Salmon, Shrimp, and Paternal Leave

Edvard Grieg gained inspiration a century ago in a fjord-side hut just outside Bergen, in the west of Norway. Enlarge photo

The concert hall at Grieg’s home overlooks his composing hut, and the fjord beauty that inspired his romantic music. Enlarge photo

Clever Norwegian road signs remind drivers to be safe with a powerful emotional appeal. Care about your loved ones? Tired? Take a rest. Enlarge photo

I came to Scandinavia a couple weeks ago intending to both update my guidebook and sharpen my plans for filming here next month. I was fine with my intended Oslo and Stockholm scripts, but worried about a weak fjord country script.

Happily, I come away with piles of exciting ideas for our fjord show, from ginger glacier hikes to zodiac speedboat tours in the mist of waterfalls under towering cliffs. We’ll visit the best stave church in Norway, lonely in a lush valley — its thousand-year-old dragon eves still snarling at evil spirits in the sky. We’ll hike to a tiny, weather-aged log cabin farm hamlet stranded high above the fjords, where goats still find grass. And we’ll film an Edvard Grieg piano concert in a sleek little concert hall with a long black grand piano perched before a huge window to become part of a dramatic fjord setting, including the idyllic cabin where the composer wrote much of his best music. I am just at the mercy of the weather.

The weather has been scorching during this visit. I’d just wash out my shirt and put it on wet. Locals were acting confused, saying, “I can’t even think straight in this heat.” Scandinavians were at the beaches in droves. I noticed in both Helsinki and Stockholm that the former military forts (the Gibraltars of the Baltic: Vaxholm and Suomenlinna) were now parks with families picnicking literally atop 19th-century gun emplacements — places once strategic for national security, and now strategic only for sun worship.

Society here is famously compassionate and well-organized. Highway billboards show a man napping peacefully on his thankful partner, who shares an important message to approaching drivers: “Sleepy? Pull over and take a rest.” Another billboard has a dad driving with his child’s arm snuggly across his chest like a belt. The sign reads, “Buckle up for your family.” I put in a lot of miles safely. I wore my seatbelt and kept myself awake thinking about random stuff. Did you even notice how many people have the initials HH? (Hubert Humphrey, Hugh Heffner, Helly Hanson, Herbert Hoover, Howard Hughes.)

Norway has laced and drilled its way together with an amazing road system connecting fjord country with Oslo. The longest tunnel is 15 miles. When a toll is levied (as it is for cars entering Oslo and Bergen, to keep down traffic), toll booths are antiquated. You don’t stop and pay. A camera takes your car’s photo, and the license plate is matched to your credit card, which is billed. Those new roads zip travelers around quicker, but also make previously tranquil valleys noisier. I had to drop one unfortunate campground with great riverside bungalows from my guidebook. For ten years, it was a fine little budget place to sleep. Now, rumbling trucks trample the tranquility, so it’s out.

Scandinavians speak English so well, most tours at museums and historic sites simply dispense with the local language and locals and tourists-alike hear it in one language: English.

I was at a cousin’s dinner party with a dozen people in Oslo. Because I was there, they simply spoke English. I felt like it was an inconvenience, but it fazed no one. Topics were fascinating: One man, who just wrote a book on FDR (in Norwegian — a market of only 4 million readers), talked with me about the intricacies of American post-WWII politics as no one I’ve ever met. Someone else suggested that, as Norway’s international telephone prefix is 47 and the USA’s is 1, the system must have originated in America. Another observed that Europeans seem more interested in American Indians than Americans are, and asked if that might be because we feel guilty and they have no guilt on the subject. And another observed that Midwest Americans talked louder than other Americans, and wondered if it was for the same reason West Coast Norwegians talk louder than people from Oslo — because they are always trying to be heard above the constant wind.

Norwegians love to vacation in Greece. They agreed with me that Greece may have invented the aesthetics of beauty, but you’d never know it today by driving around the country. One suggested it might be like how England invented the Industrial Revolution, yet has today’s rustiest economy. Perhaps economically or culturally, a society is inclined to rest on its laurels — it’s just human nature.

People seemed very content. Two new parents at the party were debating the various ways to split their paid maternal and paternal leave. There seemed to be little concern about any economic crisis. These Norwegians were just loving their salmon, shrimp, and goat cheese.