Maltese magic

S and I are visiting Malta for a few days, a trip that has been a complete surprise for me. He is really interested in ancient architecture so the sites here were on his must-see list, and I agreed since it was an island in the Mediterranean. It'd be something new at least. 

We arrived yesterday via Frankfurt after having woke up at 3am to catch the train, and after a quick and slightly dazzling taxi ride, we arrived at our accommodation for the week. After spending a few days booking and then cancelling various hotels around the small island country, I chanced my first experience with airbnb. The host had no reviews but the photos looked promising, and he was friendly and responsive by email, so I hoped all would be well when we arrived. He wasn't around, so his very short father was there to meet us outside, while his mom waited upstairs. Both were charming, tiny, and with an enchanting Maltese lilt to their carefully enunciated english. 

My fears were immediately calmed when we walked in the apartment door and saw the terrace. It's the size of two hotel rooms itself, with open views to the sea northeast of the island. Looking down we can see one of the many fortifications on the island, and the complex's private saltwater swimming pool. Just at the next block, the peninsula where we are ends with a mall that contains a fantastic grocery store and several cafés. Just opposite we have ferry and bus service that connects us to the rest of the  island.

And what an island it is! I haven't managed to grasp the full history of the country's many exchanges of power, but the cuisine and language clearly shows influences from both Africa and Europe. French, Italian, Tunisian, and English flavors and products are available in the grocery store nearby, and the local cuisine is classic Mediterranean. We went to dinner last night and ate fennel-laden sausages, enormous chili-spiced white beans, fish cakes, bean-and-garlic spread, and sundried tomatoes so full of flavor it felt like I had never had a proper one before that moment. We also sampled the local wine, a white that contained flavors of the dusty limestone soil and blazing sun.

Today we spent the first half of the day in a Neolithic temple, and then I wandered the streets of Valletta, admiring the crammed combination of architecture on the steeply pitched peninsula. Heavily fortified on all sides, the center contains an overly touristic shopping street that's edged by fascinating narrow residentiall streets. I caught some entrancing glimpses of a few homes inside, since a few had their outer doors opened to catch the snappy sea breeze. They have a curious sort of baby-gate design here, where the typical Southern European heavy double door often has an ornate iron mini gate in front. Many houses have a tiny friezes of the Virgin Mary at the door as well. 

After thoroughly exploring the peninsula with a stop for an Aperol spritz in the baraka gardens, I took the ferry back to our spot and spent the remaining afternoon hours on the amazing deck, followed by a dip in the glorious saltwater pool. We had dinner at home with ingredients from our local store-Gorgonzola pasta with toasted sage, and a green salad. Simple and delicious, as the snappy breeze off the sea filled the house and made the long curtains billow. 

One year in

It's been technically more than a year at this point, but the feeling of new was still so heavy at this time last year that it feels like I'm one year in now. I'd expected the integration here to be relatively easy after Iceland. It's a country I'd visited often, with a landscape that's viscerally familiar, working a job I knew already. How hard could it really be? In retrospect I realize how difficult it was though. Establishing an entirely new social network takes time and effort and costs emotional highs and lows, and mixing that with the inevital bureaucracy of immigration doesn't make it easier. 

Yesterday was a watershed day in both senses though. Having not changed my American driving license over in Iceland, I decided now was the time to do it, and I wanted to do it properly. Norwegian licenses are different if you don't take the test in a manual car, and in typical American fashion, I'd never learned to do that properly. Several months of lessons later, my instructor booked my exam at the earliest possible date, which fell in the middle of S's company mandated fellesferie. In many Norwegian companies, the entire month of July is total shutdown, so employees have to take their holiday then. With the driving exam looming, I couldn't go anywhere, so he took off on a solo adventure while I stayed back to finish the last piece of bureaucracy I had to complete. 

Figuring that I'd either be happy to pass and want to celebrate or sad and needing distraction, I planned a ladies potluck party the evening after the test. I invited everyone I knew in the area and hoped enough of us weren't on the same summer holiday schedule as the rest of Norway. Mid day Friday, my tiny, calm Filipina driving instructor picked me up for one last practice round, then we went to the traffic station together for my exam. The examiner turned out to be a sixty-something motherly type who was in a hurry to leave for her weekend, so we took a pleasant drive along the local fjord while chatting about the area before she signed off on my exam form with the all important stamp and shook my hand. Time to start the party!

