King unveils largest cultural center built in Norway in 700 years

by Iva Skoch on

Is Norway planning to surpass Australia as the country with the “coolest opera building on the water”? Could be.

Norway’s King Harald V has just opened a $835 million white marble Opera House on the shore of the Oslo Fjord in the heart of the capital, BBC reports. From the outside, the most striking feature is the sloping stone roof, made up of 36,000 fitted pieces, which seems to rise from the water of the fjord.

The Norwegian parliament’s decision to approve its construction in 1999 ended more than 120 years of debate and waiting for a national opera house. The opera house is the largest cultural center built in Norway in 700 years.

Well, it is not exactly as photogenic as the Sydney Opera House, but maybe the photo doesn’t do it justice.

The world prepares for doomsday

by Abha Malpani on

As we work on trying to save our planet, it is disturbing to realize that we are also preparing for the ultimate global catastrophe.

A “doomsday vault” — which is a bombproof shelter dug into a mountain on a Norwegian island in the Arctic Ocean — has been built to store 2.25 billion seeds of important agricultural crops in the world, so that in the face of a global calamity, the world will be able to restart the growth of food.

The vault has already received an initial shipment of 100 million seeds from 268,000 varieties of wheat, barley, lentils and other crops. The $9-million, highly protected vault will keep the seeds cool as well as safe from potential flooding caused from foreseen ice-cap melting, for the next 200 years. More than 100 countries have supported its construction, although its ownership rights are with Norway.

So, in event of political instability, nuclear warfare, an epidemic, or large-scale natural disasters, we need not worry my friends, we and our children, and their children, will have food to survive.

We frequently hear that the world is in peril for many reasons and global leaders are putting their heads together to save the planet. Building such a vault is a smart and practical move but it also underscores the harsh reality that, no matter what we try to do, the world’s destruction is imminent, sooner or later.

Happy Wednesday.

Straight-up Scandinavia: Learning the language of IKEA

by Anna Brones on

I find that either you love IKEA or you hate it; you can probably ascertain my own leanings by the fact that I am writing this article. Coming from a Scandinavian family, we have friends who used to have stuff shipped from Sweden to the US before the store made its American debut — some people are just truly committed. But seriously, the company’s basic idea was pretty cutting edge back in the 50s when it started designing furniture. “Affordable solutions for comfortable living,” as the company’s motto goes, went along with flat pack and consumer assembled pieces. How intelligent to reduce costs by reducing the volume of a piece of furniture.

IKEA is a Scandinavian institution gone global, and despite whether you love it or hate it, you are bound to end up with one of its products at some point. I mean really, who can resist sleek Scandinavian design? And when you do find yourself with that Nordic sofa, bookcase, or lamp, you might be interested to know exactly what all of the funny names mean. Pyssla, Svala, Visdalen, Gök? Although it may seem like a jumble of Viking vowels, there is some method to the madness. IKEA’s founder Ingvar Kamprad was actually dyslexic, and he found that developing a system where products were named after places and things made it easier for him to remember them. Learning Swedish is great, but learning IKEA? Even better. A guide to deciphering the system that defines the IKEA language, thanks to a little help from the The Guardian:

Scandinavia unite:
Sofas, coffee tables, bookshelves, media storage and doorknobs — I agree, that last one is random — are named after places in Sweden; beds, wardrobes and hall furniture after places in Norway; and carpets after places in Denmark. And don’t think Finland gets left out; Finnish cities and places are the namesake for dining tables and chairs.
In the kitchen
Kitchens themselves — no, cooking in an all-Scandinavian setting does not require you to make meatballs — are normally named after Swedish grammatical terms. Going with the theme of cooking, kitchen utensils are named after spices, herbs, fish, fruit or berries. And just because Scandinavians are such believers in functional things, great words like Burken (meaning “the jar”) describe a line of spice jars.

Vad heter du? What’s your name?
Men’s names tend to go to chairs and desks while materials and curtains are women’s names. My mother has a nice set of place mats and chair pads named after her. I however, with a standard Scandinavian name like Anna, am far too common and get nothing.

Keeping the kids amused
IKEA’s great kids selection — I always get sucked in by the fun colors and random assortment of crazy stuffed animals — are named after mammals, birds and adjectives.

If you think you have all of that down, and have mastered the list of Scandinavian places and words, you can play the IKEA Game, where IKEA product names are picked at random out of a database and your job is to guess what the product is.

And if you are one of those IKEA-dreading individuals, you might want some help with IKEA survival during your next visit.

Straight-up Scandinavia: Reindeer and a national holiday up north

by Anna Brones on

In the far north of Sweden lies Lapland, a place known for snow, the summer midnight sun, and lots reindeer. This is the land of the Sami people and today, February 6th, marks the yearly, festive celebration of their national holiday.

An indigenous group of northern Europe, the Sami inhabit large parts of northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Kola Peninsula of Russia. They are known for their reindeer herding, a traditional occupation that has been handed down over generations. Unfortunately this year’s big holiday celebration is marked by a reindeer crisis; almost all of the grazing grounds having been declared disaster zones. Excess snow has led to much of the winter pasture land being inaccessible to the reindeer, and all but two Sami villages have had to apply for catastrophe aid.

The Sami are a strong people however — how else could you cope with almost all day winter darkness? — and despite the dreary reindeer situation, festivities are not being put on hold. Jokkmokk’s yearly market is a center of activity as people from around the region, both young and old, gather to sell traditional crafts to the hordes of tourists that flock in for the occasion. For this northern part of Europe that is stereotypically known for its calm and reserved personalities, the national holiday is an energized event. Elin-Anna Laber was quoted in The Local as saying, “Jokkmokk’s market is sort of a Sami equivalent to Milan fashion week.” Who knew the far north could be so crazy?

33-year old Czech woman is a 13-year old boy in Norway

by Iva Skoch on

If there is anything to learn from this truly bizarre case, it should be “do not overestimate cultural differences.”

Barbora Skrlova, 33, duped Norwegian police, classmates, child care workers and teachers for four months into believing she was a teenage boy named “Adam”. She went to school and all.

The kids in “his” classroom thought the boy was a “little strange”, but since they were brought up to be tolerant of different cultures, they didn’t think much of it.

The masquerade in Norway was just Barbora’s attempt to escape from an investigation in her home country, the Czech Republic where she was a key witness in a child abuse scandal. Wait, it gets worse.

Last year, Skrlova was found at a house in the Czech Republic during a raid by police investigating the child sex abuse case. At that time, she–successfully–posed as a 13-year-old girl called Anicka.The adults involved were said to be members of The Grail Movement, which follows the teachings of a 19th century German mystic.

A couple of days ago, she was deported from Norway back into the Czech Republic where she is being investigated.