sometimes I want to be somewhere else

I spent six and a half hours rigging up for a disco at Kroa on Friday. This was a large event with a DJ from Oslo coming in for two shows, Friday with a 16+ age limit, and Saturday with 18+.* The rigging was fun because I got to work with friends for the first time, but the disco doesn't appeal to me, so I wistfully looked up some venues far from Bø that would have some shows that I might like to go to. The closest of these is Mono down in Oslo. Mono seems to have an indie clientele, evidenced by the Camera Obscura show last month, and a show I would have enjoyed much more than my actual Saturday night activities.** They had a freakishly early in the evening free show with The Wombats.*** While I can't say they are a great band they seem like they have potential to at least be fun live. Though really, a show that starts at 6? What the frigg?

Mono is one of the reasons that I really miss living in a city. Specialized venues and large libraries. Oh, I will never be a country girl. But while I was checking out the upcoming events at Mono I also read some of their other news.

MONO HAR FÅTT UTESERVERING TIL KL. TRE!

Jepp, nå blir du ikke jaget inn ved midnatt hvis du vil nyte en sigarett til ett glass eller sju, eeeendelig har Mono også blitt en del av sentrum og vi får lov til å servere alkohol i bakgården til kl. 03.00. Takk til politikerne i byrådet som gjorde det mulig.

Mono has just gotten permission to serve drinks outside after midnight as they have just had their position in the city upgraded to 'located in the city center.' From inference, Oslo doesn't allow bars to serve their back gardens, aka side alleys with tables, after midnight even though they stay open until 3. At least, not outside of the central area. Seeing as Mono is a short walk from Karl Johans Gate and the central train station I don't see how Mono wasn't considered part of the city center before, but not living there I suppose I can't be expected to understand local politics. This seemingly random piece of information has me thinking about some of the other seemingly insignificant points. Coming from Madison with its recently established smoking ban in bars the similar ban in Norway hardly makes me blink, but remembering my bartender in Charlotte lighting up a smoke between pouring drinks I realize how non-universal this is. The airport in Frankfurt has smoking stations indoors. Oh my.

*I have been told that the vakt people love the 16+ nights because they get to search bags and take things away from people.
**After Saturday night at a dance party up in Breisås 1, I have a new strategy for preserving my dignity. It involves not going to dance parties.
***Thank you NRK Urørt podcasts.

heldig med mono

Part 2 of Oslo in October:
Oslo is not the kind of capital city that one falls in love with quickly. It's charm might reveal itself over a period of living there, and it might make a difference that I visited at a time other than the peak of tourist season. But I don't like being surrounded by tourists. I like to pretend that I am not a tourist when I visit a city. My excuse this time was that I was there to do some 'research' at the museums, and to go to a concert. Because a concert is always a legitimate reason for going somewhere, without making me feel like a 'tourist'.
It was entirely possible that I would not be able to go to the concert. Camera Obscura isn't a completely unknown band. You pop-chart-listeners sit down and be quiet. I know they are on the indie charts, but the indie audience isn't that small. After the OC indie is trendy, remember? And indie kids are so the hipsters of today. Okay, I also think that indie is music for aspergers kids. Here you have a group of kids being hipper-than-thou by knowing a vast network of information, and using it for social standing in a select group. No one outside this group has any idea what these hipsters are on about, and by knowing music that someone else doesn't know, the hipster is thus hipper than the other. This is hyperbole of course. The really hip hipsters are much more open than this. This is why they are actually hip, instead of obnoxious. The hip-hipsters are really into the content of what they listen to, either for the politics of it, the sound, or some other ephemeral aspect, and they want to be connected to others that feel the same as them, and tell the interested periphery (that would be me) about it. I knew some really cool indie kids (though I don't think they would define themselves as such) back in Madison. It sort of spoiled me. Now I'm shocked when the people I talk to don't know the major indie record labels. Or the major pop labels. But really, after Nirvana, I don't think anyone who grew up during grunge has an excuse not to know who SubPop is.
After this very long tangent, back to Oslo. Without having a very clear idea in my head of where I was staying for the night, where the club that I wanted to go to Tuesday night was, or how to get to Bygdøya, I managed really well. I spent more money than I would have liked, and only brought home a coat. I found the hostel where I had reserved a bed a few blocks away from the central train station, without very much difficulty. I found the club I wanted to find almost by accident, and they had 11 tickets left to the show that I wanted to go to when I stopped in that afternoon. Café Mono reminds me of the King Club, slightly smaller and a little dolled up. I had a beer at the show, marvelled at how early it started,* and spoke to some random Norwegian guy after the show who told me that Michigan is cool, Wisconsin is boring, and everyone from North Carolina is a snob, but he patted me on the head and said I was a good girl. And of course, as far as museums go, I found those easily enough. So I was really lucky with Oslo. I didn't even get rained on, despite it being overcast with occasional rain the whole time. So perhaps I'm being unfair to the city. And I think if I was going to school there I would like it well enough. But I still think I would be fine with leaving it at the end of the year. The one place in which I was not especially lucky was with shopping. I wanted to get a zippered hoodie and a pair of sneakers. I didn't think any of the hoodies I found were worth 200 kroner. That might be because I can't do math, and didn't realize that 200 kroner is only about $30. That's not bad for Norway, really. But if I am going to put down $30 for a hoodie, it should be cool. Like with some band I like screen printed on the back. Or some neat design that not everyone and their cousin has, and doesn't mean a damn thing anyway. Instead, I found the second hand store, Uff, and got one of those flatteringly cut wool coats in tacky 70s colors. It is dirty-white, navy, terracotta, and olive. It clashes with my newly bright blue hair, my knit hat, most of my shirts, and my everyday bag. But I love it anyway, because it some how reminds me of my Nata, who is so far away.
*10! And on time! Shocking in Norway or America. And the audience wasn't tanked. I guess that is the difference between smalltown and city Norway.
**WI is my university, NC is where I grew up.

