We followed the same formula as yesterday and did a good schooling session in the morning.

I have forgotten to mention that we finally managed to get hold of a Macbook Air of the type we wanted. All 3 kids can now do school work on a computer at the same time. They have learned how to use the annotate function in Preview and put in their answers directly into the books. They use Excel and Word in addition and never have to use pen or paper. It works like a charm. It´s still a challenge to make sure they make the necessary progress, but we´re getting there now.

The solution for getting the Macbook Air was using the Apple online store. The challenge was that Apple refused to deliver to a US address when I used a Norwegian credit card. They really didn´t want my money. In the end I filled out my address in Oslo as the credit card billing address with Tennessee as my home state and US as the country. The machine complained that my zip code was not valid. On a hunch I added a 0 in front of my 4-digit Norwegian zip code. Presto! The picky system decided to let me pay after all.

It was interesting to follow the machine´s path across the globe. 3 days after I ordered it it had been produced at a plant in Shanghai and handed over to FedEx. It then flew to Anchorage in Alaska before a short rendevouz with FedEx headquarters in Memphis and a small interstate trip through Tennessee before reaching me in Chattanooga.

Those types of chains of events and the way the globe has shrunk in the last century has always fascinated me. When my paternal grandfather grew up in rural Norway the world for him was about 3 orders of magnitude larger than mine is today. For him, in the 1910s, going to the local village, Skarnes, by rowing boat, was a day trip. Going in to Oslo was an adventure and a different world. Going across the Atlantic was something people did with the intention of never coming back, like his brother-in-law did.

Today it takes me an hour by car from Oslo to where he lived. Going from there to Skarnes is a 10 minute drive. I have held presentations in Bergen, the other side of the country, and I have done it as a day trip. People now go to New York from Oslo on weekend trips.

It has not even been 100 years and the perceived size of the globe has gone down by about 3 orders of magnitude. I can type into a computer in Chattanooga and a factory order is made in Shanghai.

The world has in many ways become a village. It´s cliché these days, I know, but he ramifications for mankind are still mind-bogling. A hundred years ago, what you did on a day to day basis would normally have consequences in a radius of a few kilometers. Today, what we do, what we shop, what we eat and even what we chose to listen to or watch often has consequences all around the globe.

The world is truly a village and we all live or die with that village.

Our hunger for consumption and energy usage is skyrocketing as the perceived size of the globe gets increasingly smaller. Politicians are talking and things are happening, but they are happening way too slow. In 1965 world energy consumption was 2 terawats per year, in 2005 it passed 5 terawats. According to Wikipedia it has been estimated that more than half the energy produced by man since the industrial revolution has been consumed in the past two decades.

Uh, yeah, sorry.

Today´s park was Epcot.

Epcot is split in two. One part contains pavilions from 11 different countries (both Norway and France are represented). The other part contains different types of attractions where the earth and the future seem to be the common theme.

What a contrast to yesteday´s packed Hollywood Studios! The part of the park with rides felt empty in comparison. Except for the 2 most popular ones, Test Track and Soarin´, there were practically no waiting times. We had a ball!

Early on we met this duck:

One of the first attractions we did was a short movie for children about how we use too many of the earth´s resources too fast, how we pollute and make animals extinct. The finishing line was that you have to start with yourself. It was well made and the kids got the message.

We went straight from this movie to the restaurant area. The only option was single usage plates, glasses and cutlery. There was lots of packaging around most food options. I took a look around and tried to imagine the amount of unnecessary garbage created in that place every hour. The double-standard was frankly embarrassing. I find it incomprehensible that they don´t try to do something about this. In a way it was a striking symbolic example of how we deal with poor old mother earth.

On the positive side we took an interesting ride which, much to our surprise, brought us in a boat around a greenhouse where there is research going on in alternative ways to grow food. It was really impressive to see how they grew lots of stuff in simulated dry environments with minimal water.

There was an experiment where plants grew in the water of a fish farm. Fish fart, plants grow from the fertilizer. Neat.

The best ride, without comparison, was the Mars ride simulator. It came in two versions, a light ride and a heavy duty ride. The boys and I took the heavy duty one, and we all did the ride twice. You sit in a simulator pod which is spun around like a centrifuge to create horse-kicking G-forces. You really get to feel what it´s like to sit in a spacecraft at liftoff. This must have been way more than the 4G we experienced in Huntsville. The geek and coolness factor meter in my brain maxed out completely.

There was also a Nemo ride where computer generated images were displayed on aquarium glass. Nemo was swimming with real fish. Cool illusion.

We managed to get fast passes to the two rides with long waiting times. They were both for the late evening, 8-9pm. We wandered into the pavilion part, where there were lots more people,  We met with the mexican Donald Duck

and saw a great movie about China. We also, of course, stopped by the Norwegian pavillion.

