of a loved one, heartbreak, and occasionally losing sporting events to Sweden.

Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art I thought those bottles were part of the display, until one of the staff removed them.

But...

If you’ve never lived in a city that ceases to function after two inches of snow, does the arrival of spring seem quite as lovely? 

If you’ve never had your water unexpectedly cut by the municipality for three days straight, how can you know what if feels like to be completely clean? 

If you’ve never inhaled the overwhelming stench of feces from the canal in Yoğurtçu Park, do the lilacs at its exit smell as sweet?

I decided that Oslo might be a utopia, but it wasn't home.

Goodbye, Oslo. You were a dream.

Back in Istanbul, after being accused of being a spy by the customs agent, waiting 45 minutes for a bus, getting stuck in traffic for an hour, and walking through Taksim past a guy openly puking on the street, I climbed into a dolmuş to take me to Kadıköy. I was fishing around for my money, when the guy to my left nudged me and said, “The driver is telling you to hurry up”. 

“Home sweet home”, I thought.

A very special thanks to Olesia and her roommates Lilia and Daryna. Your hospitality and humor made my trip unforgettable. Thank you also to Andrii for the amazing photos!

Family Adventures in Istanbul!

“Did you know that when I was a little girl, I used to have a globe next to my bed?”

I did know, because my mom had already told me this story several times, but I liked hearing it.

“No”, I lied, “how old were you?”

“Oh, young.  Seven or eight.”

My mom is driving me to the airport to move back to Istanbul.  It’s raining and we’re on a bridge somewhere in New Jersey, stuck in traffic.  She’s mirroring my stress over catching my flight and I'm returning her sadness over my departure.

Thanks to her greyscale school portrait, I can clearly picture second-grader Marianna Steele (then Marianna Cook) the embodiment of innocence, curled up in a white nightgown, staring in wonderment at a miniature Earth.

“And?”, I prompted her.

“Every night before I could fall asleep, I had to find Turkey on the globe.”

“Wow, really?”

“I just thought Turkey was such a silly name for a country.”

“Yeah, I think every American kid thinks that. Did you know that the bird was actually named after…”

“And now my baby lives there.  Isn’t that a funny coincidence?”

My mom only refers to me as her  “baby” when she’s feeling particularly sentimental.

“Yeah”, I smiled, “it is.”

Almost exactly one year later, my mom came to visit me in the country with the silly name. To make life extra wonderful, she brought my Aunt Becky with her.

Not pictured: Double Stuf Oreos and Reeses Peanut Butter Cups

They came bearing gifts!  Well, actually they wisely met my demands for unhealthy American junk food and brought a signed copy of “Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls” from my dad.  People say that you can’t quantify love, but they’re wrong.  Love is measured in sugar, saturated fat, and David Sedaris books. 

I was so excited to show my family my favorite places in the city.  So after their first Turkish breakfast, we headed to the Chora Church Museum, which is on my Istanbul top five list.

The original church was built in the 5th century, but the current structure mostly dates from the 12th.  The incredible 14th century Byzantine frescoes and mosaics were covered when the church inevitably became a mosque sometime in the 16th century.  Fortuitously, the plaster used to conceal the Biblical scenes actually preserved the artwork until the building was changed into a museum and opened to the public in 1958.  

For the first few days of their vacation, my mom and Aunt had the ubiquitous tourist fear that if you accidentally touch a stranger, they will immediately start screaming at you in a language you can’t understand and do everything in their power to have you publicly flogged.  Every time I turned around to make sure they were still with me, I’d see them several yards back with a three foot buffer zone around each of them, politely allowing the elderly and pregnant women to move ahead of them.

"Don't be afraid to push people", I yelled over my shoulder as I zigzagged through the crowd like a greased pig.

We spent a lot of time on cramped buses, metros, and trams. Both my mom and aunt were really good sports about being human sardines. I think it’s widely accepted etiquette on Istanbul public transit that if you haven’t felt someone’s moist breath on your neck and returned the favor by resting your perspiring armpit on their freshly pressed shirt, you’re taking up too much space.

Later, we headed to the Valens Aqueduct, which was at the top of my Aunt's list.  The Roman aqueduct was erected in the 4th century and maintained throughout Byzantine and Ottoman times.  Today, it intersects with the busy Atatürk Boulevard.

My Aunt Becky and I have always been close and she was a big part of my childhood.  She doesn’t have any children of her own, so she never really had the patience to do kiddie stuff whenever she watched my brother and me.  Instead, she showed us how to do the things that she enjoyed (like tie-dying) and introduced us to cool 80s movies with swearing and boobs.  After every f-word or flash of nipple, she’d say, “Crap, don’t tell your mother about this”.

April is the perfect month for flower enthusiasts to visit Istanbul.  My mom and Aunt are both avid gardeners, so we packed a picnic lunch and headed to Emirgan Park for the Istanbul Tulip Festival. It was amazing!

It's said that the famous Dutch tulips actually originated in Istanbul. I read that this year there are over three million tulips in the city. Wowee! The flowerbeds were immaculate, but every so often there'd be a yellow or red flower that didn't get the memo that it was supposed to be pink.

"What's with the renegade tulips?", Aunt Becky asked.

"I don't know", I said, "Maybe the gardener who planted them found out he was going to get fired, so he mixed a few red ones in and thought to himself, 'I'll show all of you in six months!'"

"That's the most likely scenario", my mom agreed.

"Laurel, stand over there."

"Why?"

"Just do it. The flowers look really nice."

"Okay."

*Click*

"Did you have to make the peace sign?"

"Yes."