Bygdøya - the island of museums

Part 1 from my little trip to Oslo:
When I was a kid my parents came up with a museum game for my sister and me. We each got a notebook and pen, and were to write down interesting things that we saw. The game got both of us really paying attention, and then made the ride home more fun. Could we Stump the Parents with some obscure observation? I realized, while I was wandering around the bygdøya museums and taking notes for myself, that I was still playing this game. This is a list of things that I didn't know, or found interesting:

• Viking Ships:
• The Tune find. I'm not all that into Vikings anymore. I was at one point, but that has rather faded. The ships have been repaired, to appear as they were meant to, except for the Tune ship. I still love the Gokstad, with its beautiful line, and practical nature (as opposed to the Oseberg, which is dolled-up and gets more attention with its ladies found aboard). But I found that I really liked seeing the Tune find as found. It is little more than the bottom of the boat, but lets one see the interior construction better.
• The textiles. One does have to be in awe of standing in front of weavings and embroidery done over 1000 years ago.
• The carts are starting to deteriorate. There are about four carts found with the Oseberg, and three of them are now enclosed with one-sided windows, so that visitors can look in on them while examination and evaluation is conducted.
• The batteries in my camera were dead, and I didn't have any spares.
  
• Kon-Tiki:
  • I didn't know that Thor Heyerdahl:
  • Fought in WWII.
  • Was an environmental activist, using his observations at sea to fight ocean pollution.
  • Drew cartoons. There is one of a line of identical beauty contestants that the judges can't decided among. Apparently he didn't care much for contemporary asthetics.
  • Was of interest to President Clinton. He visited the museum a few years ago, was shown around by Heyerdahl's son, and has read the man's books.
  • I found batteries for my camera.
    
• Fram:
  • Visitors get to walk around on and in the ship. Very keen. It smelled like wood. Wood smells nice.
  • Horlick's of Racine, Wisconsin packaged malted milk for the 1926 expedition.
  • I got to look at the Gjøa, which is one of my favorites. The first successful navigation of the Northwest Passage. By someone other than indigenous people that is. Mostly the Northwest Passage was a fool's trip for the longest time, but with old glacier melt, the passage is opening up to become possibly more than a seasonal shipping lane. Sad.
    
• Folkemuseum:
  • This really requires much more time than I had for it.
  • The Sami exhibit is a small room off the toy exhibit. I'm trying to temper myself against taking this as a slight, because I'm not Sami or an ethnic minority, and they should get mad themselves if anyone is going to. I didn't learn anything there, but got to look at things that I've only seen pictures of before.
  • The Wesselsgate building:
  • The exhibit on drinking states that the Norwegian temperance movement was pro-beer, because it 'cut down on drinking of spirits'.
  • The apartments in the building have been set up from different time periods, including one reconstruction of a family home from the 70's, and an apartment following the set specifications for Nora's home in A Doll's House, which it was very appropriate to see this year, as the Ibsen anniversary.