The kids didn´t quite believe that the employees there spoke Norwegian. In the end Viktor dared to ask one of them in English if she spoke Norwegian. She answered in fluent Norwegian. Test passed.

It was now starting to get late and we were a bit stuck time-wise since we were getting hungry and needed to wait for our fast pass time slots. There was a food festival on and lots of unhealthy food in small and expensive quantities was available. Not very tempting when you are hungry for dinner.

I admit it straight out. When my blood sugar gets low I change personality. I become aggressive and snappy. I get a headache and the world is my enemy. Hélène says it´s the closest to PMS she has ever seen in a male.

I was getting rather unsympathetic at this point, according to my better half. We decided to go over to the French pavilion to see if they had some decent fast food stuff available. Unfortunately the French have much too good a reputation for food and the lines to get food went all the way into the horizon.

OK. I suggested to change the plan and go to the French restaurant at the pavilion instead. We had little time, but it should be possible. Hélène didn´t dare say no. The restaurant was full. Despair. Hunger. Pain.

I remembered having read that there was one more restaurant, so I parked the rest of the family with a “STAY HERE!” and started scanning the French pavilion. In the “back alley” there was a rather small door with a lady behind a restaurant type seater´s counter/table. YES! Without hesitation I asked for a table for 5. We got one. We were in!

I fetched the other four and as we were taken upstairs I started to wonder what kind of place I had brought us to. It turned out to be a French gourmet restaurant, complete with white table cloths, champagne coolers and French waiters who cut your food by the table. OK, upgrade from the greasy Frankfurter sausage I didn´t have at the German pavilion.

On the kids menu they seemed to have decent stuff. At last, a good nutritious French meal for the kids. They all had a look at the menu and decided to go with a croquette de boeuf, also known as a steak haché. A classic kid´s dish which is basically a steak made from ground beef.

I noticed, and found it a bit odd, that it was served with brioche, a French type of sweet bun, which you normally don´t have with your dinner. Since I only read the French part I didn´t even notice the mention of the fries. Sometimes your brain can be slow, especially when you are low on blood sugar.

Here is what the kids were served:

Haven´t I seen that dish somewhere before? And it wasn´t in a French gourmet restaurant, I´m pretty sure.

Oh well, one more cannot make all that difference, and for the kids it was better than some fancy gourmet food. They were happy as you can see. Hélène and I were also very happy with our food:

Beats a Frankfurter hands down! (let´s not mention the check, shall we?)

We managed to use our fast passes and were quite satisfied after another great day at Disney World.

The grownups are especially happy that we managed to combine a good school week with top fun for the kids.

That concludes the US chapter of our story. Tomorrow we´re really heading south. South of the equator.

Eirik

—–

We learned yesterday that school in the afternoon/evening does not work very well when we´ve had a day full of activities. We tried a new formula and did school in the morning, Much better! Everyone worked hard and we kept going until 1pm.

After some lunch we headed over to Disney Hollywood Studios, one of the four parks that make up Disney World. According to Wikipedia Disney World is the worlds largest and most visited recreational resort, covering 121 square kilometers (30 000 acres). It is also the largest single-site employer in the US with 66 000 employees. There are more people working here than there are inhabitants in the city of Tromsø. This baby is huge!

To our surprise we quickly discovered that November 11 is Veteran´s day and a school holiday. The park was completely packed. As we arrived a parade started and I went on a reconnaissance mission while the rest of the family watched the parade.

At the parks, as they have at Eurodisney in Paris, they have a so called fast pass system. It basically means that if you are patient you can put your park ticket into a machine that gives you the right to go in front of everyone else in line for a specific attraction during a specific time window later in the day. Of course, for such a system to work there can only be a very limited number of these available. I did the rounds and checked every single fast pass option in the park. There was not a single fast pass left. In addition the shortest waiting time for an attraction was 90 minutes. Ouch! Note to self: Check for holidays in the countries we are going to visit.

The parade was a good start for the kids with lots of dancing and jumping:

We ended up splitting in two. The girls went to see The Little Mermaid and the boys headed for the Aerosmith roller coaster. After 45 minutes in line for the roller coaster the speaker announced that due to technical problems they were forced to close the attraction. We were not amused.

OK. What now? I changed strategy from rides to shows and we bumped and elbowed our way to the other end of the park. We arrived at the Indiana Jones stunt show just as it started. Only standing room, but we are young and healthy, after all. The boys were very happy and the show was not bad at all.

We wandered a bit more around and watched some other less impressive stuff. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed that all the good stuff was blocked by ridiculously long lines. The model of selling day passes breaks down when so many people are allowed to enter the parks. I wonder if they even have a limit.

We decided to put all our remaining chips on one pot and managed to get seats to the fantasmic show an hour before it started. It took an hour of sitting, but it saved the day. Cool stuff! The stage was an artifiicial mountan-like hill on the other side of an artificial lake. Water sprays from the lake formed a thick mist that was used to project movies, Original and impressive.

