A Weekend in Stavanger

After two years of virtually no travel, 2022 opened the floodgates once again. In passing dinner conversation one night after a particularly dizzying spin class, Dawn and I flirted with the notion of booking a weekend away. Words became plans became a May weekend away in Norway's fourth largest city, Stavanger.

We arrived late on Friday night after the the emptiest flight I've ever taken. Not complaining--I had three whole rows to myself. Our hotel was right by the lake in the middle of the city and we pulled the curtains back the next morning to a view. 

Stavanger made its money in sardines, canning, shipping and oil, in that order. It's home to both a Canning Museum and a Printing Museum housed under the same roof; although you may think you have better things to do, they're actually pretty wonderful. Explore canned fish across the ages AND learn about how those cans got printed. There's not even a fishy smell for miles and the museum is in the middle of Old Stavanger, a settlement of 173 heritage wooden houses and narrow cobbled streets. 

From there, it's a short walk to the pub-lined harbour where an ugly view is hard to find. 

A stroll around the lake and a wander around the shops later, we found ourselves at the delicious Restaurant SOL, Stavanger's very impressive answer to fine dining. Three chef friends opened the place and it was doing a roaring trade. We opted for two courses of local sourced produce and fish with wine to accompany the multitude of tastes. 

Solastranden Beach

After a decadent lunch we hopped on the airport shuttle to Stavanger's closest beach which took us back past the airport and not too far from the city itself. The weather played nice and we were greeted with sunshine and the occasional bracing sea breeze. Hearty Scandinavian families walked, rode bikes and built sand castles on the shore making the most of the increasing daylight hours. 

We found a hotel bar just off the beach to enjoy a glass of prosecco before making our way back into town for a hotel rest and pick-a-mix stop. It turns out Norwegians love their weekend sugar just as much as their Swedish neighbours. 

Daylight continued to linger and as we headed home from dinner (a first time delicious Ethiopian food experience at Gadja in town) a few hours later at 10:30pm, it gave us perspective of how miserably dark winters would be. I'm not sure the spring into summer long days would be enough to get me through. 

Fjord Tour 

On Sunday morning, we made for the port to hop on a 3hr cruise of Lysefjorden and Preikestolen (also known as Pulpit Rock), Stavanger's most stunning natural beauty. Most people come to the city to hike the famous rock but Dawn made it clear there would be 'no mad walks up big hills. I know you, Jen.' And so we queued to buy tickets for Stavanger's number one attraction, by boat. Fate almost intervened when the cruise ships docked and the ship was nearly sold out. My advice: book tickets online in advance and avoid the drama. 

We opted for the outdoor top deck views and although temperatures weren't arctic, we were grateful for our hats, scarves and layers. 

The scenery was incredible. Every which way we turned, it was impossible to be disappointed. The water danced, reflected, shone in ways I did not know was possible. The air tasted just like you image oxygenated, pollution-free fresh air would--it made a stark contrast to any day in even blue-sky London. The entire journey was absolute magic. 

Debarking and making for the airport after a weekend of fresh air and blue skies felt like a bit of a let down. And clearly a weekend is not enough to really dive into Norway's beauty. So I'll keep it on my list of places to return to--next time I'll take that hike up the big hill. 

Give Rome a Chance

The small beauty of a recent Covid infection is that the fear of imminent reinfection dwindles. And with this, Paul and I lived in hope that we'd make it to Italy for our Easter holidays, our first time since the world shut down. 

Rome was not a first choice for either of us: Paul's parents burned him out on the tour of every church and Catholic artefact in the city (no small feat at over 900) as a teenager; and my memories of travel there involved August, intense heat, travel buddies who didn't get on, travelling on a very tight MA student budget and being followed by a strange man staying in our hotel. 

But it turns out that our options were limited and Rome was one of a few places we could fly to from Edinburgh, where we found ourselves after a friend's wedding that took place in the backwaters of Perthshire in Scotland. 

Fortunately, with time, experience and a bit more money, we found the true delights of the Italian capital. We minimised time at the Major Tourist Sites and based ourselves in the Trastevere neighbourhood, a former working-class, student enclave of the city. We took our mission of eating everything and walking everywhere to heart--by the end of the week we'd wandered 183k steps, shunned all forms of transport and consumed 3 of the 4 iconic Roman pasta dishes.

