Dream Team, C-Team, Baby
Back in Oslo! We’ve now realized that we will be going to the Oslo airport SIX times during our two weeks in Norway. It’s almost starting to feel like home base…
On our first day back in the South, we met up with Ole Andreas, his girlfriend, and his brother Dan. He took us to a place called Fangene På Fortet meaning “Prisoners of the Fort.” It’s sort of like a mix between a game show and an escape room. There are a bunch of rooms with individual challenges.
Some rooms require athleticism or technique, some require strategy or puzzle solving. Each room awards some number of points for successful completion or partial completion. The goal is to score as many points as possible. Our name? The DREAM TEAM. With a name like that we felt a bit of pressure to perform well. In the hallways between rooms are scoreboards showing the rankings of all the teams that are playing or have finished playing that day. We had a somewhat slow start, falling into a bit of a slump after becoming frustrated with a room that had a giant pinball machine requiring 3 players to simultaneously operate separate flippers. However, we soon found our calling. The athletic rooms were no match for our young bodies. Most of these more active rooms required pressing 3 hidden buttons simultaneously. The buttons could be at the top of a ladder, over a climbing traverse, or at the top of a slippery ramp. But they were always far enough apart that no single person could push multiple at the same time. In one room, Monisha impressed everyone with her maneuvering over two hanging ropes. She managed to use the wall and her upper body strength to make it across the room without setting off two motion sensors near the floor. As we found success after success, the DreamTeam rocketed up the scoreboard. We soon unlocked several VIP rooms by scoring over 1000 points. At the end of our time the DreamTeam had scored a total of 1915 points and stood in first place for the day. The closest team behind us had only scored 1594.
After our victory at Fangene På Fortet, we were all quite hungry. We took a bus to the Oslo waterfront and walked into a fancy burger restaurant. As we sat down, someone announced that a trivia game was about to start! We asked our waiter for a sheet and entered ourselves into the contest. Our name? The C-TEAM. This way we had little to live up to which felt appropriate. All the questions were in Norwegian, but Dan and Ole translated. Several of the questions actually related to American geography or pop culture giving us a good chance to contribute. After an evening of delicious burgers, sides that ended up being free due to their late arrival to our table, and many correct (and incorrect) answers, the results were in. With normal breath and average expectations we listened as they called out the names of just over 20 teams. And in third place… The C-Team! We happily accepted the lack of prize and left feeling surprised at our accomplishment.
The next night we went out to dinner with Torgeir, his wife Elisabeth, and their five-month-old son Abel. The drove us to the top of one of the hills overlooking Oslo. As the sun set, we dined on pizzas containing moose, reindeer meat, and lingonberries.
After dinner, we headed to their home in an Oslo suburb. It was delightful to spend time playing with, holding, and fawning over baby Abel. He is such a wonderful little boy. They told us he’s much easier than they expected; apparently he rarely cries, sleeps through the night, and is just a generally happy baby. He’s quite the kangaroo; he loved jumping up and down on Monisha’s lap.
On our first day back in the South, we met up with Ole Andreas, his girlfriend, and his brother Dan. He took us to a place called Fangene På Fortet meaning “Prisoners of the Fort.” It’s sort of like a mix between a game show and an escape room. There are a bunch of rooms with individual challenges.
Some rooms require athleticism or technique, some require strategy or puzzle solving. Each room awards some number of points for successful completion or partial completion. The goal is to score as many points as possible. Our name? The DREAM TEAM. With a name like that we felt a bit of pressure to perform well. In the hallways between rooms are scoreboards showing the rankings of all the teams that are playing or have finished playing that day. We had a somewhat slow start, falling into a bit of a slump after becoming frustrated with a room that had a giant pinball machine requiring 3 players to simultaneously operate separate flippers. However, we soon found our calling. The athletic rooms were no match for our young bodies. Most of these more active rooms required pressing 3 hidden buttons simultaneously. The buttons could be at the top of a ladder, over a climbing traverse, or at the top of a slippery ramp. But they were always far enough apart that no single person could push multiple at the same time. In one room, Monisha impressed everyone with her maneuvering over two hanging ropes. She managed to use the wall and her upper body strength to make it across the room without setting off two motion sensors near the floor. As we found success after success, the DreamTeam rocketed up the scoreboard. We soon unlocked several VIP rooms by scoring over 1000 points. At the end of our time the DreamTeam had scored a total of 1915 points and stood in first place for the day. The closest team behind us had only scored 1594.
After our victory at Fangene På Fortet, we were all quite hungry. We took a bus to the Oslo waterfront and walked into a fancy burger restaurant. As we sat down, someone announced that a trivia game was about to start! We asked our waiter for a sheet and entered ourselves into the contest. Our name? The C-TEAM. This way we had little to live up to which felt appropriate. All the questions were in Norwegian, but Dan and Ole translated. Several of the questions actually related to American geography or pop culture giving us a good chance to contribute. After an evening of delicious burgers, sides that ended up being free due to their late arrival to our table, and many correct (and incorrect) answers, the results were in. With normal breath and average expectations we listened as they called out the names of just over 20 teams. And in third place… The C-Team! We happily accepted the lack of prize and left feeling surprised at our accomplishment.
The next night we went out to dinner with Torgeir, his wife Elisabeth, and their five-month-old son Abel. The drove us to the top of one of the hills overlooking Oslo. As the sun set, we dined on pizzas containing moose, reindeer meat, and lingonberries.
After dinner, we headed to their home in an Oslo suburb. It was delightful to spend time playing with, holding, and fawning over baby Abel. He is such a wonderful little boy. They told us he’s much easier than they expected; apparently he rarely cries, sleeps through the night, and is just a generally happy baby. He’s quite the kangaroo; he loved jumping up and down on Monisha’s lap.
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