Birthday in Norway

I turned 38 while I was in Norway. To mark the occasion, AH and I went to the zoo. It's not a great zoo, but it was fun. AH's not exactly an animal lover, so it was good of her to humor me with this little excursion.

It was early in the season, so not all of the animals were out and about. Disappointingly, this included Harald the moose. I really want to see a moose someday. (Amusingly, moose are called elg in Norwegian, and a Norwegian idiom for vomiting is "calling the elg." Apparently moose calls and hurling sound fairly similar. Who knew?) One of the animals we did see was a lynx. It was really cool, because it came pretty much out of nowhere, making lynx-y growls and working its way out of the woods. He walked right under us, and made AH a little nervous.



The zoo is really aimed at kids, and there are several kid-oriented activities and areas available. One of the more well-known is Kardemommeby, based on a popular children's story. I've never read it, but AH told me all about it as we wandered through the abandoned village. There's also a small auto run so kids can drive themselves onto a ferry and be transported across the 15-foot Skagerrak to Denmark. They then drive into a simulated Sweden and cross the bride from Malmö to Copenhagen. It was really pretty cute.




The most popular attraction at the park, aside from the animals, would have to be Kaptein Sabeltann (Captain Sabertooth). He's the white-faced pirate guy shown at the top, and he's huge with the under-10 set. I saw lots of kids running around with plastic cutlasses.

After we got home from the zoo and cleaned a up a bit, AH and I went to Lillesand to get dinner at the Hotel Norge. Traditionally, Hotel Norge has really decent food—nothing too foo-foo—with even better cheesy potatoes (known in Norwegian as fløte gratinerte poteter). I absolutely love the cheesy potatoes Hotel Norge makes, so I was looking forward to this with more than a bit of anticipation.


It turned out that the Hotel Norge now has new owners (despite the what the website says), and they are trying to update things in the restaurant, including both the menu and the décor. The building was erected in the nineteenth century, and the restaurant decoration has always reflected this with lots of crown molding, chair rails, and a light-blue-and-white color scheme. The new owners are trying a bit too hard to modernize things, adding taupe table runners and frosted glass votive holders. Another thing they've done to modernize the restaurant is to take the fløte gratinerte poteter off the menu. I was unhappy, to say the least. The meal was still good, despite the substitution of almond potatoes. I still enjoyed sitting with AH and sharing my birthday with her in Norway, which is a first for us.

We finished dinner and decided to partake of a small post-prandial constitutional (aka a walk after dinner—I just never get to use the word "prandial" in regular conversation, and I'm sure there are those of you who would say that's a good thing). We walked toward the harbor, past another restaurant. There was a window open to the kitchen, where we saw a massive tray full of fløte gratinerte poteter. Agonizing.

On the way home we stopped by Ulvøysund to look at the water. It was a little chilly, so AH stayed in the car while I took a few photos. (I'm going to put more photos from this section over on my phlog, so check there in a few days.)



My friends in Norway were very good to me on my birthday. AH took me to the zoo. AH's mom got me some fishing lures and a book on Norwegian fish. AH's friends Grethe and Ivar also got me some fishing lures and a book on Norwegian fish, along with some Norwegian chocolate. Have I mentioned that these people rock?