Several years ago, my youngest daughter was invited to a birthday party at the ice skating rink. The hosts were kind enough to let my older daughter tag along. The youngest didn’t really take to it, but the oldest did.
I didn’t want my kids to commit to an activity that required me to drive to the suburbs regularly. But after a couple years she wore me down. Two summers ago, we started going to the rink on hot days. That fall, she signed up for group lessons. A year later she had graduated from the basic skills class and we hired a private coach for weekly lessons. This summer she will participate in her first figure skating competition.
I didn’t know when I snapped a cute picture of my girls skating at a birthday party that I was witnessing the birth of an ice monster.
One of my family’s favorite manga/anime properties is Princess Jellyfish by Akiko Higashimura. It’s about a girl who, instead of growing up to be a princess as she had hoped, grew up to be a jellyfish otaku. When she meets a real life princess, they turn out to be a beautiful cross-dressing boy. The two of them pair up to design jellyfish-inspired dresses to help nerdy girls feel like princesses. I love this story.
Before I read it, I did not know that in Asia jellyfish otaku are no more strange than model train collectors or any other nerd-level hobbyist. But I wasn’t surprised by the discovery, thanks to the Fantacy (sic) Palace of Jellyfish.
Qingdao Underwater World is the oldest public aquarium in China. It’s scattered across several themed buildings near the Number 1 Bathing Beach. It doesn’t make a great first impression, since the specimen hall is the first building you pass through. It’s a seriously old school collection of dead animals. In some places the aquarium goes a bit too far in the other direction, with mermaid shows and dancing sharks.
But parts of the aquarium are high quality educational collections. A moving sidewalk carries you underneath a giant tank in a subway-sized tunnel. And there is an entire building dedicated to jellyfish. Jellyfish are amazing, and hard to keep in an aquarium. The variety of forms and colors on display in that jellyfish aquarium far exceeded anything I could have imagined. It was a small building with limited information in English, but it was enough to inspire the kind of awe in the natural world that internet-connected folk with passports rarely get to feel these days.
For the first outing in the Fremont Drinking Project, we decided to try one of the outliers, a place that is not on the Ballard Brewery passport because it is not a brewery – Trailbend Taproom.
Every year the Pacific Northwest Ballet School performs a story ballet on the McCaw Hall stage as part of the Family Matinee Series. They rotate through three ballets. I’ve already seen and written about Hansel & Gretel and Snow White. This year I finally got to see Pinocchio.
It has been too long since I traveled somewhere new – or traveled
anywhere at all really. When my oldest daughter was 10, I took her to
visit her birth city
and it was a wonderful adventure for the two of us. When my younger
daughter turned 10, it didn’t seem fair that she would miss out on that
experience just because she was born in Seattle. So I asked her where
she wanted to go, and she picked Norway.
Why Norway?
Good question, and the best answer is “Why not Norway?” I think it has something to do with her English teacher being from Norway, and having a friend on her soccer team (her teacher’s daughter) who talks about visiting her grandparents in Norway. She also has friends who have lived in France, and I don’t know why she didn’t pick that country, but it might have had something to do with me.
Borgarnes, Icelandic home of Egil Skallagrimsson
You might have noticed that I am rather fond of the Icelandic sagas. My daughter certainly has. It was only after many trips to Iceland that I read Egil’s Saga for the fourth or fifth time and realized – all the action takes place in Norway. Everybody else thinks of Norway when they think of vikings. I’m finally there with them.
When Norway?
Being an airfare ninja, I was already stalking fares to Norway when we decided to go. I’m not opposed to missing school for travel, but spring break seemed like a good time to target. Much earlier in the year conflicts with (already paid for) ski season at home. In Norway it’s still too dark and cold. Tourist season starts to ramp up in May, and the prices skyrocket accordingly. April seemed to be where lower prices and (slightly) warmer temperatures intersect.
After setting up alerts on Hopper and Skyscanner and obsessively tweaking search parameters on Google Flights, I ended up with a fare through British Airways. We are flying through Heathrow on the way to Oslo, and through Helsinki and Chicago on the way back. That return trip is going to be a nightmare. But there wasn’t anything better within several hundred dollars of the fare we got. What we got was two tickets in basic economy for a total of $716. I redeemed $700 worth of points on my travel rewards credit card. So far, I’m out $16 for this trip. That’s good, because Norway is expensive once you get there.
Did You Say Basic Economy?
Yeah, I did. Since the last time I traveled internationally, Basic Economy has infiltrated the international flights and I’m not happy about it. It is hard to compare fares when every airline charges a different amount for baggage, and it’s hard to travel without baggage when you have kids and your destination is a cold climate. But I’m going to try. Two carry-on suitcases and two “personal item” bags might be enough to hold everything. After all, my daughter’s clothes are still very small, and I don’t really want to drag a full-size suitcase all over the country when we’re traveling by train.
When we get closer to our travel dates, I’ll do a test pack and see if it’s possible. I might end up paying extra for a suitcase the day before we leave. But I hope not because British Airways is one of three carriers operating flights on this itinerary, and I wouldn’t be surprised if all three of them ended up charging us a baggage fee. The suitcase could end up with a more expensive ticket than mine.
Research
Now comes the fun part – figuring out what we’re going to see when we’re there. I’ve already spent many hours on the excellent NSB website studying train schedules. And of course I’ve read the Lonely Planet and Insight Guides Norway books cover to cover.
Most travel websites seem to assume that if you are going to Norway, you are either taking a summer road trip or you are going skiing. Most of them assume you are doing both of those things without kids. A couple of blogs have been helpful so far, though.
The Fairytale Traveler took almost the same trip I’m planning – spring break with just mom and a grade schooler.
Heart My Backpack saved me from booking an expensive Norway in a Nutshell Tour by describing how to DIY the same trip for half the cost. She also has some helpful lodging and city guides.
Wandertooth took a rail-based trip and compared Eurail passes and Minipris tickets. I’m still exploring the rest of their Norway posts.
