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