Back home I baked my two favorite summer recipes, a German onion tart and a goat cheese apricot mint bread before a local friend arrived to help set up. The weather has been amazing the past week, so we assembled all the chairs and tables in the house out on the large, shady deck, covered with my favorite grandmother-inherited tablecloths. As people and food began to arrive, introductions passed around- this woman I know from Icelandic class in 2005 who lives upriver, that woman who is a fellow alumna of my college, these women I know through a local social group, this one the visiting mother of another guest.

When the group was finally assembled, we set all the food on the tables family-style, and squashed around on the assembled collection of seats. Some had dining chairs, some were on a teak bathroom bench, we had people on hundred year old carved wooden "thrones" and others on plastic lawn chairs. The plates of food were passed hither and thither as we all loaded up the mismatched plates- we'd cleared the cupboards of all the available plates, glasses, and cutlery. 

It was hard to take a moment to reflect in the midst of the conversation, laughter, and good eating that ensued, but I did look up at one time and realize how tremendously lucky I am here. The sun was setting in a pink-striped sky over the lush green hills that surround our place, and this amazing collection of people from Norway, Canada, Germany, America, Ireland were all gathered around sharing recipes and struggles, joys and woes. We are all tied together by this beautiful place we live, and celebrating it outside  in a way all friendships should be celebrated, over delicious food made with love. 

In the midst of all this, S showed up unexpectedly a day early after having been on the return route for two whole days of plane travel. Despite what must have been some fierce jet lag, he joined the remaining guests graciously, delighted to come home to so much delicious food. And then, as the Scandinavian night deepend to navy blue, one woman's boyfriend showed up, and we ended the party as a fivesome in that deliciously night-scented air. 

When the last guest finally left, I faced the stacks of plates and abandoned glasses with a smile. It's been a rough road to this point but the roots are growing. I've conquered so many personal struggles in the last year, and while it's never going to be 100% easy, I don't regret the decision to move here at all. 

falling into place

Lately I've been thinking a lot about those quality of life surveys that definitively declare THIS city or THAT city is absolutely the best to live in. Most of the time their methods are suspect and sponsored when I dig further, but I remember one survey that defined it as a life that was absent as much friction as possible. They looked at cities where you could expect infrastructure to work and be comprehensive, where the trains are punctual and your daily life isn't interrupted by constant bureaucracy and complexity.

That's pretty much how it feels to live here, and I feel it every day in so many ways. For example, after a few months in Germany, I quickly learned that it's a constant battle against the hard, mineral laden water. It encrusts your shower head, plugging the individual nozzles so only half of them work on a good day. I'm still working on chipping the bits of mineral deposit off the teakettle that boiled German water for nearly two years, while here, the shower runs silkily and my hair is always happy. It's a taste difference too, one of the things I feared I'd miss when leaving Iceland that I find isn't compromised here either.

I also think about it on trash days, where they've got a handy tri-barrel system so each house is able to compost and recycle paper separately. They even provide free compostable bags, and if you need more, just tie a bag on the handle of your barrel, and they drop more off. After growing up composting, then living in a dozen apartments that didn't support it, I'm thrilled to have my little compost bin under the sink. Small things on a daily basis are what make up so much of your life, right?

This town has not historically been considered the most glamorous of Norwegian locations, but that's part of what I like about it. There are remnants along the river of its past as a paper producing town, in the form of some rather nice old brick factories. In the center of town, Norway's oldest brewery still churns out liters of beer in its elegant gray 19th century building that stretches along the riverfront, and on the downriver side, one of the country's biggest ports ensures constant ship traffic up and down the fjord.

A recent boom in immigrant populations has also ensured a wonderful selection of grocery stores. I visit these regularly, aboard my trusty red bicycle that was imported at some effort during our last trip to Germany. Since my first rather depressed impression of the town's busy roads, I've discovered a parallel network of bicycle and footpaths, allowing me to access these fascinating stores along with the center of town across the river. On weekends, the square seems to always have something new going on, varying from music performances to a farmer's market where I always buy our honey from the guy who produces it. It's also worth stopping by to see if the donut lady is there, selling donuts as good as the ones I remember from my childhood, a fluffy cloud of a center surrounded by crisp perfection.

