Grant Dobbe

greetings from bergen, where it apparently rains all the friggin’ time. i haven’t been sleeping as much as i should, and i am so incredibly tired right now that even though it’s only 6pm, i’m tempted to go straight to bed. before i make that decision, however, i think i’ll record my thoughts from the day and some more observations about norway.

today started at about 7:30, with a shower, some breakfast, and a great deal of wet laundry. the dryer at our host family’s house simply couldn’t handle everything we threw at it, so george and i wrung everything out, packed up everything in plastic bags, and put it in our suitcases so that we could at least move it easily.

after we left our host’s house, we waited around at the cathedral for a while before loading the buses and leaving for bergen. we drove through a very diverse area of norway, with scenery ranging from farms and fjords to stuff that looks like it came out of middle earth, and also drove under several large bodies of water by means of roadway tunnels in addition to crossing a couple large bodies of water on ferries. all in all, we ended up having a 5 ½ hour drive, which oddly enough didn’t feel like 5 ½ hours for whatever reason.

and now we’re here. this hotel is a lot like oslo, in that everything is tiny, everything costs something, and nothing is given to you. this hotel does have one up on oslo, however, in that it at least has an exercise room and a jacuzzi. i may end up paying for internet access later, but i’m going to try and find a cafe with free internet before i let it come to that.

one interesting thing about all of these hotel rooms, oddly enough, is their bathrooms. they all share one thing in common: heated floors. and they aren’t just heated, either; they come with a complete thermostat for controlling the floor heat. only the bathroom floor is heated, which seems a little odd, but it is incredibly nice when you first get up in the morning.

a couple of the other la-las figured out a unique usage for the heated floors. if you do your laundry, lay the wet laundry on the bathroom floor, and crank the thermostat up as high as it will go, your laundry will be dry by morning. quite genius, really. i’ve laid out all of my wettest laundry to dry, and some of it already is.

well, i’m going to go sit in the jacuzzi for a little while before i call it a night. peace, and behave.

this post is going to be a culmination of the previous two days. i didn’t post anything last night because i was exhausted and because i used some of my time packing. sorry for those of you who are now regular readers. anyway, let’s start with yesterday.

the best word to describe yesterday is probably “taxing”. the day started out with a 9:30am rehearsal for the christmas program we’ll be filming at the end of the tour, and it was very stressful to say the least. people were still tired/hungover from the night before, and the last thing that any of us wanted to be doing was sitting in the kristiansand domkirken for two hours rehearsing for something that none of us want to do in the first place. i will say, however, that for all the lecturing we received and all of the tension there was in the group, it was certainly a productive rehearsal.

after our rehearsal, we went up to the fortress to observe the official ceremonies for the 100th anniversary of norwegian independence from sweden. we also sang a 30 minute concert in commemoration of that anniversary before being turned loose to run errands and basically explore the city for a few hours. i spent that time exercising, showering, and catching up on email.

at about 4:00, we had another hour and a half of rehearsal, this time for the concert in the domkirken. this rehearsal was significantly better than the first one, and was a bit more fun. after we finished rehearsing, we went back to the hotel, had dinner, crashed for a little bit, and then sang the two-and-a-half-hour concert. after that concluded, i came back to the hotel, packed my suitcase, talked to nicole for entirely too short a period of time, and then crashed into bed.

today’s events started at the wonderfully early time of 7:35am, when i got up and got george into the shower. i finished packing my things, got dressed, loaded my things onto the bus, and got some breakfast before leaving at 9:00. after a 4 hour bus ride, we arrived in stavanger. i wandered around with some people for a while, exchanged some money, and meditated for about 15 minutes before we actually started rehearsing. after our rehearsal, we had pizza for dinner, and i wandered around a bit after having my fill of cheese and vegetable pizza. i bought myself a nice cardigan-style sweatshirt, and then went for a short walk before coming back to the church for the concert.

and here i am now, sitting on a bed in a homestay cataloging my thoughts before they leave my drafty brain. one observation i have been meaning to record is related to norwegian audiences and their applause. when they clap, they clap similarly to an american audience. however, when they really appreciate something or want an encore, they don’t stand or yell “encore!”. what they do is unify their applause from being a sort of pink/white noise to one unified rhythmic clap. it was a bit disconcerting at first, but the more i hear it, the cooler it becomes.

anyway, now that i’m fully caught up in my observations and record of my days in norway, i’m going to go to bed. peace, and behave.

