Dear Christmas letter
recipient, Pathetically well past Christmas 2008, as per usual
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Once
again we look around and find ourselves living in Norway, doing pretty much the
same things as we were last year, but Lord knows that’s never kept me from going
on and on about it to you in the Christmas letter. The expat life means a certain amount of
disengagement from the surrounding foreign culture and so there is less to fill
up one’s life. We’re so grateful for a
good church that helps fill our lives and give them meaning, but at times the
expat life does seem to be isolation interrupted now and again by the unbelievable
travel opportunities which are much of the compensation for living far from
home. We have been away from Calgary
four years now, and in Stavanger for 2½. In theory we’re about 18 months away from
moving back to Calgary and turning our daughter over to the corrupting
influence of some University somewhere, but we shall see. Other possibilities range from taking another
overseas assignment to selling apples on the street, given the recent economic angst.
Barb
continues to make the most of her years in Europe. During the last year she got on a plane and
ran off to both Venice and Prague with her expat lady friends. I don’t know what they did there, and I
probably don’t want to know, but they seem to have enjoyed themselves without running
up significant credit card bills. Not
having learned her lesson from previous years, she volunteered again as
glowering chaperone on the church youth’s mission trip to Thessaloniki,
Greece. There they worked on a number of
projects meant to improve the lives of Afghani and Gypsy refugees living in
that historic Biblical city. She got
seriously back into walking this year with the help of a couple of other ladies
who also don’t mind trudging head-down through driving sleet.
The year 2008
began ominously for the family as my last fully-functioning brain cell
succumbed to whatever it is that makes me this way, and I decided to sign up
for a ski marathon. Attempts at
intervention were made by loved ones, pastors and mental health officials, but
it was too late. I had been captured by
an unquenchable yearning to experience the wonder and mystique of….The Sesilåme. ‘What’s that?’ you yawn. Well, the Sesilåmi is a time-honoured and
traditional method of Norwegian torture involving a 52km (33mi) trek, crossing
the Norwegian cordillera in one day on skis. Over 1,600 people this year were sufficiently addled
as to participate in this. From the
Setesdal Valley on the other side of the mountains, the rugged track climbs
over 500m (1600 ft) in elevation up onto the barren ‘vidda’ or tundra plateau, crosses
more than 25km of arctic wilderness and
then descends to the Sirdal Valley near our home. Professional ski racers – which means just
about anyone with Norwegian citizenship – can do this route in 2hours
15minutes. You read that right. One group of racers was going so fast when
they passed me that the suction in their wake actually removed two of my dental
fillings! However, it took me ‘slightly’
longer to finish.
Convinced we both
were doomed to collapse and die hideous deaths in the frozen wastes of the
plateau, my friend Simon Churchfield and I nevertheless began training months
in advance. All too soon we found
ourselves at the start line in Setesdal, toying with the idea of a last-second
bolt for the bus and a comfortable ride home.
But then the starter’s gun went off and we were swept westward in a
surging tide of Norwegian testosterone. Simon, who is younger, (and if the truth was known, cheated by exercising
regularly and living a healthy lifestyle prior to the race), soon faded into
the falling snow ahead of me. I
then realized it was now Me vs. The Wilderness, mano
a mano. Valiantly I forged ahead, slicing
across frozen lakes, skimming over snow drifts tens of metres deep until I
joined the line of skiers ascending the precipitous pass. And then…The Top…O! The exhilaration of
reaching the mountain pass….the halfway point after
only 3½ hours! Perhaps Barb would not
become a penniless widow after all. But
then…disaster struck! Weather and snow conditions
atop the tundra plateau were the worst in 30 years and even the professionals
were reduced to a miserable, shuffling crawl.
No one’s waxes would grip the treacherous crust. It was like 1,600 pigs on ice. Nevertheless, on I bravely struggled, hour
after hour, mile after mile across the trackless wastes. Until 11km short of the finish I collapsed in
exhaustion. Well, actually I succumbed
to red tape. It turns out there’s a rule
that you have to stop at 4:00 pm and take a snowmobile the rest of the way if
you haven’t finished. And so….oh, the
shame, the humiliation of it all….I finished the last 11 of the 52km on my butt
in the back of a sled pulled by a snowmobile.
If you check out the Sesilåme website, I am one of 46 wretched
contestants listed as ‘brutt’ or ‘failed.’
But though I am bowed, I am not beaten.
I will prevail in Sesilåme 2009,
even if it (gasp!) takes eating less junk food (occasionally).
