Bergen & Helsinki

We went on a family vacation to Norway and Finland this past week. We flew first to Bergen, Norway and enjoyed three days there before flying to Helsinki and spending time with our former foreign exchange student and her growing family.

There were multiple catalysts for this trip. One is that our firstborn studied Norwegian in college. Another is that our former foreign exchange student had her first child last year, and we needed to meet the little girl. A third is that any chance to have our offspring mostly to ourselves on a globetrotting adventure is always a precious opportunity. So off we went.

This won’t be a Rick Stevesesque triptik detailing our every activity. Despite the fact that I transitioned rather smoothly to the Nordic timezone, somehow I found myself wide awake at 3:30am Thursday evening. Given that we were returning to Ohio on Saturday, I thought I would crank out an early draft of an essay Thursday, in case I became too braindead to write anything coherent by my self-imposed weekly deadline, Sunday, 8:30am. These are in-the-moment broad brush impressions of our adventure.

First, Lori is a master of AirBnB, and navigating air travel. Both apartments that she secured for us were perfectly situated and well-appointed. We were able to cook some meals for ourselves, and experience living in each city, albeit briefly. And when American Airlines abandoned us in Chicago yesterday, she booked us on a Southwest flight that got us home (after an Uber ride from O’Hare to Midway).

Second, trips like this have become the new, adult version of “windshield time” with our children. Back in the day, the car rides to soccer games and robotics tournaments were some of the best times to download how our kids were doing in life. Now it’s on airplanes and in AirBnBs.

Bergen is a natural beauty. Nestled at the foot of seven different mountains, the climate there is considered tropical due to the microclimate created by the surrounding mountains and the warm air from the Gulf of Mexico that flows into the region. It rains more than 200 days each year there. The rain we experienced was mostly a mist - like a heavy marine layer in the morning, that burned off as the sun rose. We walked and walked the hilly cobblestone streets, and enjoyed a boat cruise of the surrounding fjords.

Helsinki’s beauty is different than Bergen’s. It’s more human, more solid. Its architecture communicates strength. It is larger, and more vibrant. I also have to give the nod to Finnish restaurants for how they season their dishes. Our friends treated us to an amazing meal at Natura, which focuses on locally and sustainably produced ingredients. So good. Even better, we got to spoil the new baby of Fanny’s. She is the exchange student who lived with us for the 2011-2012 academic year at Granville High School. She and her partner are great parents, and her own parents joined us for all of our activities. We saw Fanny in New York a couple of years ago, but this was our first time in Finland with her family in 11 years. It was a super-special reunion.

Traveling is so good. It gets us out of our day-to-day world and pushes the mind to think differently, to appreciate how other communities organize themselves, to put the whole world into a broader, richer context. There were so many little design features, from brushes mounted outside of apartment buildings for people to clean their shoes, to unexpected parking rules that make total sense. Other people solve problems differently. Traveling is a great way to remind yourself that there are always alternative ways of doing things.

Schlepping through airports can be a drag, but it is completely worth it. It is productive discomfort. I don’t know what the exact right balance is, but I feel like I need more of it.

Sunday Supper

The salmon in both Norway and Finland was ridiculously good. This simple Lemon Butter Salmon w/ Dill is emblematic of what we ate. This baked Fish & Chips can only be a shadow of what we enjoyed this week, but it will still be delicious. Pairing either of these fish dishes with this Tomato-Watermelon Salad would add a summary accent to the meal. And washing everything down with a Finnish Long Drink will transport me back underneath a big umbrella at Birgitta Hernesaari, protecting our food from the seagulls, watching the boats coming and going across the Gulf of Finland, and just soaking up life.

Sunday Music

The first compact disc I ever bought was actually a 2-disc set, Pat Metheny Group’s 1983 live double album titled Travels. Almost any time that I travel, the title song eventually arises in my mind. This is a distinctive cover of that song. Here is a popular Swedish song (#4 on Eurovision) to listen and dance to when you are taking your next sauna. This cover of Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man at the Polar Music Prize celebration for Mr. Hancock is wonderful. And let’s end this week’s musical journey with a performance of the Boy from Bergen, Edvard Grieg - here is a live performance of his piano concerto in A minor, opus 16 by Julia Fischer. Enjoy!

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Have a great week ahead!  You can do anything you set your mind to. Let me know how I can help.


Peace & Love,