Ceci n'est pas un blog

Well, today is the anniversary of the rag tag American rebel alliance telling the Evil British Empire to sod off. An editorial in the Guardian says that George W. is a modern George III, who incidentally also had a middle name starting with W. Keith Olberman made a scathing personal statement on MSNBC last night accusing Bush of crimes significantly worse than those of Nixon and calling for his resignation. The values of Paine, Jefferson, Lee, et al. are much besieged by those whose invocation of "patriotism" is most loud. But this is much covered territory better articulated by more eloquent and informed people than I.

Every year the American community in Oslo holds a 4th of July get together in Frogner park on the 1st. Barbeque, country music, crafts, book swap, that sort of thing. We missed it. In part because we are in the middle of the rainiest summer here since the late 1800s; soggy mud fest doesn't appeal so much. However, I did go last year. This is also 1 year since I came for my face-to-face interview with Opera. The four day weekend providing perfect cover for my whirlwind trip (14 hours of flight time each way). My office was none the wiser when I arrived on the 5th that I had just arrived from a less than 2 day trip to Europe.

Last year at this time it was hot. The sun worshipping Norwegians crowded every green spot and balconey soaking it in. When I arrived, the room wasn't ready so I checked my bags, including all maps and guide books, and set out to find Karla and the Americans in Frogner park. Although, a crowd of Americans can be hard to miss. Through luck and dead reconing, I found my way and found Karla and was able to sight see and explore. That evening, I was grateful for the cold cold water here, having walked my feet raw. My spartan hotel room lacked the luxury of blackout curtains and I tried to prepare for my interview by resting, jet lagged, in the bright midnight light.

So now this holiday is also a personal day of remembering Karla's tour and advice and honesty about the expenses and difficulties of life here, of a strange interview day where my interviewers were constantly being called off to other small meetings and things were clearly chaotic in the office, of flying over mountains with snow filled valleys in the middle of summer and thinking "could we live here", of looking at 397 apartments to get to know the neighborhoods of a city we didn't even know if we would be moving to. It's been a busy year since then.

My coworkers seem pretty amused by the whole 4th thing and the Brits seem to feel that maybe it's for the best that the US split off from them, and we Americans in the office mostly take the opportunity to acknowledge each other and reassure our foreign colleagues that we're not all bullies.