In the end they burned the entire lake. Wow! Adrian, Viktor and I started discussing how they did it. Was it gasoline? Was it gas bubbling up from the bottom, or something else? We were intrigued and ended up betting on the gas theory.

Afterwards we even managed to get in to the most popular ride of them all, the Toy Story one. It is fascinating how the Disney parks have taken the art of waiting psychology to new levels. Waiting areas often seem larger than the attractions themselves. It has all been thought out in detail. You cannot see the end, so you never know how far you have to go, but there are always small hints. There are expos on the way. For this ride we needed 3D glasses. They are handed out about half way through the waiting line. Something happens and you feel better about standing in line. Both these photos are taken inside the waiting area for the ride:

Finally, after an hour, we arrived:

We all agreed that it was worth the wait. Shooting at targets in a virtual 3D world with computer generated ammo was way cool! Adrian became family champion with 125 000 points. I was defeated by a mere 2000 points. What a disgrace! The new generation is already taking over the gaming throne. What a shock and realization that I have passed my best years. It is too early, Lord, I am not ready yet!

On our way out of the park we were reminded that Christmas is getting closer:

All in all a very good day, after all.

Eirik

—–

Disney World!

Oh, the taste of that name.

October, 1971. I am watching the opening of Disney World on TV together with my parents and my sister. There is a gigantic parade. There are lots of well known Disney characters, happy dancing people and smiling children. It is one of my first clear memories. I was just a little over 5 years old. I don´t know if the subject was brought up by my parents or if it was me, but I remember my mother telling me that, no, we were not going there. I remember the strong feeling of resignation and longing and unattainability. If there was one sure thing in this world, it was that I would never be able to visit this children´s paradise. To me, as a child, it was the symbol of everything that was great about the US.

3 years later my father was assigned to work in Alabama and Tennessee, an assignment that would last almost 2 years. The unobtainable dream was going to come true.

We went to Disney World and it was everything I had hoped it would be. For some reason the “Dumbo, the flying elephant” ride became the symbol of Disney World to me. I think it was the realization that I could control the elephant´s height myself that blew me away. I discovered it after the ride had started. I think my father shouted at me to use the joystick. I remember the feeling of deep happiness as I lifted the elephant into the sky.

So, dear reader, this is the backdrop you must know to understand what Disney World means to me. For all our 3 children we have given them a trip to Eurodisney with me (my mother has joined 2 of the times) as their 6th year birthday present. I have loved it every single time.

Sure it is superficial. Of course it is plastic fantastic. Yes, it is very American and focused on consumption and 2-dimesional and  the philosophy is that dreams come true and that either you are brave and good or you are cruel and mean. Who cares? It´s done with quality and it´s great fun.

So, this time we were the whole family. It took me a little bit, not much, but a little bit of time to convince Hélène to add Orlando to our itinerary.

We managed to catch the shuttle to the Magic Kingdom at 9:40 and then took the monorail to the park.



The monorail was a sensation of a technological wonder last time I was here. It was strange to once again take the “train that goes through a hotel.” I remember so well the monorail trip 35 years ago and the anticipation that went with it. Zipping though the hotel I was an 8 year old kid again.

The weather was fantastic. Not a cloud in sight and 27 degrees C (80F). Nice to be in shorts again after the cold spell in Atlanta. There were relatively few people and waiting times were pretty low (maximum around 20 minutes).

The Magic Kingdom here and the park in Paris are built almost identically. Navigation and selecting the best rides was no problem. It´s really a strange feeling to navigate through a place as big as this, and move around it at ease, when you know the detailed map in your head was actually made in a place on the other side of the Atlantic.

Racing cars was fun. Iseline in full concentration:



“It´s a small world” was a must. It was Iseline´s favorite ride in Paris, and we did it 5 times there:

And of course we did the elephants, they hadn´t changed a bit in 35 years:

We did Space Mountain, the indoor roller coaster in the dark. We´ve never been able to do it in Paris, since the kids haven´t been tall enough when we´ve been there. This time the whole family could do it.

We did lots of rides and shows, covering as much as we could.

Our ambition was to go back to the hotel early and do some school. However, 3pm soon became 4pm, and as we were about to leave at 4:15 Iseline discovered a prince and princess show. Bad parents as we are we gave in to her “But I came here only to see this!” screams and soon it was 5pm:



It had been a long day:

We had more than enough in gaining energy to have dinner and decided to do half a day of school tomorrow morning. We had had a great day at Disney World. The magic is still there.

Eirik

—–

Ce matin, lever très tôt pour aller prendre l’avion pour Orlando. On craignait l’heure de pointe, mais la circulation dans Atlanta n’est pas aussi chargée que dans New York et Washington. De toute facon, l’aéroport se trouvant à l’extérieur de la ville, nous étions à contre-sens de la queue. De plus la voie rapide “car pool” pour les voitures avec 2 passagers ou plus fonctionne très bien.

