A tribute to the the public transportation system of my dreams

When I was a kid, one of my favorite toys was my Brio train set. I could play with those trains for hours, and always dreamed of having the the giant set—the subway, and the ferry, and the tram and the train.

Now that I’ve moved to Oslo, I think I’ve found the Brio set of my dreams here in the Ruter transportation network for metropolitan Oslo and beyond. Since Brio is based in Sweden, I honestly think maybe they’ve just been taking some ideas for the next elements of their train sets from their Norwegian Neighbors.

Let me try to explain just how amazing the Oslo Transportation system is.

First, the Ruter network consists of the T-bane, a subway network of 100 stations with 5 lines covering more than 80 km. It also includes a similarly large network of tram lines in central Oslo and the suburbs, a network of Ferries that reach out islands in the Oslo Fjord, a massive bus network, and the regional train network, NSB.

The entire network is divided into zones, and your price varies depending on which zones you are traveling in. This map is massive—we live about 10 km outside Oslo and are still well within zone 1, which includes all of the subway and tram networks. The airport is about an hour away from central Oslo and near the beginning of zone 4N.

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There are no turnstiles in this subway network, and the only people that use paper tickets are tourists. Once you get a Norwegian ID, you can buy all your tickets electronically on an app on your phone. For about $900, you can buy a year pass, that gives you unlimited rides within zone 1. If you want to ride outside of zone 1, you can buy an extension ticket for a few bucks, again on your phone. Kids under 4 are free, and all children are free on the weekends. The entire system works wonderfully on the honor system. You simply walk onto the train. The only time you ever need to show your ticket is when you get on the bus, and the honor system is enforced by occasional “ticket inspections” and if you are caught without a ticket, you have to pay a $120 fine. This system works beautifully.

All of the forms of transportation adhere to precise schedules available in the app and on Google maps, and making the most complicated train-tram—bus connections quite simple. If there is ever a delay that causes you to be more than 20 minutes late, Ruter even promises to cover your taxi fare.

Truly, it’s wonderful, and it’s made me realize I don’t miss having a car at all, which is a good thing, since getting a drivers license in Norway is an ordeal I think I’m going to avoid putting myself and my wallet through.

It’s wonderful to know that even though we don’t have a car, virtually all of Oslo and its surroundings are open to us. That, and the wonders of subway cars designed by Porsche, would be enough to make public transportation one of the best things about Norway, but then the thing that really put it over top was this recent ad campaign by Ruter:

These advertisements feature portraits of immigrants new to Oslo from all over the world, and almost put a knot in my throat—maybe because I’m realizing how easy it would be to feel excluded in a foreign country when you don’t know the language, and how grateful I am every day that I rarely have that feeling here. Or maybe it’s because every day my home country seems to be finding another way to make live even more difficult for immigrants. Either way, I’m grateful for the transportation network that does more than just gets you from point A to B with a awesome app, it makes everyone feel welcome in the process.

Hiking to Kolsås

This past Monday, Diana and I went on another date where hiked to the wetop of Kolsåstoppen, a beautiful mountain about 15 minutes away from our house by bus, which gave us beautiful views of all of Bærum (our commune/county), and Oslo.

Here are some photos from our trip:

We thought it was neat that this hike (or at least the sign) is sponsored by Kvikk Lunch, the Norwegian Kit Kat.

This was also our first chance to test our the hiking poles I got for a Christmas present—they make such a difference, but I also felt deeply inadequate as 70 year old Norwegians in tennis shoes just seemed to dance by us in the steeper sections of the hike.

Our apartment is generally in this direction. You can see the Oslofjord in the background, too.

Here’s a beautiful mountain lake we came to on the hike. It’s hard to tell from the photos, but the water was crystal clear.

Another view of the lake, with Nodre Kolsas in the background.

Closer to the top of of Søndre Kolsas.

Our view for lunch.

A Hytta along on the trip back. This one serves waffles on Sundays. Too bad we were climbing on a Monday.

A really cool mushroom we saw along the trail.

