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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Home from Hjem

Hjem="Home" in Norwegian, pronounced "yem".

From the time I was a little girl, I can remember the thrill of getting on a plane. I loved the weeks or months of build-up to the event of going away. I would write feverishly about it in my diary, counting down the days, hours and minutes until I could leave the dreary burdens of my fourth grade Canadian life for more exciting climes, and presumably a more exotic type of cheeseburger. Equally, I can remember the return trips home and the dread that would insidiously work its way through my entire body as we neared the unavoidable conclusion of the holiday. “It’s good to go away, but it’s always nice come home, too,” my mother would say as we walked through the front door. No, I would think. It’s not. Who in their right mind would choose here over there?

 Hence my lifelong struggle with “home” began.

To the chagrin of many around me, I have been choosing there over here for most of my adult life. Even when I moved to Stavanger in November, I had mixed feelings about going back to Canada for Christmas. Seeing your friends and family is undoubtedly a wonderful thing, but going back to your hometown is like getting back together with the ex you still have feelings for, for one night. It makes you feel really great for a brief moment, but at some point you have to learn how to make it alone.

 And so it came to pass that getting on the plane from Toronto back to Stavanger was a ridiculously emotional affair for me. I thought I had the whole “stiff upper lip” thing covered until we got in the taxi to go to the airport, at which time the sight of the CN Tower caused me to blubber like a baby. I tried in vain to cover it up by feigning insane interest in the contents of my carry-on, but as I stared into the oblivion which is the bottom of my handbag, it hit me. I was now struggling to leave the place I had always taken great pleasure in running from. Clearly Toronto no longer bore the curse of being called ‘home’, which could mean only one thing: this dubious honour now belonged to Stavanger. Sorry, Norway.

By the time I arrived back on Scandinavian shores, I had a huge chip on my shoulder and my mum’s “no place like home” assertion running through my head. What had seemed a fun six week Norwegian holiday cum cultural exchange before Christmas had, in the intervening two weeks, become much more serious. This was commitment, not the silly fairy tale place that Judy Garland can’t stop going on about in her dumb rainbow song.  Stavanger was now home and home had always been the enemy.  You have something to prove S-town, I thought. You’d better bring it.

The flight into Sola was not encouraging. Battered by two weeks of too much festive cheer, and bruised from the withdrawal from my beloved sugar and wine, things were already not going in its favour. A heavy pea soup fog covered the coast, and it was raining. Super. My last port of call, Aberdeen, had been sunny and bright, a balmy thirteen degrees. I had left a full fridge there stocked with enough goodies to put the most hard core junk-food addict into hypoglycemic shock. The holiday was well and truly over, and I was pretty convinced that that my honeymoon with Stavanger was, too.

The one bright spot on the horizon was a planned evening with a friend. In a last ditch attempt to pull myself out of the doldrums, I invited a Norwegian American friend over for dinner. She would undoubtedly be able to remind me of Stavanger’s merits, rather than allow me to dwell on the fact that it was now nothing more than boring old home.

In an effort to impress my friend with my superior culinary skills, I decided to order take out sushi. Nothing says “great hostess” like a plate of raw fish that I didn’t assemble or, god-forbid, catch. I google mapped the restaurant, and set off on my solitary fifteen minute walk in search of the evening’s vittles.

The path I had chosen was unfamiliar to me and I was conscious of the possibility of getting lost, although the idea was strangely exciting. The restaurant was in a new part of town, and I had only a vague idea where I was going when I set off. I contemplated printing off a copy of the map but dismissed it. Grid pattern, schmid pattern. If Europeans could find their way around without having everything set along a perfectly formed matrix, so could I.  I lived here now, I would figure it out.

As I headed through town to my destination, I passed the church and the tourist office, the restaurants and bars I knew, and shops I had been to many times before. But as I got to the edge of my mental map of Stavanger, the usual landmarks started to disappear. The less familiar my surroundings were, the more energized I became.  I passed by buildings under construction, making up stories in my head about what they would eventually be. I passed by restaurants full of end of day coffee drinkers and new mums with prams, shops full of displays of items I might one day need. Is this all it took?  Spin me around twice and send me in a new direction, and “home” instantly becomes a brand new and enticing place?

I found the restaurant exactly where it was supposed to be, picked up my fish and turned for home. As I passed the buildings that had become recognizable landmarks only in the last thirty minutes, I realized there was no way that Stavanger could already be called my home. For one, I still don’t have the slightest clue why there are hundreds of baby's pacifiers tied to a tree in the middle of Mosvatnet Park. Heck, I don't even know how to PRONOUNCE  Mosvatnet Park yet. And I haven't had the chance to ask a really in depth wine question to the lady at the information kiosk in the liquor store.  I have yet to be airlifted off a fjord because it was waaaay too far to walk, or witnessed the great displays of national pride and public intoxication on Constitution Day.  So much to see and do before this place can truly be called "hjem".

Thank God for that. 

