Lillehammer

Its just a few days ago I landed up here at a small town in Norway called Lillehammer. Talk to anyone about the city, the first impression you get is that its the place of 1994 Winter Olympic games (which was around 12 of February back in 94). My office is located at Fakkelgården (seems to be the hub of sports athletes during Olympics).

The other attraction attached to this place is the Lake Mjøsa (read myosa), which is the biggest lake in whole Norway. Lillehammer is actually located on the northernmost part of this lake. One day over a lunch discussion got to know quite strange things about this lake. During winters, this lake freezes to a depth that the surface is hard enough to drive a car or to land a helicopter quite easily on it. It was back in ancient times when Germans tried intruding Norway through to Lillehammer, Norwegians broke down an important bridge to prevent the intrusion but the winter season preferred the Germans, as they could easily land their air vehicles on this lake mjøsa. I saw this lake while driving from Oslo to Lillehammer from within the car, no one can believe that its a lake looking at its size, it certainly looks like a big river!

I can compare this city to a small hill station in India like Nainital or Dehradun. It is a hilly region, surrounded by mountains but displays the efficient infrastructure and magnificent architecture. The wooden houses look quite solemn and beautiful, it is in fact said that lillehammer preserves the beautiful wooden houses of even as late as 19th century. The city has one main street which is like a main market or a place where you can go for shopping, which is as big as the Brigade road in Bangalore but damn neat and beautiful displaying a traditional look quite opposed to the modern visual noise which we encounter in almost every big city today be it anywhere in the world for that matter.

Another observation which mesmerizes me is the presence of the small candles at the restaurants everywhere. They say that the burning candle makes the ambiance livelier, which I myself felt to be quite true, you actually feel good to see all the tables with a small lit candle. Whole room gains immense energy from so many lighted candles around. You can even encounter a big candle burning outside the shops, which signifies that the shop is still open, which are blown off only while closing the shop.

My accommodation has been arranged at Nedre Lundebekken; inside a small beautiful wooden house (completely engulfed with snow outside) about a Km and half distant from office, this place is actually the hostel for the college students here. And am sure its worth a sight for the people who haven't seen wooden houses and snow in life, it simply looks ecstatic.

Another concept of having your garbage sorted out at home in three different containers certainly needs attention. At home everyone maintains three different dustbins. A blue in color, to collect the paper garbage, a brown one should be used for the organic waste and the white one should be used for rest everything. And there are bigger dump baskets in a housing colony for different garbage. It’s every week that the govt. vehicles collect the garbage and dumps different kind of garbage at different places, which ensures that the plastic and paper can go for recycling easily and extra labor can be avoided for the same. Looking at the packaged content growing in its reputation, the disposal of plastic garbage certainly is becoming a global issue today and such simple efforts are worth an attention.

Although the Norwegians too have advanced and supposed to be quite well-to-do in monetary terms compared to the global standards. The divide between the rich and poor is like negligible (doesn’t mean that they don’t have riches and poor), the middle class here rules the society with a major share, I am impressed to see the perseverance towards their customs, traditions and culture, which is very much reflected in every small activity of their daily routine life.

Although it’s the winter season here, there is no way any activity is restrained on account of this snow. In fact Norwegians I believe get more enthusiastic during winters with their skii(s).

The kind of hospitality I’ve received so far is again euphoric and I indeed have several things to mention about. Usually the floor at my room gets so cold that it’s not possible to even stand on it and I didn’t have any slippers also in place, about which I mentioned to a colleague on Friday. On Monday before I could connect my laptop, I was presented with the warm woolen shoes by Kari. I came to know through her that these shoes are by the courtesy of Hilda. I was amazed to hear this because I don’t have anything to do with her except that we work in the same office and we even sit way apart. Somehow she got to know about the problem, she purchased these shoes especially for me. I was out of words about this enlivening experience, since she is not keeping well, I’ve still not been able to thank her. But while writing this blog, just today I realized that I could have at least called her up to ask about her health and thanked her for the same. Gosh! I shall do it tomorrow as the first activity.

Last Thursday I chopped my finger with knife, which let some 50ml blood ooze out of my finger. I kept sucking my finger whole night, pain was literally bad, and blood wasn’t stopping at all, after about 2 hours I even kept the finger inside the freezer to allow the blood to freeze, couldn’t even sleep whole night. But next morning the care and the concern shown by everyone was once again thrilling. A colleague (Bent) drove me all the way to office then to hospital then back to office and then to home inspite of the fact that, he was one of the key player in the delivery which was due in a few days and he was already short of time. Saturday I kept receiving the calls from colleagues, asking about the finger’s status. Another colleague who was on leave on Friday, showed a great amount of disappointment.

Simply overwhelmed.

For some pictures of lillehammer click here.