There were a number of electric fence crossings near the end of the trail, but at each point, with these little step ladders to help facilitate the crossing.

And today, our DNT cabin key arrived. I’m still pretty amazed that if you pay about 100 kroner, the DNT will send you a key that will open any of the hundreds of cabins all across Norway, and trust you to just leave money for any food you eat (in the cabins that are stocked with food) or to pay when you spend the night.

tilfeldig utvalg for August

Here’s a tilefelding utvaly (random assortment) of photos from August that I didn’t get to blog about in detail.

Another awesome playground we found at Ekbergparken

This park was recently made famous in the NYT, when the 52 Places Traveler (Keep Oslo Weird) went to the same sculpture park and mentioned this sculpture, Fideicommissium, of a woman squatting and peeing off in the woods.

We saw the Viking shop museum. Ada was not impressed.

A pretty decent photo of all of us and the Gilheanys on the roof deck of our apartment, minus Ada hiding off camera.

Some of the seats in the buses have 4 point harnesses for little kids and the bottom of the seat folds down so that a little kid can sit there. Ada loved it, and wants every seat on the bus to be like this.

Hanging out at the Royal Palace. I found the tour to be super interesting. The modern Norwegian Monarchy is only about 100 years old, and the people voted to create a constitutional monarchy. It is the official residence of the king and queen, and he meets with the leaders of the government every Friday in an amazing conference room.

A pretty cool culture festival we went to at the harbor.

A couple of extra outtakes from Maddie’s first day of school:

Maddie’s classroom. That’s her teacher, Ms. Willums on the far left.

Ada at her school playground.

The fountain just outside our apartment that the girls stop to play in on the way to and from school.

Ada all dressed up in her rain suit.

Looking back, all of these photos seem like they were taken so long ago. Time is flying by, and I need to learn more Norwegian.

Norway-it really is powered by nature

The Visit Norway slogan is “Powered by Nature”, and it’s both literally true (98% of Norway’s electricity comes from hydropower), and figuratively true, and as we discovered past Sunday, when we participated in Friluftslivets Uke (Outdoor week) by going to a festival at Sognsvann, a beautiful lake just a few km outside Oslo at the end of one of the T-bane lines. The purpose of this week is to get Norwegians out enjoying the outdoors, as mentioned on their website (and poorly translated by Google):

Put the tent in the garden, pull the duvet out on the balcony, hit the camp in a forest hole, by a water or overnight on a mountain top.

Outdoor week kicks off with this festival at a beautiful lake where 30 various outdoor organizations set up booths and events. It was an absolutely gorgeous day with temperatures in the mid 60’s. Here are a few of the things we did:

Building sandcastles

Roasting pølse over an open fire. Norwegians have these amazing telescoping roasting sticks that are the pinnacle of campfire technology. It’s also traditional to eat your pulse on a lompen, a potato tortilla that you wrap around the hot dog.

Roasting dough on a stick

Canoeing around the lake. Maddie wasn’t a fan.

Ada loved it.

Checking out some pretty amazing Norwegian rides:

The entire festival was filled with free, fun adventures for kids and adults. There was even a super cute cross country ski course for toddlers that I somehow forgot to photograph.

We did decide to join the DNT (the Norwegian Trekking Association) and in a week or so, we will get a key in the mail that will unlock the hundreds of trekking cabins (hyetta) all across Norway. The cabins operate on the honor system—you’re welcome to go into any cabin to rest or warm up, but are asked to pay if you make a fire or stay overnight, and you are expected to leave the cabin even better than you found it before.

Everyone says that Norway is expensive (this is definitely true), but they also say that the best things, the gorgeous hikes and outdoor adventures. are free, and now I see that the country teaches this lesson to even the youngest children.

First Family Hike in Norway: Sæteren Gård

After checking out Stæteren Gård on on Friday, we were excited to share take Maddie and Ada on the same hike. But we were also nervous; though they’ve gotten much better at walking long distances in the past month, hiking isn’t something that I would say is a top five thing they wanted to do on a weekend.

