Dave Fox's Outbursts!

Thirsty?

Oslo, Norway

I work in Oslo as a tour guide each summer. I thought I knew all the cool museums in town, but after the wedding last Friday, we were whisked away to a private six-person reception at the Mini Bottle Gallery -- featuring the world's largest collection of miniature bottles (most of which contain or used to contain booze).

The museum is the pet project of Christian Ringnes, the eccentric fourth generation heir of the Ringnes Brewery (one of Norway's largest breweries). He started collecting miniature bottles at age seven when his father gave him a half-empty one.

One of the displays, which faces out onto the street, is a statue of Ringnes and his wife, clothed in capes made of mini Absolut Vodka bottles. The display got the museum in trouble for violating Norway's strict laws about advertising alcohol. They reached an agreement that they must remove one label from one bottle every month until all the Absolute labels are gone. The museum estimates the final label will be removed sometime in 2077.

The museum has 50,000 bottles in all, which was more than the six of us were able to finish.

(Photos coming soon if I can get my act together when I return home.)

Stealth Travel

Drøbak, Norway

Okay, so I made these cryptic announcements online about disappearing to an undisclosed location. Then I stopped blogging completely because I was busy. I am now in the aforementioned undisclosed location, and can now disclose it.

I’m in Norway, staying with the host family I lived with as an exchange student here 19 years ago. I came here secretly because Marius, my Norwegian host brother, and his partner Kari, finally got married on Friday after ten years of shacking up and raising a daughter together.

Marius called me in November, just hours after I had booked a non-refundable ticket to the Netherlands in early January, to ask if I could come for his wedding in late January. He was planning a top secret wedding. Nobody at all could no about it. But Norwegian law requires that each of the two marrying people has a witness who knows them well, and he wanted me to do the evil deed and play my violin at the ceremony. I couldn’t say no. I booked another plane ticket.

So for those of you who have been expecting travel reports from a more exotic undisclosed location, say Botswana or Antarctica or Wall Drug, South Dakota, forgive me. I could not announce online where I was going because nobody in Norway could know of my arrival.

It’s nice to be back here in the winter – my first winter trip here since 1993. The snow is crunchy. The leftover juleøl (Christmas beer) is yummy. The elves have gone to take their post-Christmas naps.

Marius and Kari got married on Friday as planned. We broke the news to the family on Satuday. It is now Monday, and Marius and Kari are still married. I’m here till Wednesday. It’s been a crazy, exhausting weekend. Stay tuned for more details.

The Wacky Stoner Cats of Amsterdam

Haarlem, Netherlands

It's my last night in this country, and I've got some blogging to catch up on when I get home. I'm staying tonight in Haarlem, a town outside of Amsterdam, visiting my friends Maggie and Steven.

Whenever I tell friends in America I will be in or near Amsterdam, I end up having the following conversation:

Them: Amsterdaaaaaammm! Duuu-huuude! Woooooooooo!

Me: Excuse me?

Them: Woooo hoooo! Dude! Amsterdam, dude! You can, like, get stoned there!

Me: Ummm... yes. I can get stoned in America too if I choose to, so what's the big deal?

Them: No way dude!

Me: Way. People do it every day in America.

My point is this: There is a breed of American tourist that comes to Amsterdam for the sole purpose of smoking pot. They spend a thousand bucks on a plane ticket to go sit in what the Dutch call a "coffeeshop" and inhale for several days. When they get home, and you ask them what they did in Holland, they reply, "Duuuuuude! Hoooooweeeeee! Ummm, I don't really know."

This wouldn't be so bad if the people doing this were, shall we say, law-abiding Americans who would never touch an illegal substance in their home town and are truly coming here for a unique cultural experience. There is something refreshing about the decriminalization laws here that is worth experiencing if you choose to. But the people who come here for the sole purpose of smoking do so with drooly, stupified grins on their faces. The people who come here just to smoke are the stoners who smoke up every day at home anyway. It's a hell of a lot of money and time to spend doing the same thing you do at home on a daily basis. Like... at least go visit the Anne Frank House or something. Seriously, dude, your dealer will still be waiting for you when you get home.

The truth about coffeeshops in the Netherlands is that they tend to be frequented by foreigners more than Dutch people. I'm generalizing, of course, so if you happen to be Dutch and stoned right now, it is not necessary to write to me hate mail telling me Dutch people smoke pot too. I get that. But people in other countries need to understand it's not the screaming national pastime here that they might think.