Since getting an iPhone my mom is a picture taking fiend. We were at my cousin's little-league game about a year ago and I thought her finger was going to fall off from tapping the screen so many times.  

I leaned over to my Aunt Lorraine and said, "I think my mom just took more pictures of Jacob than she did during my entire childhood."

"I heard that", my mom called without looking up from her phone.

Sakıp Sabancı Museum

My Aunt Becky (along with my mom) is one of the most creative people I’ve ever met.  Her long list of hobbies includes dyeing, spinning, and knitting wool, bookbinding, printmaking, and beading.  

“Can I help?”, I’d often ask as I hovered over her latest project.

“No”, she’d say, “but you can watch”.

17th century hand-bound, hand-printed, and hand-painted Koran

The “No” had an invisible asterisk which stood for “No, you, an 8-year-old, cannot make a complete mess of the expensive materials I’m using for a hobby that’s taken me years to get good at.”  I think this was a good lesson for me as a child.  It taught me that sometimes fun things are actually really challenging and take time and patience to learn.

So I’d sit and watch as her practiced hands would spin wool, thread a needle with glass beads, or gently press her cat’s inked paw onto cream colored paper.

With her interest in bookbinding, I knew she’d go crazy at the Sakıp Sabancı Museum.

My mom was pretty strict with me growing up and I always had to call the second I arrived at a friend’s house. I’m twenty-seven and I still have to give her the address and phone number of my lodgings whenever I travel.  We even have a code word that if used in any context will result in her alerting Homeland Security that I’m in grave danger, while simultaneously launching her own solo rescue mission.  I’m serious.

BEHOLD: künefe! My roommate Erkin treated us to a great meal at Kasap.

I always rolled my eyes at her seemingly overprotective behavior until it was time for me to send her and Aunt B on their first day alone.  I sat both of them down and ran through my checklist.

“Do you have your IstanbulKart?”

“Yes, Sweetie.”

“Do you have your museum passes?”

“Yes.”

“The telephone?  Does it have enough battery?  Is the volume turned up?”

“Yes.”

“Did you write down my address?”

“Yes, it’s somewhere in my purse.”

“Show it to me.”

My mom and Aunt Becky were only going to be three miles away and I was freaking out. I was starting to appreciate how stressed my mom must get when I go on solo international trips sans telephone.

“Do NOT talk to any rug salesmen, I mean it”, were my parting words as I left them at the ferry station.  

Luckily they survived.

Exploring in my hood!

I’m fascinated by what different peoples’ eyes are naturally drawn to when walking down the street.  For me, it’s floral dresses, fresh zeytinli açma, and the color seafoam green.  For my mom and aunt, it’s fabric, plants, and street cats.  As I showed them around my neighborhood, they would point out shops or charming details that I’d passed hundreds of times without noticing.  They’d frequently stop to pet kitties, admire window displays, and identify flowers.

My favorite street cat in my favorite jewelry store

One of the hardest lessons I’m continually learning in adulthood is that not everyone has the same way of doing things as you...and that’s okay.  When I’m traveling, I couldn’t be more of a cliché tourist, running from attraction to attraction.  I wanted my family to see as much of the city as possible, so I prepared what I believed to be a light itinerary of 5-7 major attractions a day.  I was baffled when one day after seeing a couple of museums, they said they were happy to head back to my place.  

“We just want to spend time with you, honey”, my mom told me.

Not pictured: hot guy in underwear

I mostly travel alone so “quality time with loved ones” is seldom on my itinerary. The fact that my family would rather spend some of their limited vacation just hanging out with me in my living room with no view to speak of (apart from the hot guy across the street who hangs his laundry in his boxer briefs) is pretty touching.

Date night with my Mama at Semolina

While she was here, my mom gave me lots of great life advice. A lot of it was stuff she'd told me before, but I’d been too stupid to listen to. She's such an incredible mother (and friend) and I feel very lucky that she's mine.

The fish market near my house

My mom and Aunt Becky had an early morning flight back to America and had to leave my apartment at 4:30AM.  I wanted to accompany them to the airport, but they both insisted that I didn’t need to come.

“Well, will you at least promise to call me from a payphone when you’re past security?”

“We might not have time, honey”, my mom said.

“I’ll just go with you.  It’s fine.”

“You don’t need to.  What’s the worst that could happen?”, Aunt Becky asked.

A myriad of catastrophic scenarios ran through my head, most of them involving explosions.

What’s the worst that could happen?  

Oh, I don’t know, the taxi driver could go kamikaze and launch the car off the Bosphorus Bridge.

You could drive over the epicenter of a 7.4 magnitude earthquake.

A massive sinkhole could suddenly swallow up the whole of the Atatürk Airport International Terminal.

A coup d'état.

An alien invasion.

WHAT’S THE WORST THAT COULD HAPPEN, YOU ASK?

“I don’t know.  Like, maybe you guys would get stuck in customs at the airport.”

“We’ll be fine, Lizzie”, my mom laughed.

I let out a massive sigh identical to the one my mom has directed at me more often than my own name and led them to the cab stand near my house.

Apart from a couple cop cars and one very drunk woman complaining to someone on the phone, we were the only people on the street.   The steady click-click-click of suitcase wheels on cobblestone echoed off the surrounding buildings.   I’d never seen Kadıköy so still and empty. I thought I would cry when I said goodbye, but 4:30AM is such a weird time. It's stuck in a strange limbo between today and tomorrow, too late/early to process any serious emotions.

I kissed and hugged them both and waved goodbye as the taxi pulled away.  The three of us had such a great week and I can't wait to see them again.

Sisters!