We told them about the giant chest of toys that awaited them at the cabin and the end of the hike, and asked them what it would take to get them up the hill. Their consensus—candy, specifically, lollipops and chocolate.

Ada decided that candy gave her energy, and it made for a pretty entertaining hike. Here she is taking off after a couple of licks of her lolly pop.

Later in the day, Ada discovered that a pretty red rock gave her energy too. So, she put a rock in her mouth and ran up the hill to our cabin.

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But in the end, Ada’s energy ran out, and as was to be expected, we ended up with a toddler on our shoulders.

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Still, the whole hike took just over an hour, and we arrived at Sæteren Gård in plenty of time to get some ice cream sandwiches before the cafe closed, and then took to exploring the cabin.

Here were are opening the giant toy chest:

And checking out the sleeping loft.

Right outside the cabin was a wonderful low ropes course, which Ada and Maddie enjoyed tremendously (Ada more than Maddie).

Soon it was time to start dinner, and so we lit some candles

The name of our cabin is Envetyrhytta, which translates to Adventure Lodge.

The toy box had all the major fairy tales covered. Here are the Billy Goats Gruff, with hand carved goats, and an adorable troll with button eyes.

Red riding hood and the big bad wolf are deep in conversation.

If you’re interested, here’s an outtake from the Red Riding Hood puppet show Ada and Maddie put on.

The Princess and the Pea. The pea was a rock Ada found outside the cabin.

Again, I’m amazed by how much Norway seems to understand the needs of children and accommodates their needs. I’m sure there are nice huts to be found in New Zealand, and even along the Appalacian Trail, but I don’t think any of them would be stocked with half a dozen fairy tales’ worth of dolls and puppets.

Though our cabin didn’t have running water or electricity, it had a ton of charm, one cute troll, and six bird houses on the front, including one very large owl house. Here are a few more photos.

Maddie swears this owl coat hook was in her classroom in last year.

This whimsical mural was on the wall.

Maddie’s entry in the guest book

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The next day, Ada went back to play a bit more on the ropes course.

And then it was time to make our way back home.

Here’s to camping out at many more hyttes this year, and seeing what they are like in the winter.

A day without kids—a perfect time for a hike

Friday was the first day that both Maddie and Ada had school all day, and so it was the first day I can really remember that Diana and I had a day completely to ourselves. We decided to make the most of it and go on a hike that is just a few kilometers from our house.

Sætereren Gård is a farm owned by DNT, the Norwegian Trekking association, a gentle 2km uphill hike from a bus stop that is 4 stops away from our apartment.

Here are some photos from the hike—it was a near perfect day for a hike.

Some scenery on the way to our hike.

The arboretum at the start of our hike.

It turns out that there are cabins (Hytter) available for rental all over Norway. Here is a poster of all the DNT cottages available for rental in the area.

We liked this walk so much that we decided we would bring the girls back here on the following day, so we rented this cabin for Saturday night.

Lunch!

A lovely waterfall we saw on the way back.

A huge slug in the middle of the trail.

You can see almost all the way to fjord from the trail.

This is where I run…

Since we went back to Atlanta in mid July, I’ve tried to get back into the exercise habit, and have run daily for a month now. Norway in the summer makes that pretty easy to do. Here’s the park just north of town and across from the girl’s school where I do my daily runs, and I’ve enjoyed running later in the evening once the girls are asleep. Apparently this is also a great place to cross country ski in the winter.

Føste skoledag!

When we decided we were going to live abroad for our sabbatical, one of the hardest decisions we faced was where to send our children to school. Should we send Maddie and Ada to traditional Norwegian schools? The Norwegian education system is regarded as one of the best in the world, schooling is free and it would just be fun to say I’m dropping my 3-year-old off at “barnhagen.” At the same time, even though it’s “easy” for kids to pick up a foreign language, it still takes time, and the thought of our introverted 7-year-old trying to get by in a Norwegian classroom gave us some pause. Then when were having dinner with our friends, Terence and Hilary, who faced a similar decision on their sabbatical in Israel, Hilary sang the praises of international schools—how well they handle traditions, and how much finding the right school put all the pieces of their sabbatical into place. This turned out to be the best piece of advice we’ve received in thinking about living abroad for a year. We enrolled our girls in the Oslo International School, found an apartment within easy walking distance of the school, and so far, everything has worked out pretty amazingly.