A l’aéroport, pas de stress particulier. Pour une fois, on était dans les temps. Il faut quand même dire que l’on prévoit maintenant de la marge pour le contrôle de sécurité, car la valise d’Eirik bourrée de joujous electroniques coupe le souffle à la plupart des agents de sécurité. On a eu des commentaires comme “Je déteste ce type de valises” ou bien “Quelle quantité d’electronique!!!”. Eirik range méticuleusement sa valise avant le départ, puis regarde avec patience quand les contrôleurs de sécurité la vident complètement en inspectant chaque objet dans tous les sens. On crée ensuite un bouchon dans la queue du contrôle de sécurité le temps de recupérer toutes nos affaires et refaire la valise…

Voici trois voyageurs très expérimentés. Ils se débrouillent tous seuls et sont très “sages” dans les avions

Photo obligatoire de l’avion pour Marius: un Boeing 757-200

Arrivés à Orlando, la différence de température était sensible. On a retrouvé des températures estivales. Bien agréable quand on pense qu’Oslo a connu la première chute de neige de la saison et qu’il y fait environ moins 5 degrés C.

Ici un prix est rarement TTC. Il faut rajouter environ 15% de pourboire dans les restaurants. Dans notre taxi, les touristes n’ont plus à se poser de question. Le panneau est suffisamment explicite… Il est vrai que les gens sont tellement mal payés dans de nombreux métiers de services, qu’ils ont grand besoin des pourboires pour gagner décemment leur vie.

Nous nous sommes installés dans notre hôtel, avons repéré la piscine extérieure et entamé le travail scolaire du jour. Après quelques heures de travail concentré, on avait la piscine pour nous tous seuls. Pas étonnant quand l’eau est à 19 degrés et que le soleil est caché. Mais 19 degrés, c’est une température tout à fait normale pour se baigner en été en Norvège, alors pas de probléme! Heureusement, il y a aussi un jaccuzi pour les plus frileux.

On a dîné à l’hôtel, pour gagner du temps. Pas étonnant que l’obésité soit un problème grandissant aux US, quand on voit ce que les restaurants proposent au menu enfants…

Ce soir, coucher tôt pour être en forme demain. A nous Walt Disney World!

Hélène

In the morning we went back to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Site. Mike had told us that the place we went to last time was run by King´s family and that across the street there was a museum run by the National Park Authorities which was much better. Strange setup. We did not see any indication at the family run museum that there actually was another one nearby.

In my opinion Hélène was much too kind when blogging about the center run by the family the other day. That place was a disgrace to the memory of Dr. King. The exposition was already disappointing 10 years ago. This time it looked like the only maintenance that had been done during the last 10 years had been the regular cleaning.

There was a wall with an overview of every year of his life after 1955. The paper was starting to get yellow and the corners worn in some cases. The boys were very interested and I ended up translating everything for Viktor. It was pretty embarrassing to have to skip two of the most important years, 1963 and 1966, because they were missing(!), as you can see below. Someone must have torn them down and they had not been replaced.

We were very happy that we went back to see the other museum, and the boys got to learn a lot more about Dr. King and the civil rights movement. It was difficult for Iseline to grasp what this was all about, but there was a separate small expo aimed at small children. Iseline was moved and impressed by this little girl:

Our kids have grown up with children of all skin colors around them and I found it very difficult to explain to them what had happened in the not too distant past.

There were many screens set up where videos where shown that documented some part of the struggle. All well made and thought provoking.

It seems so distant today, but racism is still alive all around us, even though it now often takes different forms and shapes than the crude way it was expressed some decades ago. Personally I find the current trends in Europe quite disturbing, with more and more political parties winning votes by playing on people´s fears and subconscious tendency for racism.

The feeling that different races have different values is unfortunately still subconsciously alive in most of us. I remember reading the autobiography of a black man living in South Africa some time ago. In it he tells the story of when he is outside South Africa and boards a flight with a black pilot. He is terrified of the thought that his own life is dependent on a black pilot´s ability to safely fly a plane. His first thought is to get off the plane immediately, but he manages to control himself. The man was Nelson Mandela. Even he had not been left untainted by the racism around him.

The museum was not exceptional, but it was good enough, and it had very powerful stories to tell. What a contrast to the Coca Cola museum!

The so-called 4D movie (Who came up with the idea of calling water splashes and a few blowing fans a new dimension? Don´t marketing people learn that a new dimension must contain infinite copies of all the other dimensions?) at the Coca Cola museum was for me the symbol of how capitalism in no way is the most efficient way to spend a society´s resources. That enormous movie theater with all the bells and whistles and the production of their movie must have cost several decades of MLK center budgets. And they used it to show a movie that was all special effects and no substance. They had no other story to tell than that Coke makes you happy and that they are good at logistics. The kids said flat out that they didn´t like it.

