Last Leg

Well folks, tonight is the last night in London. Tomorrow I'm going to get my arbitration on with Erik in a mock hearing, have some lunch, and then board the Underground for the last time to take me to Heathrow. But I'm not going home, well, at least not to Minnesota. I decided now was as good a time as any, while I'm still young, vigorous, and not tied down, to visit my ancestral homeland. Yes, I'm going to Norway.

I'm not secretive about my historical tendency to downplay my Norwegian heritage. I'm much more apt to trumpet my 1/8 Irish-ness. I think this is because of a couple of reasons, which basically all stem from wanting to be unique. First off, being from Minnesota, everyone is either Norwegian or Swedish (I am both). Second, I went to a college founded by Norwegian immigrants, located in the most Norwegian city in the entire world (Yes, that includes actual cities in Norway). Decorah is ridiculously packed full of people who are so tied down to their Norwegian heritage, it seemed to me to go beyond what was healthy. The wrongly labeled "Nordicfest" only confirmed this to me each July.

But I must admit, I did sort of miss going this year.

Quite reasonably, I think, when asked what my nationality is, I respond with "American." I don't qualify it with "Norwegian-American," or "Swedish-American," or "Irish-American." That seems to me to be a bit disingenuous, since I have little real connection to any of those places. Sure, like so many of my countrymen, my distant ancestors came over in a ship, but that rings somewhat hollow in today's "melting pot" society.

But lately, I think I've been re-evaluating my Norwegian-ness. I'm not about to go Nordic dancing, or put on traditional costume like the crazies in Decorah. But in deciding what I wanted to do as a final hurrah to this European adventure, I felt a sudden, almost primal need to go and see where I came from. I don't have any real accurate genealogical data, so I can't claim to go to the actual room where my great-great-great-great grandfather was born or anything, but I can at least see a bit. Time and money have prevented me from going up to the northern reaches of the country, where I guess my family came from, so I'm just going to Oslo and Bergen instead. I'm hoping to take a boat tour of a fjord on Thursday or so. And if all goes well, I'll return back to America with some sort of knitwear to remember it by.

It seems so prosaic to say I'm going to Norway to find out who I am, or something ridiculous like that. I joked around with some friends that I was on a "vision quest" of sorts, but that's probably not what will happen either. I think I'll just try to think a lot about where I am, why I'm there, and what that means in the grand scheme of life.

I mean, when you think about it, Norway seems like a great place for me to be from. It has spectacular natural wonder, a well-educated population, a commitment to carbon neutrality, and one of the most progressive social democratic welfare states in the world, funded by outrageously high taxes. How can you not love that?

Ha det!