Khrys weblog

We wanted to be brave and bought some Norwegian cheese before coming home. The good part is that this cheese travels well: it doesn’t smell much. But we had surprises when tasting them …

Cheese 1: Gudbrandsdalost (from Norwegian: “good valley cheese ?”)

This one wasn’t exactly bad. I even found some people who like it. It looks pretty much like some Edam, or perhaps some Cheddar, no smell at all, but the taste is … sweet ! No kidding, this cheese is sweet, it’s certainly the first time I try something like this (c’mon, sweet, what a weird idea ???). My opinion is that I’m not fond of it, but I don’t hate it either. It’s just plain different. And probably, there must be a way to cook something special with this. My advice: try it!
It seems to keep for months ! I had my colleagues try it. The average feeling is about the same, with a tendency to not liking it, except for two people who liked it a lot.

Cheese 2: Gamalost (from Norwegian: “old cheese ?”)

That one was … bad. Simply bad. I just couldn’t appreciate it at all. I don’t think I’m picky, and I love cheese. But that one, really not. Texture is like some granular outdoor house painting: it goes in pieces in your hands. The color is brownish and not inviting. The smell is not strong, bud bad. I mean, at least it won’t make your fridge smells for ages (not like some French cheese I know), but it doesn’t invite for a taste either. My thought was that a bad smelling cheese cannot taste bad (!), well, it can. I found one that does. Plus, once in your mouth, taste remains for long, and it’s hard to get rid of it. My advice: try it only if you are masochist-like, and send the rest to somebody you want to poison :)
Luckily, this one doesn’t last, and I already past the consumption date. I had all my colleagues try it, and nobody like it …

Congrats to those who guessed !

My girlfriend had won us a trip to Oslo, to assist to some of the Peace Nobel price events, like the CNN interview of Mr Al Gore and Mr Rajendra Pachauri by Jonathan Mann, or a dinner with the CNN crew, or even the Nobel Price concert. We got plane tickets and hotel for free, it was quite cool (and extremely lucky) !
On Monday, we had the interview and the dinner. I have to say I was impressed how weird it is to look at a professional politician talking. I mean, I definitely agree that we should do something about climate change, but I just couldn’t help but having the feeling that Al Gore could as well be talking bullshit ; his face and smile always look fake, whatever he says (at least to me) … it’s weird since I strongly believe all about the emergency of the GCC, but hearing it from a face that could say on the same tone : “I was fishing yesterday, I caught a whale with a pink chewing gum” … that was really weird to me. And to be honest, the interviewer, Mr Mann, wasn’t much better. I don’t know what are the unsaid rule in show business, but it seems that every time it got a bit serious for more than 2 minutes, he had to say something funny or completely unrelated like “how do you like Oslo ? did you have time to shop yet ?” C’mon man, is it so that people really couldn’t follow if it were serious for more than 5 minutes ??? On the other hand, Mr Pachauri was quite strong-minded and quick to mention how bad developed countries are handling ecology issues. I think I really liked his interventions :) I did learn something about Mr Gore, though. I thought he “discovered” ecology 2 years ago (sorry, can’t help but thinking they’re all opportunists), but it seems he’s been talking about the issue for a decade or two at least …

The concert was held on Tuesday evening, at the Oslo Spektrum. Hosts were Uma Thurman and Kevin Spacey, and among artists were the Norwegian Radio Orchestra, Kylie Minogue, Alicia Keys, Melissa Etheridge, Morten Harket (from A-Ha), Annie Lennox, Earth Wind & Fire, the 2 later ones definitely being the best performers that night (they even got standing ovations). Truly amazing concert !

The trip was also a very good occasion to visit the capital city of Norway, but that will be another post.

See you !

Hints :
we attended a globally broadcasted event on Monday and Tuesday, and we took this picture (amongst others):

We also took advantage to visit the city, so you can expect a post about it, with plenty photos !

Yay ! here’s a new map, that goes with this earlier post ; it should give you a better clue about where and what not to miss, if you are lucky enough to drive in that area :)

You might have noticed I changed something about the maps: now info and photos about places are in the left column. This leaves more space for the map, and might help those with a smaller resolution.

Enjoy !

It has be brought to my attention that my maps were “not working”, but that changing display resolution to a higher one fixed the issue.
I knew that not everybody was using the same resolution as I am, but I thought that people who weren’t, were using higher ones, and that there shouldn’t be any problem.
Surprisingly, it seems that about 70% are using too small resolution ! According to w3schools.com, 54% of people are using 1024*768 (!), and 14% are using 800*600 (!!!). Common guys, it’s 2007 ! upgrade !