It reminded me of the famous statement Steve Jobs used to get John Sculley to jump from Pepsi to Apple: “Do you want to sell sugar water for the the rest of your life or come with me and change the world?”

Am I drifting again? Sorry.

Outside the museum was this colorful wall:

Next we headed over to the Georgia Aquarium, the world´s largest aquarium measured in volume of water. Outside the entrance Hélène took this beautiful picture showing the Coca Cola museum and parts of downtown Atlanta.

The kids loved the aquarium. Especially impressive was the tunnel under an enormous water tank with no less than 4 whale sharks (the world´s largest fish) swimming around with many, many other species. You could even sign up for swimming in that tank(!) in the evening.

Iseline and a penguin giving each other a stare:

Good bye:

Hello!

The ray and shark(!) touch pool was a winner:

In the evening Hélène brought the kids with her to a specialty shop to get industrial strength mosquito repellent and some other stuff we need for the Amazon. South America is not many days away!

I had been invited by Mike to meet some of his students. We had a great chat for a little over an hour with many good questions from the students. It once again reminded me that I have to get started on writing that book as soon as this trip is over.

In the evening I set a new record on the Chuck Norris charging station:

3 iPods, 1 iPhone, 1 camera battery, 2 external laptop batteries, 2 laptops and 3 iPads all charging at the same time. Still there is one mains outlet and 3 more USB outlets to spare. All this from one outlet on the wall. Are you impressed or are you impressed?

Eirik

—–

We had a good session of home schooling in the morning before we headed out for today´s main event. Since we were going to share an experience with about 70 000 other people we decided to leave the car at home.

Just next to the bus stop Iseline suddenly shouted that she could see the Washington Memorial for mice. She was so enthusiastic about her find that she made me take a picture of her in front of it:

The bus did not arrive on time and we were getting a bit worried. After speaking to a fellow public transport user we got the impression that time tables were not all that important here. The bus goes every 20 minutes and one will show up eventually. Things seem relaxed here in the south.

At last we managed to work our way to downtown Atlanta. The bus followed Peachtree Street. It is the original and main Peachtree Street Atlanta has been built around. Interestingly enough there are 71 streets in Atlanta with Peachtree in the name. Even though Georgia is the peach state, the name has nothing to do with peach, but is a corrupted form for “pitch tree”.

We met Mike at the bus stop in town and walked over to the Georgia Dome. The boys really wanted to see an American sports event while we were here. Originally we wanted to do baseball, but that did not work out. So, we settled for American Football instead. The weird sport where they spend twice as much time standing around as they do playing (no kidding, a one hour match normally lasts at least three hours), where they very seldom use their feet on the “ball” at all, where they don´t use a ball, but a projectile made from pig skin and where everyone tries to kill the guy who has the pig skin thing.

We had invited Mike to join us, in the hope of having access to an American with a wealth of insight and knowledge about the game. We quickly realized that Mike had never been to a game before and did not know the rules at all. Cool, this would be a new cultural experience for all of us. We warmed up with photos next to a mascot thing outside the stadium:

Georgia Dome is most impressive. It was the largest dome structure in the world until the construction of the  millennium done in London. It has a capacity of over 71 000 people for football games. When I bought tickets I discovered that the NFL has a “blackout” rule saying that if a game is not sold out it will not be televised in the local market. Congress passed legislation forcing them to do this in 1973! Previously there was always a blackout. Some things are very important to politicians. It reminds me of the county council meeting in Norway, many years ago, which was moved so the politicians could watch the TV series “Dallas”

Anyway, Mike wanted us all to get the real Amercian football experience, so we acquired some hot dogs, fries and beer:

Since our plan of consulting our American expert did not work out we once again turned to my iPhone´s copy of Wikipedia. I knew some of the rules already and the kids and I quickly got into the game. It was actually fun to watch and we soon roared and booed with the local fans. At one point I asked Mike if he understood why the ball had just been kicked over to the other team. He responded that he hadn´t even noticed the ball being kicked, since he was studying the engineering behind the structure of the stadium. My kind of guy.

In the break between the second and third quarter a giant peanut entered the field. It was the final of the Mr. Planter college scholarship competition. I believe there were 4 contestants with parents. The parents had to wear a huge oversized black plastic hat with a big hole in it. The kids then had 60 seconds to throw, at a distance, small bags of peanuts into the hats, The kid who hit with most peanut bags got a scholarship.

Hopeful kid who wants to go to college hardly visible to the right in the center of the photo. Heartbreaking missed college opportunities can be seen on the ground around the parent with the funny hat.

Supersized check being prepared for handover. The winning kid not even visible on this one.