House Judiciary Chairman Walks Out of Heated Hearing

simply amazing. if this man gets re-elected (too bad he doesn’t represent my district back home, because i’d vote absentee just to get rid of him), it will be an act beyond all reason and comprehension.

oh, just so you know, this is the same guy who snuck the Real ID Act into the House Appropriations Bill that passed unanimously. senenbrenner is a real dick.

greetings from sunny kristiansand, when the sun actually sets, but not until 11:30. this will be a post describing the events of the previous day, because i was just too braindead last night to get anything done.

yesterday started, surprisingly enough, at breakfast. i branched out into something i hadn’t seen in norway before yesterday: cereal. in addition to my eggs and cheese and bread, i had a small bowl of cornflakes mixed with muesli. it was very good and i enjoyed it muchly. after breakfast, we all walked down to the harbor and got on a boat for a two hour cruise to lillesand. if there was ever a time when i felt my heritage coming through, this was it. the coastline was beautiful, and the trees were fantastic, and the water all around me was just magnificent. i spent a lot of time standing at the bow of the ship just looking out and taking it all in. i was also party to some of dr. a’s silliness coming through, and laughed more than i had laughed all tour so far.

after we docked in lillesand, we were treated to a lunch of fiskesuppe (fish soup) by the mayor. i was very pleased, but my stomach didn’t quite know what to think. we sang a small concert (which we shared with the town men’s chorus), and then went back to kristiansand via motorcoach. before returning to the hotel for the evening, we stopped at the arkivet, the building which used to house the state archive and which the nazis used as the gestapo headquarters during the german occupation of norway during world war II. the exhibits they had on the prison cells and torture chambers that the nazis used was absolutely horrifying, and i am very thankful that unlike other cultures, the norwegians study the past so that they can avoid repeating it.

when we returned to the hotel, i spent the rest of the evening here doing computer stuff, like uploading pictures and talking to nicole. i went out for about an hour to get some food, but everything but mcdonalds was closed, so it doesn’t look like i was missing much of kristiansand’s vibrant night life.

anyway, i have to go practice for the concert now, so i’ll write about today’s events and include some more thoughts when i return. peace, and behave.

holy shit! free wireless internet in a hotel in norway! whoooooooo-hoooooooo!

we left larvik for kristiansand today, and i for one was sad to see it go. so pretty…
the drive was quite nice however, and the beautiful landscapes made me fall in love with norway even more. once i get pictures resized and up on shutterfly, you can see what i saw.
on the way to kristiansand, we stopped in arendal and did what we in the st. olaf choir affectionately refer to as a “sing and run” or a “drive-by concert”. this involves stopping at a town along the path between points A and B, rehearsing in this town, eating dinner, singing a concert, and then getting back on the buses to finish up the trip to point B.

veteran members of the st. olaf choir are no strangers to this concept, as there are usually at least 2 sing-and-runs on any given tour. however, tonight’s concert was was especially awesome for a number of reasons. first off, we were in a hall where we could actually hear each other. second, we were in a much lower stress environment for rehearsal as well as the concert, and dr. a was having fun, which means we were having fun. the concert was fantastic, and afterwards we did benediction in the church across the street. it was the perfect ending to a wonderful concert.

and now here i am, on the fifth floor of the hotel norge in kristiansand, norway. i’m no longer medicated, and bed is callin’ my name, so i should wrap this up for the night and talk more when i actually have something to say. peace, and behave.