But you are not Dutch. (Unless you are.) And you have been thinking, "Dave in Amsterdam! Marijuana marijuana marijuana! We want stories about marijuana!"

Okay. I do my best to give my readers what they want. So here is a quick story for you:

I was sitting in a bar yesterday, having a beer (yes, just a beer), when a guy named Martin told me the shocking tale of Freek and Sipke, the Dutch Stoner Kittens.

Martin was cat sitting for a friend, and decided to inhale a little bit. As he sat on the couch and lit up his joint, both cats came bounding into the room and jumped in his lap. He did what he could to blow his smoke upward, out of the kitties' reach, which inspired the cats to start jumping in the air as high as they could. Eventually, the cats' athletic skills faltered to the point that they could jump no more. They munched some food and went to sleep.

Martin's friend called an hour later. "I forgot to tell you," she said, "whatever you do, don't smoke pot around my cats. They're addicted."

The moral of the story? Hell, I don't know. It's the middle of the night here. I have insomnia, and a plane to catch in eight hours.

The reason the story is in my blog? Because I know I've got readers out there waiting for tales of my marijuana escapades in Amsterdam, and when it comes to my personal habits, let's just say I follow a don't-ask-don't-tell policy in public. Rambling on about all of my wacky adventures in the coffeeshops would be too much of a cliche anyway. But rest assured, the cats here are happy.

Just Like Chicken?

Groningen, Netherlands

I'm in the Netherlands on a quickie vacation, visiting my friend Erin, who is studying in the north part of this country for a semester, and my friends Maggie and Steven, who live in Haarlem, a city near Amsterdam.

I'm worried.

Yesterday, Erin and I went into Albert Heijn, a Dutch grocery store chain, in search of something for dinner. The store was plastered with posters announcing "Hamster Weken" -- Hamster Weeks.

I think I might make another attempt at vegetarianism.

Whining About Wine

Groningen, Netherlands

I am on the ground, in a land below sea level. Time for blogging is limited.

Seattle to Amsterdam via Washington, DC on United Airlines.... I usually fly SAS to Europe. I'll stick with them from now on for reasons too complex to go into. But there was one incident on United that I must report.

The airline has just started charging 5 dollars per drink for all adult beverages on their international flights. In the past, drinks have been free, to compete with the standard practice on European carriers.

Fair enough. Times are tight in the travel industry. But when I handed the flight attendant a ten dollar bill for an airplane-sized mini bottle of wine, he asked me if I flew United often. I thought maybe he was going to just give me the drink for free. When I answered yes though, he asked if I would like a voucher instead of the five dollars change he owed me.

"A voucher for what?" I asked.

"Another drink."

"Huh?"

"Some people like to have two drinks."

The incident reminded me of the time when I was about six years old, and my mother gave me 50 cents for an ice cream sandwich from the Good Humor Man. Instead of giving me my change as he should have, the ice cream man kept asking me, "What else do you want?"

I learned from the Good Humor incident. I learned that if I accepted something I didn't ask for instead of my change, my mother would be very angry at me. And we can't have that. So on my flight to Amsterdam, I did what my mother taught me. I told the flight attendant I did not want a voucher, and to please give me my damn change, and no I did not want fries.

Next thing you know, they'll be trying to sell you an extended warranty to go with your drinks.

Happy Nieuwejaar!

As I start writing this, it's 1:27 a.m. Pacific Time on January 1, 2006. I was supposed to be in bed 27 minutes ago. I am supposed to be awake in less than three hours.

My friend Marco is supposed to pick me up at 5 and drive me to the airport. I've been a believer in karma for a long time, and I'm not sure what I have done to deserve a friend who will drag is ass out of bed at 4:45 a.m. on January 1 to drive me to the airport. Whatever it was, I can't remember doing it. I must have been drunk.

My flight leaves Seatac Airport at 7:10 a.m. I change planes in Washington, DC, at Dulles Airport, where I was just five days ago, and arrive in Amsterdam at 6:55 a.m. January 2. It will be my first trip to Europe, purely for vacation purposes, in three years.

I was going to try to come up with witty banter about life in 2005, but that's been overdone on TV tonight. Plus, I really should go sleep for a few minutes, so I will spare you.

Happy New Year everybody!