It was completely bizarre. What a way of handing out scholarships! If this is the way the US selects who gets to go to college the future look bleak indeed for the old superpower.

The noise level during the game was completely out of this world. I regretted deeply that we had not brought ear plugs. It seemed that the only way to cheer on your team was to make as many decibels as possible. No singing, no standing up (even though the guy on the speakers told people to get up, they never did), no yelling names or slogans, no doing the wave. Just uncontrolled, full volume, screaming of the monotonous kind. It seemed the accoustics of the stadium had been fine-tuned to amplify this type of screaming in order to maximize eardrum damage during matches. I got out my iPhone and ran the decibel meter application. It maxed out at 105. I´m sure the noise level was much higher.

The game turned out to be a thriller. The Atlanta Falcons were in the lead from the first touchdown, but the Tampa Bay Buccaneers came very close to winning. They were at 4th down and one on the one with a score of 27 to 21 with 2 minutes left of the 4th quarter (told you we figured out the rules). The Falcons managed to stop their attempt and the stadium errupted in even more monotonous screaming than before.

Just as we thought we had mastered all aspects of the game it suddenly ended with a minute left on the game clock. Confused, and realizing we might not be experts yet, we left the stadium with a sense of having taken part in a very special clan ritual. It had been an interesting anthropological afternoon.

We had a drink at a hotel bar before we headed home. At the bar Iseline wanted me to listen to some music on her iPod:

It was techno music from my old “Ultra Techno” CD. She knew I would like it and she sure knows how to make a father´s heart melt.

Eirik

—–

Martin Luther King et Coca-Cola

Nous avons commencé la journée par une visite du King Center. Fondé en 1968 par Coretta Scott King, femme de Martin Luther King, le “Centre du King” est le mémorial vivant dédié à la promotion de l’héritage de Martin Luther King, Jr., chef de file du plus grand mouvement non-violent pour la justice, l’égalité et la paix d’Amérique. Eirik et moi l’avions visité il y a 10 ans, et aucune amélioration n’ayant eu lieu, nous avons trouvé l’expo plutôt fatiguée…

Le mouvement des droits civiques a commencé le 1^er décembre 1955, lorsque Rosa Parks, une femme noire, est arrêtée pour avoir violé les lois ségrégationnistes de la ville en refusant de céder sa place à un homme blanc dans un bus à Montgomery, près d’Atlanta. Martin Luther King s’engage en faveur du boycott des bus de la ville. 

ll adhère à la philosophie de désobéissance civile non-violente comme décrite par Henry David Thoreau^[9] et utilisée avec succès en Inde par Gandhi^[10].

Le 14 octobre 1964, Martin Luther King devient le plus jeune lauréat du Prix Nobel de la paix pour avoir mené une résistance non violente dans le but d’éliminer les préjudices raciaux aux États-Unis.

Le 4 avril 1968 à 18 h 01, Martin Luther King est assassiné par un ségrégationniste blanc à Memphis dans le Tennessee.

Changement de décor: nous mettons le cap sur le musée Coca-Cola. Le GPS nous conduit à un endroit où il n’y a pas de musée. Après avoir tourné un moment dans les rues, on abandonne et on se dirige vers l’aquarium. En arrivant là, on découvre que le musée Coca-Cola a emmenagé dans des nouveaux locaux juste à côté de l’aquarium. On remet donc notre visite de l’aquarium à lundi.

En chemin, on traverse le parc olympique qui avait été construit pour les JO d’Atlanta en 1996.

Sur deux cubes en pierre, se trouvent inscrits les noms de tous les athlètes ayant remporté des médailles. On a trouvé l’inscription pour la médaille d’or norvégienne pour le 800m en course à pied remportée par Vebjørn Rodal. (il y en a eu d’autres…)

On arrive finalement au nouveau World of Coca-Cola , où on ne parle que du “bonheur que l’on trouve dans une bouteille de Coca-Cola”.

Tout a commencé en 1886 avec le Dr John Pemberton qui a inventé cette nouvelle boisson. En 1887, Pemberton fait inscrire au registre du commerce la marque Coca-Cola. Quelques mois plus tard, l’entreprise est rachetée pour 2 300 dollars.

Qu’on aime ou qu’on n’aime pas le Coca et le pouvoir de Coca-Cola dans le monde, on ne peut qu’être fasciné par l’ingéniosité de leur marketing et la force symbolique de la marque. La forme de la fameuse bouteille existe depuis 1916. Le fait que la formule du coca est un secret bien gardé contribue aussi au mythe. Nous avons tous appris des choses sur le marketing et la pub.

Vers la sortie, il y avait une salle où l’on pouvait goûter à plus de 60 boissons différentes, toutes des marques de Coca-Cola venant du monde entier.