Today was the real payoff—the first day of school. Last week, we met with the heads of the elementary and preschool, and I was impressed by how they had carefully read Maddie’s file, and already knew her well. They also did a great job of talking to Maddie, not us, about what her new school would be like. Her principal talked to her about how she would likely have some classmates that didn’t speak English at all, and how that wouldn’t be a problem, because they’d learn it at school, and from playing with her on the playground. This gave me a moment of appreciation for what it means to run an international school. Sure, I teach at a school where 20% of our students are international, but I’ve never for a moment had to think about what I would to teach a student who didn’t speak English, since all of the students who attend my school are fluent English speakers.

My brief experience with international schools tells me that they need to be prepared to deal with the unexpected at every moment. When we spoke to the director of the preschool last week, she told us how Ada’s class would likely be quite small, since they have have lower than expected enrollment this year, but when we showed up today, Ada’s class was filled to capacity at 18, just like the classroom next door—it seems a bunch of last minute enrollments have come on board in the last week.

We’ve now gone through all the preparations for Norwegian school—we managed to find used versions of the special rain suits that consist of a jacket and rain pants with suspenders that look like they could stand up to a cruise under a waterfall. We’ve got indoor shoes that will stay at school, and we’ve been working with Ada on putting all of this stuff on and taking it off.

I’ve also tried my hand at packing Norwegian lunch. Last year, most of the lunches I would pack for Maddie would go uneaten, and it was the source of constant frustration and back and forth conversation, often starting with her asking for a Lunchable (you can imagine how that request was received at our house).

This year, with an individual apple going for nearly $1, I was keen to work with Maddie to find a solution to the great lunch impasse. I never would have guessed the magic bullet would be Leverposti. Here’s a photo of it:

It comes in a can similar to a can of tuna, and here are the ingredients.

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I don’t need Google translate to figure out svinlever; this is liver pate, a bright pink paste that Norwegian kids (hence the kid on the can) spread over bread and crackers and find delicious. Amazingly, Maddie does too, and so we now have a solid foundation for lunch. Ada has become a big fan of brown cheese, or brunost, which could be a subject of another post.

Ok, enough babbling. I know what everyone really wants are all those cute first day photos. So here’s what I’ve got.

When we get to school, we wait in the outdoor playground (just as the girls will in the winter, unless it is below -10°C), and look for a sign listing all of the kids in Maddie’s class. It’s quite a scene, and the teacher is making her way around to meet all of the students, and there is nervousness all around. Pretty quickly, 9 am rolls around and Ms. Willums brought the class in, showed them their cubbies, and invited the parents to join us for the first few minutes. I was deeply impressed by her ability to get the kids started on making a drawing of themselves, and pretty quickly, it was clear we weren’t needed, and so we made our way to Ada’s first day.

The first day of preschool was more of a parent information session where we learned more about the wonders of fleece onesies and the right type of snowsuit to buy, and Ada explored the classroom and playground in back.

She was deeply disappointed that after about 90 minutes, she had to come back home while Maddie got to stay and work. Over the course of this week, the preschool will work the kids up to full days.

We went home, gave Ada what is likely to be her last afternoon nap in a long time, and pretty soon it was time to pick Maddie up.

Here was the moment of truth—how would she respond? Would she like her new school, or hate it? If she hated it, it would be all my fault for taking her away from the school she loved back in Delaware. Luckily, she loved it. Since I’m “Dad”, sometimes known as “go away Dad” it’s hard to get a full report, but here are a few of the things I overheard her saying to Diana and Ada.

She got her iPad—hooray! She has to carry it to school fully charged each day in a bright blue bag
She made TWO new friends during recess.
Her teacher is very nice—she like beekeeping (very eco-kiddy) and books.
Lunch was good. Leverposti is a hit.