DREADED EUROPEAN
VACATION RECAP PARAGRAPHS: Safety
regulations in Norway require that all residents evacuate the country for at
least two weeks every winter. These laws
are quite strict and were enacted in order to protect residents against the
terrifying mental effects of spending an entire 8 month period without seeing
the sun or sky. Therefore it was our
duty in the interest of public health to go to the Canary Islands for a week in
February. The Canary Islands are a
province of Spain, just 100 miles off the northwest coast of Africa named not
for annoying yellow birds but because it was rumoured they were inhabited by
‘canis’ or dogs. Truth in advertising
would probably suggest we rename them now as the ‘Pasty-White-British-Tourist
Islands,’ but that’s not my call. We
stayed on the island of Tenerife, away from the beach resorts in a quaint
little village high on the slopes of the central volcano, Sierra Blanca, which
forms the island. Nothing
exciting…good food, a little exploring, a couple of impressive wildlife and
Sea-World type parks. Just nice
to have the sun more than 5 degrees off the horizon at noon.
Over the summer
we were forced to find a new house to rent and enjoyed 3½ months of anxious house
hunting in a tight market that kept us stuck in the city. And so to Katherine’s great relief there was no
epic Paukert driving vacation (you’ll have noticed gasoline prices dropped sharply
in July when we didn’t use as much petrol as world markets had
anticipated). But once we finally found
a house we took a couple of short holidays while Katherine was away at
camps. I just love the U.K. and miss
living there, so we went over to see the western bits they call Wales and
Cornwall, which are the only areas we hadn’t seen yet. I pretended I was having a mid-life crisis
(oh, wait, I am) and rented something exciting for once…a little red Peugeot
convertible. Thereupon we wended our way
west on country roads lined with hedgerows as far as Land’s End and up through
Wales, staying at my favourite….old stone country inns with coal fireplaces,
squeaky wooden floors covered by paisley carpeting, lounges with overstuffed
furniture and restaurants that serve steak pies and call desserts
‘puddings.’ I could wander around Britain
for months this way and never get tired of it.
Continuing with
my history of rakish, devil-may-care forays into lands fraught with danger, we
decided to spend Christmas in the Holy Land.
Sneering at danger we rented a car in Tel Aviv and began a self-tour
around the fascinating sites of Israel, both ancient and modern, including
Nazareth and the Sea of Galilee, the Golan Heights, the Dead Sea, Jerusalem,
Bethlehem, and the Dead and Red Seas.
Meanwhile, people started heaving bombs at each other in Gaza, only 25
km away at one point, and we witnessed the sobering sights of tanks training
along the highway and fighter jet contrails in the air overhead. But the highlight of the adventure was visiting
Bethlehem in the Palestinian-controlled West Bank on Christmas Eve. After a fantastic meal of hummus and falafel,
we enjoyed the celebrations in Manger Square and the twinkling lights
blanketing the Judean Hills at night.
Then, shortly before midnight we made the unwitting mistake of trying to
cross back into Jerusalem on foot at the military checkpoint….a definite no-no
which caused a number of Israeli Defence Force gentlemen to get all shouty at
us and also suddenly very attentive to their machine guns. There I stood, with my family on Christmas
Eve, hands raised in surrender as the gentleman in the balaclava yelled at me
in Hebrew and Arabic (I suppose)……Here’s a tip you won’t find in the
guidebooks: You have to take a taxi
across. And a very Happy Christmas to
you too, Sergeant!
And now, because someone
is going to have to continue churning out this drivel after I die, we give you The Katherine Paragraph:
So
I'm supposed to write about how my year has been and stuff, but I think most of
it was probably in the vacation part of the letter. I did go to Euroventure in the Swiss Alps
last summer again, which was pretty awesome with extreme sports like rafting
and a really huge zip line over a gorge.
We also did some rock climbing and what they called abseiling, but is
actually rappelling. I went to Malaga in
southern Spain with the school trip again, and the beaches were very nice. We also went swimming quite a lot and learned
some Spanish. For Spring Break I went on
a mission trip to Thessaloniki, Greece, which was really fun, but seems like a
long time ago. We cleaned up a
playground covered in weeds in a Gypsy camp, did some singing on the street,
and we got to go to a really cool hotel on the last day, which happened to be
the only day I was sick. So those were
my three main trips. I’ve been pretty
busy with IB, (International Baccalaureate which is for Grades 11 and 12),
which is pretty hard, and I recommend to anyone who does not have an IQ above
200 that they do not take higher level math.
Lastly, I have everyone at youth group pretty much addicted to the baked
goods I make and bring every week.
Our continuing
offer of free Norwegian bed and board will very likely expire in June of 2010,
so don’t delay, book today. We hope your
Christmas was wonderful and you have abundant reasons to thank God for his many
blessings in 2009. (Barb, alert the
media, I finished short of two pages for the first time!).
Love,
Gary, Barb, Katherine & Chaco the Wonderdog.
P.S.: This year’s predictably over-exposed Official
Paukert Christmas Photo was taken just down the street from our house,
overlooking Hafrsfjord, an arm of the North Sea, where we have determined that aliens
have established an underwater command centre and are planning to emerge one
night and attack the city, except we’re safe because the aluminium foil covering
our windows makes our house invisible to them.
Uhm, perhaps I’ve said too much…