Earlier tonight, I also discovered yet another thing to love. One of the paths I take to the grocery store goes past the local sports area, starting with the local football/soccer team's stadium, then the local playing fields, and finally one of the newest Olympic-size swimming pools in Norway. Rising behind everything is our own tiny ski piste, still waiting for the snow to fall. A few weeks ago, the playing fields were converted to a massive ice rink, complete with a pair of zambonis that zipped around in the evenings between hockey matches. How cool to live in a town with its own ice rinks! It got even better today when they replaced all the hockey goals with lane markers and the entire rink was full of tiny speed skaters. Clearly, Norwegians know much better what to do with cold weather than other nations.

The presence of all this outdoorsy activity and forested hills has been inspiring for my own routines, and now as the days grow short (although thankfully not as short as in Iceland), I'm going for lunchtime runs along the river. I've got a good 8-10k loop that goes through the part of town with the cobblestone street and the 19th century wood homes painted in deep Victorian colors, then over the bridge and back along the river where the old manor house stands. It's got a lovely garden where I met a pair of peacocks a few months ago, although now it's locked up tight and the birds have been taken to roost elsewhere. The end of my loops are in the neighborhood on the other side of the train tracks from my new home, where multi-family homes climb in steep terraces up to the forest's edge.

It's at times like this when I realize just how spoiled and fortunate I am, to have the choice of fjord, forest, or river views on my run, all accessible directly from my front door. Living in a beautiful place where the water is clean and delicious, and where I can see the stars twinkle overhead from home is a privilege that helps me step outside myself on a regular basis. The trash bags and bicycle-powered grocery shopping are not quite as traditionally enchanting, but they also add that little extra bit to the low friction life where I now find myself.

new season

Autumn's in full swing in my new home, a season I used to love, but then started to dread in Iceland with the extreme rains September almost always brought. Here it's still that kind of weather I love- cool and foggy in the morning, then burning off to crisp sunny afternoons.

A few days ago, I went for a long trek in "our" forest. Although I'm familiar with the boundaries of this 5x7 kilometer swath of forest after the past few months of weekly explorations, I'm constantly discovering new interconnecting paths. I took one that ultimately delivered me to one of my favorite places there, a small mountain hut overlooking a wide tree-filled valley. This is one of the most populous regions of Norway, but the strategic clusters of trees and contours of the landscape all but obliterate human evidence from the view in this one special spot. Three kilometers as the crow flies from my door, and I'm sitting on a sun-warmed rock with only the sound of wind and birds in the trees. This is why I'm here.

On the way back, I passed some forgotten apple trees, so I pocketed a few of the best-looking prospects, and chose a final one to eat as I descended the hill. Another reason I'm here came to me as I bit into the perfect flesh, crisp, bright white, and that perfect, elusive appley balance of sweetness and tartness. The kind of apple I haven't had for years, and here every other yard seems to hang heavy with the season's plenty. Apple crisp for dessert that evening.

It's not all totally perfect here, as is the case anywhere. Sometimes I have this moment of suspended animation when I don't feel like I belong anywhere, to anything or anyone. I think of where I might be otherwise or what my life might have been if I'd never left. Would I feel more rooted, grounded? Would I be happier? Of course, a few moments later my breath catches at the beautiful shifting light here, I think of how I'm meeting my new friends soon, or that S is coming home in a few hours, and all's well again.

I'm learning Norwegian too, and the rhythm of language classes, of worksheets and repeat-after-me CDs of conversations is soothing and fascinating. The new vocabulary I'm learning is at times laughably predictable, a mix of Icelandic and German without all the troublesome verb complications. I've got my bicycle from Germany here, so have been able to cycle to the school on class days. It's a glorious century-old brick school with massive wooden bannisters worn smooth by years of hands sliding up and down. The first time my hand slid along the railing, I was reminded of the wood in the stave church in Heddal. It's a Medieval building where the interior pillars were worn smooth in a way that only can happen after the hands of nearly a thousand years of worshippers have passed over them.

When people ask how life is here, it seems rather boring from the outside after the past few years. I'm not flying between countries constantly, zipping to and fro on trains. Many of the best weekends are spent within a few kilometers of home, but that's why they're so pleasant. The house is properly cozy now, presided over by an antique clock from S's grandmother that ticks comfortingly, generally smelling of delicious cooking, and full of books. It's exactly where I want to be as the air starts to smell heavy with snow and the yellow leaves spiral off the trees.