Walking home, I snapped this photo of her telling Ada all about her day, and how she doesn’t get an iPad since she’s only in preschool, but maybe she should put one on her wishlist.

It was a good day.

An unexpected introduction to Norwegian Healtcare

Last week we were so excited to get a visit from Hilary Mead, Terence Gilheany and their daughter’s Hannah and Margaret. Their second night in Oslo, they had us over to their amazing airbnb in central Oslo for a delicious dinner of risotto, chicken, broccoli, green beans, salad and an amazing lemon curd for desert made by Hannah.

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Unfortunately after dessert, Ada knocked the back of her head on the AirBnB’s stone coffee table while playing on the couch with Hannah and Margaret. At first, I thought it was just a bump (Ada regularly hits her head on things), then we noticed blood on her hand and thought she must have cut her finger too. Then we realized the blood on her hand was coming from the back of her head. Lifting up her bloody hair in the bathroom revealed a half inch gash in the back of her head! Yikes!

Thanks to John and Terence, we quickly found a private emergency room 10 minutes from us in Oslo and when we left their AirBnB, we lucked out because there was a taxi cab just outside waiting for us. With even more luck, we realized we were the only patients there and we were greeted almost immediately by a patient doctor who gave Ada four stitches to the back of her head while she watched youtube videos on his phone (our phones couldn’t connect to the wifi). Ada, fortunately, was somehow unfazed by the experience and even commented that she liked that doctor and his videos so much she wanted to bump her head again. Maddie who was more anxious than Ada was just glad to get out of there after we tried to pay our $150 bill (seriously- how cheap is that?) (When both of our credit cards were declined the doctor simply told us to come back in two days to pay him in cash. Norwegians just trust each other I guess.)

Unfortunately, the doctor thought Ada also needed a head CT scan to make sure she didn’t have any internal bleeding. After visiting a private place that conducted scans (that said they weren’t set up to do scans children that late in the evening), we headed to the public emergency room in central Oslo which looked just as busy as any emergency room in the states. We took a number at the emergency room and in 2 minutes we got to talk to a nurse who told us that kids under 16 shouldn’t get head CT scans because there was too much radiation involved. After she consulted with a doctor in the emergency room, they agreed we could go home if we woke Ada up every 2 hours for the first 6 hours to make sure she was ok (which she was).

Two days later, we decided to do some necessary errands in Bekkestua by making an appointment with Ada’s newly assigned public doctor (who happens to be the doctor of all of us—adults and kids) to remove Ada’s stitches the following week. We made an appointment for Ada to get her stitches out at 8:30AM on Monday (today) which means we have to leave our apartment at 8:20 because this doctor happens to be literally a 2 minute walk from our front door (yeah apartment!). It turns out if that time was inconvenient we could also have paid a little extra for a private doctor who would do house visits late at night. Getting her four stitches out by the way cost us $8 and we were back in our apartment 20 minutes after we left.

That same day we headed out on another errand. A few weeks prior we had received a notice from the local government that we needed to send the local health center Ada’s vaccine records. Because we are just a 5 minute walk from the local health center (yeah apartment!), we brought her vaccine record there. Evidently Norway has created an amazing system for keeping infants and babies/toddlers healthy. Instead of going to your publicly assigned doctor for well visits (and possibly exposing your kids/baby to the germs from the sick patients) Norway babies go to a well center to get weighed and vaccinated. The health centers also check hearing, vision, and a child’s development. There was a sign posted in the well center that if you were sick, you had to leave, and everyone was instructed to take off their shoes. Ada and Maddie immediately headed toward the small play area for children while we handed the receptionist Ada’s vaccine records. After Ada turns 4 in January, we’ll have to head there again for her well visit. Maddie evidently has already aged out of the system because her primary school takes care of her yearly well doctor visits. All of this is of course free for all Norwegians. Because of this system (and an equally robust system completely free prenatal care and coverage of all costs associated with the delivery of a child), infant mortality rates in Norway were the 5th best in the world in 2017 (only 2.5 deaths per 1,000 live births). Infant mortality rates in the US on the other hand where spending is much higher ranks at 56 with more than twice as many deaths as in Norway (5.8 per 1,000 live births).

