On being a hippy:
Last weekend i was so lucky to be able to be apart of World Wildlife Funds, in cooperation with the norwegian state, course in how to clean up after oil spills. I had my doubts about how fun this weekend could actually be, after looking at the program, but decided to do it anyway. I mean, we got free lunch and two free dinners at quite a nice restaurant, so i wasn't going to miss out! It turned out to be better than expected. The two main speakers where from Fiskebøl, in Lofoten, which says it all. Their company, consisting of 70 people, is twice the size of the towns population.. They were of course very norwegian- fisherman like, which for those of you who doesn't know what that is, ill try to explain.
this is VERY generalized! Norwegian fisherman, especially from Lofoten, have a very thick "L" for one thing, they have their own sense of humor which usually consists of stories that are remembered by a wink and/or a nod and a small sentence that makes sure NO ONE else has a clue as to what they are laughing about. They drink their coffee strong and black with maybe a sugar on the side, milk is for pussys, slurping as they sip from the cup (some might even pour it on to their saucer and slurp it from there) and think that they are the only ones who know anything about REAL manly man fishing, because the weather doesnt ever get as bad as it does in Lofoten. And no matter how harsh times you have had, they have ALWAYS had it worse. (they usually have as well). Their english; so-so.. they don't need it, why would they leave Lofoten, and who do these americans think they are?!
Anyway, now that we know that, these two guys, very concerned about the ocean and environment were very keen and passionate which made the course a fair bit more interesting, as power-point, by power-point went by. They managed of course to say a lot about how terrible americans are at cleaning up oil, and if THEY, the true men of the north had had a real chance of cleaning up the oil in the gulf last year, the world would pretty much be a much better place. It seems as if we might have had world peace if these guys had lead the way, no task is too small, apparently.
Knowing this, we tried our best to please these people and to make them proud as we sat around a 2 by 2 meter pool full of oil and tried to clean it all out. Its amazing how slow this work actually is, we were 5 people on this little area and spent 45 min cleaning the oil out! But its effective and it works.
My german greenpeace friend doesn't understand why all the people on the oil-cleaning pictures are so happy, i tried explaining to her that its either from all the free stuff one gets for being a "volunteer" that makes everyone so happy or the fumes one is constantly sniffing, but that didn't go down very well. Maybe its just from their great love of cleaning up oil instead, who knows. I was quite happy though, and so was my stomach after the weekend, sound mind, sound body...
SO when the next oil spill happens, i will be down in the muck and the mile and enjoying the free stuff, looking happy on pictures, sniffing the oil and doing the dirty work. I am a qualified oil-spill-cleaner, yes i am.
On becoming a pirate:
Its important when becoming a UNIS student that one knows how to drive a small boat, a.k.a Zodiacs. Don't ask me why this is important seeing as we are not allowed to borrow the zodiacs UNIS has, and we have no trips involving a zodiac, but hey im not complaining, i got to play around in a boat.
Day one of the course started out well, we learned how to put the boat together and how the engine works and so on. For a small boat, it sure has a big engine, i guess it needs to have to be able to go through these waters. However, the course took a quick turn in a completely new direction when the OTHER group, not mine, managed to blow up the floor of one of the boats.. well done.. so the rest of the day was spent inhaling glue on the floor, repairing what we had broken. I quite like fixing rafts, and this is practically the same, so two stars in the book later, the boat was good as new, maybe even better i would say as the cocky norwegian that i am.
Day two was even more exciting as we got to drive our own boat on the ocean. I don't know who's idea it was to put students like us, by ourselves, in our own boat, in the arctic ocean and just say: go, play... whose ever idea this was, THANK YOU. We were all looking quite stupid in our survival suits (see picture below), with a rifle and a flair gun bumping around in the boat, but thats whats needed up here.A word of precaution, dont wear a signal gun around your waist when jumping around in a boat, as landing on it will give bruising.
We were three happy monkeys in my boat and zooming around, jumping on waves, trying to surf and seeing how fast the boat could possibly go was quite an adventure. I dont think i can explain our face as we drove off, but it looked on some as if their jaw wasn't able to handle the hugeness of their smile.
It was quite windy actually and so we had great waves to jump along and really got to know what its like driving in rougher water. (nothing near rough water in Lofoten, of course)
of course, after lunch, in true style, things took a different turn again.. ANOTHER group managed to break their boat. No one knows how they actually managed it, but the whole front of the boat deflated and they needed to be towed in to land. Coincidentally this was the same group that exploded the floor the previous day.. need i say more? nay.
6 hours later, one boat less and no survival suit, we three monkeys were quite happy with the days proceedings and felt that yes, we are quite good drivers of this fine machinery, maybe even exceptionally good. Maybe even good enough to start doing this for a living, all we are missing is an arctic parrot, some rum and for my sake a beard.
YARR..
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