As a testament to our hearty appreciation, I have over 100 photos from this segment of the trip. I won't bore you with all of them but I will start with the food. If you, like me, are a bit overwhelmed by ancient grandeur and centuries of history, you could ignore this all and just eat your way across the city. 

Let me convince you.

The Humble Artichoke 

The Romanesco artichoke rules Italy from February to April every year--they dominate menus, markets and street corners across the city. From Testaccio Market to the Jewish quarter, you can find them in all their splendour. Accompanied by their other colourful companions, they make stopping for food something you want to do whether you're hungry or not. 

Romans cook artichokes two ways, boiled and deep fried. When fried, the leaves crisp up like chips and you just peel them off and eat. 

The Four Pastas of Rome

Before travelling to Rome, we happened upon Stanley Tucci's very foodie TV exploration, Searching for Italy. His episode on Rome is steeped in food history and some delicious tips about where to eat. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the pastas of the city have their roots in poverty and necessity. Flour was cheap, cheese and pork were plenty, and thus four iconic dishes were born. 

Pasta 1: cacio e pepe

Don't let the simplicity fool you, this pasta laden with pecorino and black pepper is a genuine delight. It's rich, creamy and very more-ish. I found myself ordering it again and again and even had a concoction of it in a suppli, a Roman-style deep fried rice ball. 

Slight digression: if you find yourself in Trastevere and want epic, local suppli, head to Suppli Roma, an institution feeding locals for over 40 years. Our B&B owner recommended it and we joined the queue several times over the course of four days to enjoy the array of gastronomic delights, including the cacio e pepe suppli! 

Pasta 2: amatriciana 

Paul treated himself to this feast of tomatoes, guanciale (pork cheek), pecorino and pepper. He raved. 

Pastas 3 and 4: pasta all gricia; carbonara 

We have no photographic proof of either of these pastas but the first is a lot like the amatriciana, minus the tomato and add eggs. Carbonara, well everyone knows that one, and it's a solid favourite. 

Aperitivo
Aperitivo, not a food but a way of life, is a uniquely wonderful part of Italian life. Consider it a pre-meal drink to 'open the stomach' before eating. Aperitivo hour lasts from roughly 18:00-20:00, depending on the part of the city (and the city) you're in. Italians love drinks with a bitter flavour --Aperol and Campari come to mind--and these reign supreme. But perhaps most charmingly, you cannot drink without a snack. Sometimes the snack is a bowl of olives, some grisini (breadsticks) or a little bowl of crisps. Other times, it's much more involved as we discovered in Piazza San Calisto in Trastevere.

Depending on the size of the snack will also dictate whether a bar will charge you or not. The 'snack' above cost us an extra 2 euro/person cover, hardly breaking the bank and really putting London prices to shame. 

Upon reflection of our Italian travels, we deduced that Rome did indeed take aperitivo the most seriously. And for that, we are eternally grateful. 

Breakfast

One other food tradition I hadn't quite cottoned on to in my previous trips to Italy (I blame staying in cheap hostels) was that of breakfast. Italians aren't big on it. A coffee (espresso, not Americano size) and sometimes a pastry predominate. Pastries are low key; they come plain, or filled with nutella, chocolate or pistachio cream. Often they're accompanied by a cigarette or three. As we sat in the institution that is Bar San Calisto and watched local life, the 95-year-old woman travelling with her wheelie oxygen tank put that stereotype to rights. 

We sat here for a solid two hours, watching the world go by. It was perfect. 

Gelato

Finally, it goes without saying that gelato is a solid staple of the Italian nation. Everyone loves it, it comes in its vegan sorbet equivalent and gelaterias dot every street. This is an all-weather, all-season food. Cup, cone, one scoop or three, everyone agrees. 

So. In short, if for nothing else, go to Rome for the food. Whatever else you find along the way will be a bonus. 

A Weekend in Amsterdam

Our weekend to the city a 45-minute flight from London coincided with Paul's birthday and the easing of covid restrictions across Europe. And we couldn't have picked a more beautiful weekend of weather for the city of over 160 canals. 

A'dammers filled the streets to sit canal-side moving their chairs with the sun. And we made it our mission to walk, wander and relax as best we could amongst these happy locals. We did very little of cultural significance (unless you count Febo, the introvert's dream hot fast food vending machine, as culture...we did):

We took in no museums, avoided most tourist hotspots and instead opted to see the city by foot and boat. 