.. and then the perfect Bavarian alpine tour

Following breakfast came my favorite part of any southern Germany tour, those kilometers when you're heading straight for the mountains. That day, the Alps appeared shadowy on the horizon in the haze of the summer heat but the alpengiggle of years ago still rose in my throat. Our first stop was the monastery at Benediktbeuern, a place we'd first visited together on a gloomy, rainy summer day in 2008. That time we'd eaten in their bunting-bedecked beerhall, but this time we wandered through the herb and rose gardens in the scorching morning heat before retreating to the car in search of cooler landscapes.

From Benediktbeuern south, the landscape quickly becomes fully Alpine, so we were soon about 8 degrees (celsius) cooler and zipping along on switchback roads that offered tantalizing peeks of emerald green lakes. We stopped at one that I remembered had also featured in our cloud-shrouded 2008 tour, this time a brilliant, indescribable turquoise teal-green. S left me with my toes in the water and went back to the village we'd just passed for some local surprises, returning with pfefferbeisser and some bottles of ice-cold radler. We chewed and sipped, calf-deep in water, books in hand, occasionally admiring the water and watching the lakeside life going on around us. Far overhead, a mountainside construction site received helicopter deliveries of planks, and a dignified-looking gentleman arrived at our rocky outcropping, stripped to his bathing suit and took a short swim. As he dried off, he commented on the lovely location and day, saying that the swim had been his choice of lunchbreak from work. He wished us a good vacation and continued on his way.

We then continued on our way, passing through the famed Garmish-Partenkirchen before taking a slight dip into Austria. We stopped at a spot with a view on the Zugspitze so S could have the required germknödel. This insanely huge dessert is a must-have for him whenever we visit Alpen areas, but for me it's inextricably linked with one wintry day on the Dolomite ski slopes with KSK. After skiing all morning, we stopped at a mountain hut for lunch, and were lured by photos of what seemed like an adorably small dessert. When the bloated, plum-filled dumpling arrived, swimming in vanilla sauce arrived, we tackled it gamely but the rest of the day we found ourselves skiing a bit drunkenly, an effect we blamed entirely on the germknödel. Since then I've stuck with a spoonful or two.

Post dumpling stop, we wended our way back out of Austria and back into Germany, landing right at the intersection that goes to one of Germany's most beloved tourist stops, Neuschwanstein. I simply had to see it, so we braved the bizarre traffic survey (four cars at a time were let through, while be-vested teenagers asked us what the nature of our trip was and what our destination was) to the chaos at the base of the castle. From there, it was a brisk 20 minute walk up the winding entry road for us. We passed a lot of people from all over the world, including the ones in the horse-drawn carriages. Once inside the castle courtyard, I was glad we hadn't sprung for the tickets, as enormous groups were corralled together and let in at 15 minute intervals.

S found himself a shady, slightly less crowded spot to doze in while I headed further to a lookout point on a bridge. The landscape was charming, the crowds less so, but I managed the requisite look-I-am-here-for-real photo before we scrambled back to the car. We hadn't planned our overnight but after the tourbus traffic jam in Füssen, we decided to keep going and try our luck. S has a good nose for overnight places, so I didn't argue when he proposed turning off towards the massive lake that stretches northwards from the base of the Alps there. We found ourselves in a tiny village with a handful of houses and a guesthouse at a dead-end road. He left me in the car while he went in to scent out the lay of the land, and returned triumphantly, door key in hand.

Our room was on the second floor, complete with a deep balcony overlooking the crystal-clear lake and the mountains to the south. As soon as we'd unpacked, I threw on my swimsuit and walked down to the tiny beach area lakeside.  I backfloated there in the chilly aquamarine water and marveled at how much better Neuschswanstein looked framed by my bare feet with the muffled sounds of children splashing on the shoreline instead of the cacophony of a million hot tourists. Perfection.

The next day dawned hot, so after an early breakfast followed by a dip in the lake, we dawdled our way back north via&nbsp Bundesstraße, with one final stop at a marvelous lakeside cloister outside Munich. A short tour of a jewel-box baroque chapel followed by the local apple-cider/wheat beer mix (don't knock it til you've tried it, people), and we were ready for the next phase of our vacation back in Nürnberg. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Germany is still one of my favorite places for a road-trip vacation, due in no small part to my excellent tour guide.

perfect Bavarian city tour

S and I spent our summer holiday in his homeland and in between various family commitments, we took a short trip south to my favorite area. We'd previously been through southern Bavaria on our way elsewhere, but never spent enough time for me to get a proper feeling for Munich. One winter day and a November afternoon in a beer garden do not a city tour make.