On a payé nos billets d’entrée 60$ pour tous. Eirik a demandé aux enfants s’ils trouvaient normal de payer pour entrer au musée Coca-Cola mais pas au centre de Martin Luther King. Ils trouvaient cela normal car Coca-Cola montrent un film en 4D et offrent la dégustation de plus de 60 boissons différentes. Ils trouvaient qu’ils en avaient eu pour leur argent…

Nous avons ensuite passé la soirée avec Mike, ami d’Eirik rencontré à Taiwan en 1989. Nous sommes d’abord allés boir un verre au bar Sundial (le cadran solaire) au 73eme etage de l’Hotel Westin Peachtree Plaza en plein centre d’Atlanta.

Les fauteuils du bar sont placés sur une plateforme rotative qui offre une vue imprenable sur toute la ville. Le temps de prendre un verre ici, nous avons fait le tour complet et pu admirer la vue sur Atlanta by night.

On est ensuite allés dîner au restau “Five feet under“, qui propose des spécialités du sud des Etats-Unis: aligator, crabe, coquillages, crevettes, hush puppies (croquettes de mais), poisson-chat, épis de mais… Miam!

Encore une journée bien remplie!

A +

Hélène

Etape de transport vers Atlanta

La matinée a été consacrée à faire les bagages et scanner les derniers livres d’école qui avaient échappé à notre attention lors des préparatifs avant le départ. Maintenant, plus d’excuse pour ne pas faire de sciences naturelles. Même si les enfants ont appris plein de choses dans les musées qu’on a visités, il va falloir suivre le programme de l’école…

Eirik a aussi profité de l’imprimante de Gwen et Bob pour imprimer les réservations d’hôtels et de voitures de location pour les semaines à venir. “Chat échaudé craint l’eau froide”, nous voulons éviter de renouveler l’expérience de l’agence de location de voitures à Atlanta. Et les pays d’Amérique du Sud sont peut-être un peu moins habitués à la “société sans papier”? Mieux vaut prévoir…

En chemin, Eirik a vu ce panneau pour un institut d’amaigrissement qui propose des enveloppements (“film d’amincissement”) et autres méthodes douteuses pour perdre 15 kg en 30 jours. Ca tente quelqu’un?…

Nous avons fait la route pour Atlanta sous une pluie battante, mais sans évènement majeur.

Arrivés à Atlanta, nous avons trouvé notre appartement sans problème, et il répondait tout à fait à nos attentes.

Venant juste de s’installer, personne n’avait envie de ressortir sous la pluie pour aller diner. En bons américains, nous avons donc commandé des plats asiatiques livrés à domicile.

Demain, à nous l’histoire de Martin Luther King et la cuisine du sud des Etats-Unis!

A bientôt

Hélène

Dernier jour à Chattanooga – Creative Discovery Museum

Après un lever tardif et quelques heures passées à trainer et régler des bricoles, nous avons décolé en direction du musée créatif de découverte, notre activité principale de la journée.

L’objectif du musée est de stimuler l’esprit créatif et la curiosité naturelle de chaque enfant, et de leur donner envie d’apprendre à travers l’exploration interactive des arts et des sciences. Le musée s’adresse à un public assez jeune, et nos enfants étaient tous dans la bonne tranche d’âges. Nous avons commencé la visite par des activités en rapport avec l’eau.

Puis ont suivi des ateliers art, paléontologie, musique, électricité et magnétisme, réalisation d’un dessin animé, construction d’une voûte, etc.

Il y avait aussi une expo “des enfants comme toi, des enfants comme moi” sur le handicap. On pouvait y faire l’expérience de se déplacer en fauteuil roulant, de faire un puzzle en ne se servant que du toucher, jouer au basket en fauteuil roulant, etc.

Viktor a beaucoup apprécié les échecs géants.

Iseline et Adrian ont exploré les jeux extérieurs utilisant des mécanismes ingénieux. 

On a aussi pu observer la vie à l’intérieur d’une ruche d’abeille, ce qui nous a rappelé de bons souvenirs chez Hal.

Cette photo est pour lui. Le texte dit: “Les abeilles se parlent en dansant”.

Le temps est passé vite.

Vers 16h30, on a retrouvé Bob et Gwen dans le Quartier artistique de Bluff view. Le café Rembrandt propose de très bons gâteaux dans un cadre trés sympa. Juste à côté, il y a une très belle galerie d’art, River Gallery, qui présente les oeuvres de nombreux artistes de la région: peintures, poteries, verre d’art, sculptures en bois et en métal…

En résumé, nous trouvons que Chattanooga est une ville bien agréable et dynamique malgré sa taille relativement modeste (à l’échelle américaine). Saviez-vous que les premières bouteilles de Coca ont été produites ici? Jusque dans les années 1880, le coca était uniquement disponible dans des “fontaines à soda” où il était mélangé à la demande. Le fait que le coca est aujourd’hui disponible pratiquement dans le monde entier n’enthousiasmera peut-être pas tous autant qu’Adrian et Viktor, mais c’est toujours bon à savoir…

De retour à la maison, c’était notre tour de faire le diner. Menu franco-norvégien avec du saumon fumé, de l’agneau et un tian, et la fameuse mousse au chocolat d’Eirik. Nous sommes maintenant repus.