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Land of Smiles, Stavanger Style



Many moons ago, when I was just a young whippersnapper, I lived in Bangkok, Thailand. I would like to say this was a magical time in my life; but actually it was marred by divorce, infidelity (not mine) and a mild allergic reaction to oyster mushrooms. But that, as Hammy Hamster used to say, is another story.

The upside was that Thailand also had incredible food and stellar spa services, which I availed myself of at every opportunity. Birthday? Time for a massage! Anniversary? Massage and foot scrub.Indigestion from aforementioned oyster mushrooms? Well, you get the point.

Now, having grown accustomed to a wide array of these services in South East Asia, I am forever on the look out for their equivalent in the countries I live in. Hence, upon arriving in Stavanger, one of the most burning questions on my mind was not, "When do I get to eat reindeer?" but "Where am I gonna go for a back rub?" Logical question, it seemed to me, but I wasn't getting any help on the home front. Scottish partner thinks massages are a waste of time and money. Apparently the Scottish people rarely get sick or injured, and never complain about it or see a doctor if they do. They just stoically live to be a hundred and then finally keel over, golf club in hand, with a mighty cry of "Freedom!" Or maybe that's Braveheart with Mel Gibson, I forget.Regardless, as a distance runner and self-confessed gym-a-holic, I was on the hunt for a decent massage, like the ones I used to get for 15 bucks in Thailand, although obviously approximately 8 times more expensive.

Imagine my utter delight when, on one of my "I have nothing to do this afternoon and it's not pouring with rain so better get out there" walks, I stumbled upon the Thai massage STREET. That's right. A whole street dedicated to one of God's greatest gifts to humanity. I practically drooled all over my Norwegian sweater and collapsed in a heap outside one of their doors. Maybe they would take pity on me and drag me into the incense-filled, aromatherapy temple of all things good and right in this world.

Within seconds of me fogging up their front window, a young Thai woman appeared at the front door of one of the places and handed me a brochure. "We have many kind of massage," she said. "You can phone and make appointment." I nodded and smiled, taking the pamphlet from her gingerly. Quite frankly, all the "kind of massage" looked the same to me, but who was I to complain? Sixty quid for an hour of peace, quiet and well-being.Surely even the Scot couldn't argue with that?

A few days and a couple of brutal gym sessions later I found myself back at the same front door where the kindly Thai woman had given me the brochure. Before I know it I am wrapped up in a thin cotton blanket (which I must say, was better suited to the heat of Bangkok than the frosty temperatures of Stavanger) and face down in a massage table. I hear the familiar sounds of the Thai language around me as the other therapists have a chat about what to eat for their evening meal. Thai "spa" music plays in the background, and there is the soft splash of a water feature somewhere which, while slightly annoying, is also putting me right off to sleep.

"Sawat dii kha," says the therapist as she enters the room.

"Sawat dii kha," I respond in kind, happy to get some practice in with my Thai in such an unlikely place. I smile to myself, satisfied.

This is the last word I understand for the next 10 minutes.

Off goes Thai therapist in a blaze of Norwegian. At first, because my Norwegian is baby-level, I am not sure if she is even talking to me. Or if she is speaking Thai with a Norwegian accent, or Norwegian with a Thai accent, or English and I am just too ridiculously into this massage that my brain has stopped identifying language at all. There is a dark but flimsy curtain which separates our treatment space from the others, and there are therapists and customers passing on the other side of our curtain all the time. Maybe she is speaking to one them? I make heavy mouth breathing noises like I am in deep sleep just to cover my tracks. I only hope she can hear it over the ruckus of that damn water feature.

We finally reach an appropriate moment, where I wholeheartedly believe she has just directly asked me a question. I sniffle, yawn loudly and pretend to rouse myself from my Rip Van Winkle-esque slumber.

"May kowjay phasaa nohweh. Phuud phasaa angkit, I don't understand Norwegian. I speak English." I say in my best Thai. Which instantly sounds like a sentence that would be in some ancient Siamese textbook and you would burst into laughter saying, "As IF I will ever use that!"

I can feel Thai therapist, who is now bending me into a bow shape, bristle with excitement.

"Ohhh, you speak English," she says in Thai, "And you speak Thai too! Dii maak, very good!" I breathe a sigh of relief, happy that we have found a common language. Even though my conversational Thai is pretty rusty and rudimentary at best, I am pretty fluent in massage Thai. This hurts, that hurts, I like that, stop that right now.I can handle this. And pathetically, it's more than I yet know in Norwegian.

And so Thai therapist is off again, chattering away to me in a language I thought I would probably never really use again, let alone flat on my stomach on a massage table in a town 2 minutes from the North Sea.
Surprisingly, none of it seems strange. There is a comfort in our interaction. I can predict what she is going to do from moment to moment, what she is going to ask, where she is going to move my arm, head, leg. I have heard this all before, and it's comforting to know that this at least, hasn't changed. I realize that I have been living with unpredictability for what seems like months now, and that this is possibly the first time I have known exactly what would happen next. In this moment, there is no what if I can't, what if it's not, what if we don't. The familiar takes over from the unknown. And after months of uncertainty, face down in that massage table, I finally let myself relax.