Banking, a recital, chess club and other doings

Well, today I had a small victory in figuring out how to do electronic banking. It's really a wonderful system here. All bank members are given a little device that looks like a calculator. Each time you turn it on and enter your password, it provides a new log-in number, which you then use to access your accounts. Norwegians don't use checks--all payments for services are made electronically or in cash.

While I paid bills, Bill worked on figuring out our GET box, which provides our limited cable service. We've all become accustomed to watching BBC news and feel much more attuned to European and East Asian events--the drastic spending cuts in Britain, the riots over retirement-age hikes in France, the Commonwealth games in India. Lots of commercials encouraging travel to Azerbaijan.

Walter had his first recital tonight in a candlelit concert hall above the Kulturskole where he takes lessons. He played Grieg's Norwegian Melody (when we were in Salzburg I bought him a collection of Grieg lyric pieces, so he is working his way through those.)

Mark had a scout meeting outside his school where they made a fire and played nighttime tag. He has also joined a chess club, which will be meeting on Tuesdays.

I'm knee deep in newspaper fiction--I've been reading a series of stories protesting the Italian invasion of Ethiopia in 1935. Quite interesting. Bill is preparing for his first lecture at the University of Agder in a couple of weeks.

Good night:|

Martha

Hiking north of Kristiansand.

I (Bill here) took the following photos during hikes in the park north of Kristiansand over the past month or so, and some of these pictures were taken when Martha and Walter were in Vienna.   This park contains a mixture of pine and deciduous forest (lots of white-barked birch trees), with some swamp mixed in.  There are quite a few lakes, although these to some extent are the result of man-made dams. 

Here's Mark--he's holding the map of the park area.

Mark holding edible bilberry he found.

A big mushroom. 

This is from a trail that we took up a hill.  Mark pointed out the grains of rock, and suggested that they were the result of erosion.

Vienna through Walter's Eyes

While I was at the symposium, Walter toured Vienna last Saturday with a chaperone (I got in trouble for using the word "babysitter"--"Mom, I am NOT a baby." These are the photos he took.


The interior of St. Stephens Cathedral
















You play the role of conductor, Haus der Musik, Vienna















Mysterious baby in green, Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (Natural History Museum), Vienna














Skeletons, Natural History Museum, Vienna














Potatoes, Naturhistorisches Museum Wien














Dinosaur skeleton
















Dinosaur poop, Natural History Museum














Chimpanzee in glasses, Darwin exhibit, Natural History Museum













Minerals, Natural History Museum













Sea Creatures, Natural History Museum













Impressive Viennese building on bus tour

Salzburg

Walter near the Mirabell Gardens.













Mozart's birthplace. What was interesting to learn here and at the home the family later moved into was that Mozart's sister was quite accomplished in her own right but was quickly eclipsed by her brother and burdened by domestic responsibilities. I wondered what she might have accomplished as an only child in a different time.








Walter in front of Saltzburg Cathedral, where Mozart was baptized and served as organist from 1779-1781.









On the way up to Salzburg Castle overlooking the city. Salzburg's name and wealth had its origins in the salt mines just outside of the city. In the background the gothic Franciscan Church.












This is the cabin behind the Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg where Cousin Kinga's friend Katarzyna works. Here Mozart wrote the Magic Flute.













Walter playing some Grieg on the Steinway concert grand in the Mozarteum.












Walter excited about his gelato in Café Konditorei Fürst - Alter Markt, home of the Original Mozartkugel. Needless to say after a couple days of Mozartkugels, apple strudel at the Café Tomaselli, carmel cake, and Tomaselli's hot chocolate with whipped cream, the recipe for which Rick Steves calls a "closely-guarded state secret," I'm not any thinner.

Our Trip to Vienna

It's midnight in Vienna, and I am writing this as a sit on the floor, in the dark in a corner of the hotel room. Walter is asleep.

Walter and I had a spectacular day visiting the Kunsthistorisches Museum, which houses perhaps the greatest singular collection of art treasures I have ever witnessed. Where else can you compare three Rembrandt self-portrait paintings next to each other with a fourth on the opposite wall? Walter was especially intrigued by Rubens' Head of Medusa and the The Allegory of Vanity by Antonio de Pereda y Salgado. What I loved, in particular, was that the palatial 19th century building which houses these masterpieces was originally designed as a museum so each room of the museum was an artwork in itself.

In the afternoon, I met Bill's cousin Kinga at the Sacher Coffee House, across from the Vienna Opera House and kitty-corner from where Bill's grandfather Hashagen first met his third wife. Cousin Kinga treated us to the most Viennese of afternoons. Walter enjoyed Weinersnitzel, and we both relished out Sacher-Torte, a luscious raspberry? chocolate cake with cream. We had a delightful time with Kinga and her seven-year old son.

Next we headed back to the ninth district to a contemporary restaurant where I met members of the Austrian Young Americanists symposium, which includes graduate students in American studies from around Austria. Tomorrow I will give an address on American culture post 9-11. Walter will head out with a sitter to explore the Natural History and the Haus der Musik museum.

Guten Nacht

Martha

On a lighter note

We miss our dear pet ferret Saratoga, who, last we heard, was enjoying his time digging in the rice bin at The Ferret Nook








Nowegians apparently like food in a tube. Here we have shrimp, ham, and bacon conveniently squeezable.












No Lego dogs allowed.












Doesn't this statue look a little like a Scooby Doo villain cloaked in tin foil?

Hello All,

This has been a working and sleeping weekend. I've been reading pulp fiction from the Pittsburgh Courier as I work on my Harlem Renaissance project and brainstorming with Bill on my talk for the Austrian Americanist symposium in Vienna, where I will also be meeting Bill's cousin Kinga and taking Walter to Salzburg, where, I hope, he will become inspired, after a visit to Mozart's birthplace, to practice the piano with due diligence. Yes, I realize that this may seem like extreme measures to try to convince my eight-year old soccer-baseball-bicycling-skiing-volleyball-handball-tennis loving child, that beauty lies in the piano keyboard and not just in the MLB (Major League Baseball) website, but I am nothing if not determined, mulish, some might say, but I'll stick with the more generous interpretation.