Mille merci à Gwen et Bob pour leur hospitalité. Nous avons passé une super semaine à Chattanooga!

This morning all 3 children did their own blog entry about our day yesterday and some school work.

Bob showed us a piece of high voltage cable this morning. The same kind my father (Foffo) worked with up at Raccoon Mountain. This cable is certified for 161 000 volts. That´s pure copper in the innermost ring. Around it was a layer of oil under pressure.

We had a calm day until we drove over to a climbing club at 3pm. Michele had invited us to climb with her and Shae.

I cannot climb because of my bad wrists, so I was appointed photographer and cord holder.

Everyone had a ball. There were no complaints from Iseline about too many activities. The first couple of times she was a bit careful and afraid of the height, but afterwards that was all blown away. The boys also did some great climbing and Hélène enjoyed climbing again for the first time in about 7 years.

We dropped by Northgate Mall which I remember well from my childhood. They had an arcade there in the good old days! A fascinating place for a 9 year old. We didn´t find an arcade, but did find a real American bubble gum dispenser:

In the evening Gwen and Bob took us to a restaurant where we had excellent chicken wings served by a very active and funny waiter who took pictures of us:

I told the boys they were not allowed to watch TV while eating. A hard task when there are 44 TVs in the restaurant, all within view (Viktor counted them) Here are some of them:

In the evening I prepared mousse for tomorrow´s dinner. I haven´t made it in a while and it was good to get into mousse making again. I felt at peace with the universe again.

One of our faithful readers has sent an email to the editors asking for a state of the voyage update. He wants to know what we have learned so far and what we would have done differently if we had known what we now know.

First of all, time has passed very quickly and it´s hard to realize we have been on the road so long already.

One lesson we have learnt is that we have not set aside enough time for the kids to just play and be kids. This is especially true for Iseline. It´s so easy to be tempted to do as much as possible when you are in a location. “We probably will not be here again for a long time, or ever, so we must…” It´s easy to forget that both the kids and we get tired and need some time to just relax. We have changed our schedule here in Chattanooga to calm down a bit. We had originally planned to do a two day trip to the Smokey Mountains, but decided not to. That was the right decision.

It´s always difficult to think about everything in advance, and we got very stressed with everything piling up at the end. Sure, we could have done more, but I think we found a good balance. When we left I was not happy that we had not done all the reservations for New Zealand and Australia. Right now I´m glad. We have learned that we need to lower our ambitions a bit and it is now much easier to change our plans. If anything I wish we had reserved less. All pacific island plans are e.g. fixed and we might have chosen one less stop given what we now know.

Another lesson is that it is difficult to find time for schooling and that we, the adults, need to count in time to prepare. I wish we had done a few test lessons at home before leaving. The internet school the kids are attending is very good. Unfortunately it is only available for a few subjects, since it is meant for Norwegian children attending school abroad.

On the other hand the kids are learning a lot during our voyage. We have e.g. spoken a lot about space and the exploration of it and also about tectonic plate movements and its consequences (volcanos, earthquakes). Adrian has both as major parts of his science curriculum and it´s more or less covered now by all the kids.

In terms of luggage we have been very positively surprised. We have managed to travel very lightly and have include all essentials. We are traveling with less than we would have packed for a weeks vacation in Spain. We have to wash clothes relatively often, but on the other hand the volume is then limited.

Blogging has taken more time than I had anticipated. I had the ambition to blog every day when we left and have managed to more or less do so, but it has been hard at times. Inspiration does not always come immediately. Blogging consumes most of my time in the evening after the kids have gone to bed.

I blog for all of you out there, but I also do it so we can have a good travel diary when we are back home. This is a once in a lifetime trip and I want us to have a good record of it. I will probably thank myself when I´m at some institution for the elderly and can look at those old web pages on my mind reader.

We are also very happy that we have rented apartments or are staying with people we know in most locations. There are so many advantages of having an apartment over staying in a hotel. You have much more space. You have the option to cook or go out and eat. The prices are also low compared to a hotel.

Another thing that has been good is doing direct flights or putting in margins for airport transfers. We do not take tickets where there is less than 2 hours transfer time at an airport. Losing luggage would be a nightmare and we know from experience that the chance of that goes up very much when you get under 2 hours between planes. No luggage lost so far, knock on wood.

So, all in all, we are very happy. We have been extremely lucky, bordering on the improbable, with the weather That has got to change at some point. Our biggest climatic risk is  going to the Amazon during rainy season. We have read that most of the time you get good periods without rain. Time will tell.

See you around, folks!

Eirik

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