20230621 The cultural history museum

They say Cthulhu speaks to his acolytes through their dreams. My dreams were filled with muppets. In my dreams I was bouncing around the house with a bunch of muppets until they turned the bucket of dirty mop water upside down. We were evicted after we started hosing down the walls and went to see the landlady who was in a horse drawn cart wearing a black lace veil but her nose was so long she had to cut a hole in the lace and wrap rubber bands around her nostrils.

We slept in to 7:45 and went down to have breakfast but the buffet had already been decimated by the German cultists. Back in our room, Amanda spent the morning emailing everyone bird pictures. The door to our room rattled every time someone opened or closed the outside doors and the German bikers gathered outside our open window, listening to a pop remix of Elton John's rocketman and smoking.

Though we were only 20min from Ålesund we still had a few hours so we decided to visit the local folk museum. It was similar to the one I visited in Oslo, a collection of old houses designed to illustrate how Norwegians lived hundreds of years ago.

As we walked down the driveway towards the museum entrance, we saw a crow holding a fluttering baby bird. I pointed it out and Amanda sprang into action. She chased it past some confused tourists down an alley behind a building while I jogged after her. If she'd managed to get an injured baby bird away from the crow I didn't know what we'd do with it.

We took a lot of pictures. Many of the houses are up on stilts and in various stages of repair. A large group of Italian tourists were being led around by a guide and we waited to see which way they were going and went the opposite. Our path led us through the park and adjoining graveyard to an archaeological site where they'd dug up the remains of a 1000 year old church. There was a building full of artifacts dug up from the site but it was closed.

The reason this baby crow looks so confused is because Amanda is making crow noises.

The folk museum had an attached building filled with old boats and a dock for seaworthy viking ships rebuilt for local sailing clubs. Several of the old rowboats were just tied off to the dock and I could have jumped in and rowed out to sea.

We drove back through the tunnel under the North sea to the Ålesund airport stopping briefly at a gas station before returning the car. The gas pump mysteriously rejected my card but accepted Amanda's card. We used 10L of fuel and paid 200Kr.

With a few minutes to spare we drove around the island but felt too rushed to try to jump into the ocean before catching our flight.

We'd given ourselves 1.5 hours to drop off the car, make it through security, and catch the flight at 16:35. This turned out to be way too much time. The airport was small, we were the only ones in line, and the rental company took the keys without comment so we spent our time sorting through pictures and eating in the lobby. Amanda took a Dramamine before the 1 hour flight back to Oslo to try to help her anxiety about flying.

There was some confusion when we arrived in Gardermoen and tried to catch the train back to Oslo S. The ticket booth showed the train was leaving in one minute so I hurried down the stairs but it pulled away before we could get on and then Amanda started to doubt were were on the right platform. We argued about it until a random woman reassured her we were in the right place.

At Oslo S we waited for the bus for a long time. It arrived late and we got on with everyone else, but it didn't pull away the curb and a minute later everyone started to step off again. We followed them off the bus and then noticed the sign on the side said it was no longer in service. It looked like bus 34 was cancelled the moment it arrived. We had to take tram 12 to another stop (by the pretzel girl) and caught the 34 bus from there.

Ja had fish burgers waiting for us when we arrived and Lukas jumped on the couch while we ate. Afterwards I filled his drawing book with poorly rendered elephants and we had chocolate covered salt licorice and chicory tea.

When Sine took the kid to bed, Ja, Amanda, and I went out to visit a local bar. It was called Misfornøyelsesbar and is designed to make you feel uncomfortable. The walls were painted with weird art and they were playing strange music.

Upstairs was decorated like an insane asylum with portraits of the residents and stuffed dummies in cages. We were the only ones there but perhaps the most uncomfortable thing was they only served pilsners and they were $10 each.

Afterwards we walked to the crowbar, whose doorway lintel was topped by the statue of a 3-headed crow but I'd already had enough alcohol and asked to continue the bar hop some other night.