All of this is to say that Norwegian health care is incredible—way cheaper and better quality than US healthcare. Also, who knew with a government sponsored health care system you would have more and better choices than we have in the states? I am pretty sure in the states we would have had to wait in a crowded emergency room with Ada and be charged exorbitant fees for the pleasure while in Norway I can choose between a long wait in a free emergency room or no wait in an inexpensive private one. I can also choose between a free doctor chosen for me or an inexpensive one I choose for myself who will come to my house after hours. All of that and I have healthier kids.

P.S. All this talk about healthcare reminds me of the blessing we used to sing growing up before dinner “For health and strength and daily food I give the thanks O’ Lord.” After spending 4 weeks in the ICU with my mom this summer, I am reminded again and again how grateful I am for my family’s health and strength and also grateful that my mom is still continuing to slowly regain her own.

P.P.S. I read recently in A year of living Danishly that countries with better social support systems like healthcare are actually less religious than those that don’t have it. Perhaps they don’t have to pray every day for good health because they know they can count on their government to provide it?

P.P.P.S. Yeah! I (Diana) finally contributed my first post to our blog!

Back to Norway and good riddance to driving

After 3 weeks in Atlanta, Diana’s mom is doing much better thanks to lots of rest, the incredible care of her medical team, family and a couple of granddaughters that snuck in for a few visits to hospital. She’s got a long road ahead of her, but her progress has been amazing, and I’m hopeful we’ll see her in Norway this spring.

Yesterday, we started our long trek back to Oslo, which is an alternating series of trips on plans and buses, and got back this afternoon. This was the first time in 4 visits to the Oslo airport that we were able to leave with all our luggage—no lost suitcases or forgotten strollers. And we were able to bring a few more “necessities” back with us this time, like measuring cups and spoons, a vegetable peeler, and an Apple TV.

It again was such a treat to have the Flybussen bus roll up to the last bus stop and know we are just a few flights of stairs away from our apartment—this will never get old, and I’ve just got to find a way to make sure the next place I live (or retire) is right next to a public transportation nexus.

Now that it’s mid-August, our town feels way more alive than it did back in mid July when I would sometimes find myself alone in the grocery store on an afternoon around 4pm. I guess it must be true that Norwegians that the month of July off on vacation.

While I was in Atlanta, I managed to put close to 1000 miles on my sister in-law’s mini-van shuttling kids to a great lego and coding camp I found, and really found myself completely sucked back the horrors of living in a car-opolis. Whether it was having to check three different apps to figure out the fastest way to camp, being both thankful and sad that my kids could be so easily sucked into the backseat DVD player as we drove 30 minutes to camp, searching for parking every time I went somewhere, dealing with a rock that shattered the window and required a $500 repair, there’s just very little I find fun anymore about driving, even if my sister in law has the coolest minivan around (Thanks Julie!). I just find myself being stressed and noticing how the entire city and and beyond must designed around a vehicle first way of life in order to support a car-centric lifestyle.

My travel time in Norway is so different—it’s clear that our town and just about everywhere we go is designed around people. There’s a giant tunnel that routes traffic under our town, making the main street through our town quieter than some of the residential streets in my in-laws neighborhood back in Atlanta. I’ve never seen a traffic jam in Norway, and the automatically collected tolls nearly every highway around Oslo and pay parking must have a lot to do with that—let people who use cars pay for the externalities they cause, and make fast, efficient and affordable public transportation available. It’s hard to overstate how much of an effect this has on the feeling of a place.

The next week is a busy one for us, and really the last of the summer. Maddie and Ada have school orientation on Monday, and we have some great friends (yea Gilheanys!) visiting Oslo for a few days this week, and this weekend, we’ll do the Norway in a Nutshell tour that seems to be a must do on every visitor’s itinerary.