Our hotel, The Albus, was ideally located right at the edge of the city centre, on the cusp of the canal belt and De Pijp, home to hipster cafes, a long, merry street of gay bars, the Heineken Museum and the Albert Cuypmarkt, a half-mile long outdoor ode to cheese, hot food and other random things you never knew you needed. 

It did not disappoint. The city built on marshland, off the ingenuity of windmills, dams and dikes is a stunner. Everywhere you turn is a waterway; the city is home to over 60 miles of canals. Big, small, tiny. They like their canals like they like their prostitutes in the windows of the Red Light District. And I've got time for them all. 

So what about the subsidence? It seems to add to the charm. And if you look closely at the photo below, you'll see a woman in a first floor window soaking in everything the sun has to offer. 

We wandered from De Pijp through the city centre to the even more charming Jordaan neighbourhood. We stopped for canal beers and more street markets. We took every opportunity to Just Be, something I'm often accused of struggling with.

Between canals, the city's streets were lined with signage, graffiti and reminders of the hub that Amsterdam once was/still is. 

Off a hot tip from my friend Lindsay who used to live in the Netherlands, we found our way to one of the city's many Indonesian restaurants, opting for the deliciousness of Indrapura in Rembrandtplein just a short walk from our hotel. The country's 'national' dish, Rijsttafel (translation: rice table), is the aftermath of Dutch colonial powers in Indonesia in the 19th century. Imagine the delight of a series of small and medium plates served with a huge bowl of rice and you can begin to imagine.

On Sunday we woke to less sun and more blustery weather but that didn't take the shine off the city. We hopped on one of those hop-on hop-off boats ubiquitous with famous waterways the world over. Our journey piped in interesting historical facts about Amsterdam,  its history and heritage, its moneyed, artistic past. And then we went shopping for Stroepwaffel, had a Heineken and made our way to Schipol via the cheap, convenient, reliable train network that crisscrosses the country. 

This ease put British transport to shame. Because of course when we landed at London City Airport later that evening, the overground wasn't working. And so we zigzagged our way through the city, venturing 1.5 hours from east to went to eventually find our way north wondering why the EU ever wanted anything to do with the UK in the first place. 

In the Interlude

Pardon me, life's been busy since Christmas. I wish I could say I'd been caught up in a travel whirlwind but reality is far more mundane. The Christmas covid episode grounded us in Michigan for 3 whole weeks--no trip to New Orleans, no indoor restaurant loitering, no hanging out in coffee shops. 

Mercifully, Paul's second case of covid was mild and he began testing negative on day 5. The rest of us stayed negative. So we swapped romantic meals a staircase distance away 

for walks in winter gear to downtown Rochester, walks in winter gear down busy city roads to the mall, walks past winter permafrost backyards, front yards, schools, walks. 

I saw three friends but at a distance: from 6 metres masked up in the youth room at my mom's church; in the backyard across a fire pit in winter clothes in -10 degrees. What unites us is the toll the last two years have taken--with family, with mental health, with work, with our personal journeys. But maybe that's just us getting old.

Home, Michigan, America is a complicated place for me. It's no lie (or secret) that I felt a huge sense of relief upon wheels down in London.

And then we ran pell-mell into Term 2 of our third year of pandemic teaching. Student attendance dipped and staff attendance saw an all-time low. Paul got sick with a different virus that hit him much harder than covid, rendering him briefly deaf in one ear, and we cancelled a weekend away out of London. I finally succumbed to omicron in early March and must humbly apologise to anyone at the school musical, my barre studio, the pub whom I passed the plague onto. Symptoms started on Thursday morning but I didn't test positive until Saturday and new 'live with it' guidance meant no quarantine until you test positive. Although it wasn't as rough as it could've been, I got it worse than Paul and missed four days of school. It's the first time in my 15-year teaching career I've missed that many consecutive days. 

Of course I tested positive the week before Paul and my weekend trip away to Amsterdam. I downed litres of water, crossed fingers and, against all odds, tested negative two days before our weekend away. And so, after three consecutive cancelled trips/part of trips, we made a flying visit to the Dutch capital. And not a second too soon.

I'm not sure about you but I've grown accustomed to shoving up long q-tip up my proboscis. In this pandemic world, I don't think there's a better way to wake up.