I found an serendipitiously inexpensive and well situated hotel via app two days before, so by mid-afternoon we were settled in, car disposed of in the garage, and ready for exploration. S had arranged to meet a friend at the Pagoda so we started off with a wander around the famed English Gardens. The bosky paths intertwining with the swift moving river were exactly as I'd hoped it'd be, and with a panini and drinks we found a shady spot to enjoy the atmosphere and an overview of what seemed to be the prime sunning area for locals. As I looked over the prone bodies I noticed there seemed to be a surprising absence of clothes, which was confirmed when a nattily dressed guy arrived by bicycle and proceeded to remove every last stitch of his business casual outfit before flopping on a towel. Not quite the scenery I had imagined from one of the most famous parks of Germany! We continued the wander past another section of river where bathing-suited people floated under the bridge and then ran dripping back upstream to repeat the process, dodging lederhosen-clad bicycle rickshaw drivers carrying agog tourists through the chaos. A bit further on, we arrived at the pagoda and its immense forest of green-painted tables in the beer garden.

S's friend and her boyfriend were waiting so we ordered our immense one-liter drinks (we chose the half-and-half radler option instead of full beer) and a gigantic pretzel with obatzda and settled in for the evening, watching as the tables filled up and people brought out their beer garden accessories. Unlike anywhere else I've been in Germany, it's apparently quite acceptable to bring your own tablecloth, decorations, and dinner to a beer garden, and then just buy a few mugs of beer to round out the meal. After the place became too crowded for our liking, we moved along, over the Isar to their favorite local café for dinner, and then S and I went back to our cozy hotel by tram.

The next day we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the hidden garden of the hotel, marveling at our good fortune in finding the place before we packed up and returned to the center of town for an intense few hours at the German Museum. It's a full experience, that museum, from the impressive kaiserzeit architecture to the vast collection that covers everything from a 1906 u-boat to a fully operational miniature brick factory. We went our separate ways so he could look at spaceships while I checked out textile history and musical instruments. Three hours later, we'd both had enough so we went back to where the car was parked near the viktualienmarkt. The day was sunny, leafy and breezy so we ate lunch there- freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and goat cheese, sundried tomato, and rucola panini.

We'd found a hotel for the evening outside of town, so we decided to make one more stop on our way out, at the Nymphenburg palace. As we pulled up, I was reminded strongly of my visit to Versailles when I was in college, with its similar flanking outbuildings, and the grand canal setting off the gardens behind in a similar fashion. S was feeling a bit walked-out so I left him in the palm café and set off on a promising looking path. In classic grand schlosspark fashion, there were plenty of follies and a romantically winding stream criss-crossed by urn-topped bridges. There were plenty of swans gliding gracefully as well, naturally.

When I'd had enough traipsing, we continued on our way to our overnight, a classically Bavarian guesthouse on the edge of a forest, naturally with its own enormous beer garden. We supped there on creamy garlic soup, goulash and a tomato stuffed with goat cheese, herbs, and rice. A delicious end to a delightful pair of days.

whole new direction

I've just spent my first almost-full day in our new home in Norway. I arrived last night after a gloriously sunny and emotional Sunday in Reykjavík, accompanied by a colleague who happened to be traveling for meetings in Oslo. After we landed, we both took the train, and after the last station in Oslo, I was on my own, rocketing through the blackness to where I will now be living.

S met me at the train station and we walked through a brightly lit square lined with shops to the car, and a short drive later we were at the new place. He'd chosen it at a time when I couldn't be with him for the search so it was with some anxiety that I walked in to see what he'd committed us to having as our home. I should not have worried. It's bright, classically Norwegian looking with a huge deck, slate floors in the connected salon, and views of hills from every window.

Last night I couldn't sleep, looking at the twinkling lights of the hills from the massive bedroom window, pacing between the other windows in the other rooms to look at stars and sleeping Norwegian houses. After so many months being apart, it's amazing to be here finally, together with the same address.