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Photos of Tonje and Auran's wedding in Oslo on Saturday, August 4, are finally scanned and posted. The wedding was tremendous fun, as the pictures show (I hope). If anybody else wants to post pictures, feel free to scan them and email them to me, or else send prints to Stefan Geens, 109 St. Marks Place #23, NY NY 10009.
There are many photogenic abandoned buildings in Belgium. Some of them are on a new favorite site.
Steve Greens, Steven Genes, Stephen Jeans--I've seen all possible permutations of my name written or pronounced by those unfamiliar with the soft lilt of the Flemish dialect. I've come to expect such mauling and quite happily lower my expectations for the sake of my sanity. Hence, in Oslo Airport, when the public address system announced, "Will Stefan Greens please go to the information counter," I gladly complied.
Once there, I identified myself, but was met with a puzzled look. "You're Stefan Geens," the woman behind the counter said, glancing up from my passport, "not Greens." I said I know, often people make a mistake when reading my name, but I don't mind really, so what is it you need me for? She remained adamant: She had called for Stefan Greens, not Geens.
In the rest of the world, the ending of this story would have involved me getting upset about the petty bureaucratic fanaticism of a bored airport employee with no imagination. But in Norway, this story ends with another paean to Nordic efficiency, with apologies to Uppington, who will nevertheless be gratified to know that it makes me look a little silly. For, as the airport employee explained, Stefan Greens had already come by the information desk to pick up his SAS ticket to Edinburgh. She then kindly apologized for my confusion.
Two days in Oslo is an experience of the near future, if you're an optimist. Everybody has a cell phone, debit/credit card use is ubiquitous, children are polite, the streets are clean, bikes rule, people are fat-free but not the food in the supermarkets... It's a blond utopian society, where the positive-sum game of social interaction is played with a remarkable expertise that is handed down from one generation to the next. My Norwegian friend Mette mentioned a murder rate of 40 per year for 5 million odd people--compare that to New York's 900+ murders a year spread over 10 million or so.
The honor guard at the Royal Palace certainly embodies this New Norwegian Way. At the changing of the guard, the officer on duty does not sheathe his sword or gesture with his rifle; instead, with deft, robot-like movements he hands his cell phone ceremoniously to his replacement, and marches off.
What is the secret that has turned Norwegians into the model world citizen after a well-publicized bad-boy phase around the turn of the first millenium? A homogeneous society? Centuries of plenty? A focus on rugged self-reliance and a consideration for nature? Perhaps it was the yolk of a rather stern brand of Christianity, the lasting legacy of which is mainly felt in the price of a drink around here. Add the genetic luck of the Norwegians to these prices and any Oslo bar could be a New York watering hole for the beautiful people.
Continue reading "Oslo"
