Summer in a town on shut-down...

Sorry it's been so long since I've written but, well, the world has closed for summer here in Norway, and there's not a lot happening.

I think that in a tourist town, or a place otherwise defined by the service industry (I suspect that Oslo falls into that category), the feeling wouldn't be so acute. However, here in Ulsteinvik, almost everyone is employed in a manufacturing company. Sure, there are grocery stores and the restaurants, but the town is defined by manufacturing. ...and the July holiday is sacred in industry, here.

Not every company takes the same weeks, but these weeks (particularly the one starting tomorrow) are pretty close to being common, so I suspect the overall population of the town is down 20-30%. Of course, those who have chosen to stick around during their time off are generally in a party mood, so you can't tell this by the population of Kaffe Baren on a Friday night, but try the grocery store at a normally-busy time - pretty empty.

Still, I suppose there are a few stories to tell. Last weekend was the Ålesund Båtfestival (Boat Festival, unsurprisingly). I expected it to be a festival of boats. Well, there were more boats than normal tied up in Ålesund harbour, but really, it was just a name for "another festival" - kind of like how 95% of the Peach Festival in BC's Okanagan is not really about peaches at all. So there were three nights of live music, many people selling tacky bandanas and jewelry (shockingly similar to things that I've seen sold out of similar carts in Canada!), and some displays from local industry.

The biggest single tent was from NCE-Maritime (the Norwegian Centre of Expertise for the Maritime industry). They were trying to recruit young people to be interested in the boatbuilding world - we're desperate for people throughout this region & industry. However, as far as I can tell, they only got 6-year-olds who wanted to sit in the captain's chair, and people like me who are already working in the industry who were mostly there to find out what other folks in the industry are doing. Not so successful for them.

On another note, they charged 300+ kroner (over Can$60 - I can't remember the exact price) for the headline concert on Friday night - Kaizers Orchestra. However, an expensive ticket to an outdoor concert in the downtown core of a fairly dense town doesn't work very well - I sat at a nearby café and caught the show without buying a ticket - sure I couldn't see the band, but I didn't know the band, anyway. Actually, the band's pretty cool - they sing in Norwegian, which is odd for a Norwegian band that anyone's heard of - they've done relatively well in Europe outside of Norway. They use Nynorsk and their local dialect, not Bokmål - I think this gives them a bit of nationalistic authenticity, too. Their myspace page is at this link - If you go there, you can hear the stuff from some of their past albums.

On Saturday, I was back in Ålesund to witness the christening ceremony for our (Ulstein Verft's) new vessel - interesting, but nothing really special - I suspect I'll see quite a few of these during my time here - the one that I'll be really excited about should happen in March '10. Then, I went to a soccer game at the Ålesund stadium. It was Aalesunds Fotball Klubb against the team from Tromsø, Tromsø Idrettslag. I went because one of the guys who works with me was a childhood friend of the Tromsø team's new star, Morten Moldskred. Now, Tromsø is way the heck up there in northern Norway, so by supporting them at the game, we put ourselves in a significant minority! However, Morten didn't dissappoint - he scored two goals in a 3-1 victory. We then had the fun of going out to the bar later with "The Star". He was really nice - classy, not playing on his success at all, though there was a parade of admirers past the table. It was a good night.

On Monday, I drove to Bergen to have dinner with a traveller from my home town. Trish (you might have noticed - I generally don't use people's full names - I don't want random people who might be out there stalking being able to find any search hits through my blog), who is ten years younger than me, but who also grew up in Bella Coola, was travelling through Scandinavia with her boyfriend. It was a bit of a hike to go to Bergen for only a meal and a bit of a wander around town - 6-and-a-half hours each way. However, I believe in a sort of karma with these things - I hope that in 10 years, they'll show up and buy supper for some travelling kids. I feel horrendously old saying this, but it was really cool to have supper with some really "together" young people. These guys are only just graduated high school, yet are travelling Europe, learning all sorts of cool stuff (like how to get upgraded to a loft apartment in what would have otherwise been a gungy dorm-style youth hostel - I wish I'd known that one when I was backpacking!). One's going to university next year, the other has a steady job as a mechanic - they're going to do really well. Made me feel good to chat with them. Well, that, and I'd never been to Bergen - now I have!

This weekend was pretty quiet, though I did go to a Hødd soccer game - they lost to Alta, who are from WAY up there in northern Norway - Finnmark. Didn't go well - the home guys lost via a goal with two minutes left to go. Ouch.

I'll see Kes in just under 3 weeks - phew - this break has been really long. She's going to an academic conference in Kiel, Germany during the first week of August, and I'm going to be refereeing at a rugby tournament in Copenhagen at the end of that week, so she's going to meet me at the tournament.

I promise I'll write again sooner next time.

Cheers,

Ashley