Norway (Part A)

In a frankly miraculous journey from the Greek island of Andros to Norway involved 36 hours of travel including three greek (aka unreliable) ferries and an extremely 'spirited' taxi ride to the Athens airport (replace the word spirited with 169 km/hr and you get a better idea). An 8 hour layover in the Olso airport at 1:00 am gave us some time to admire what is probably the most well designed and luxurious airports in the world.

A website reporting such matters says that it is the best airport to sleep in, which I would agree with, so long as you were able to grab a bench. (We couldn't until 3:00am, as apparently a lot of other people had read that website as well) Otherwise, they make the floor as hard as anywhere here.



The majority of Anette's extended family lives in Norway, who Brad has been waiting to meet (and vice versa!) for over 5 years. I've rarely seen so much hospitality, and NEVER so many cakes. I've really enjoyed meeting everyone, talking to them all in my broken 'Norske', and feeling an overwheling sense of welcome.





Norway is a land of incredible beauty, which seems to have been named with a universally literal sense of humour. The tallest mountain here is called 'Crazy high peak'. The second tallest is called 'Shrimp'. Anette's family live above the artic circle, in what must have been a punishing area to forge forwards in 100 years ago. A sampling of town names are: Shit town, Black land, Terrible place and lovingly, Hole. Things have become much easier in the mean time, and the incredible beauty which surrounds these places must be seen to be appreciated.



We hiked up a small mountain (560 meters) overlooking the fjord and a freshwater lake with Anette's Aunt Gerd, Uncle Asle and cousin Ingrid. Soup and sandwhiches never tasted so good after a somewhat gruelling 2.5 hour (largely pathless) ascent. Neither did the fantastic salmon Asle bbq'd afterwards.



Speaking of fish, Anette's Uncle Arne works at a fish farm, and offered to take us out with him on the fjord as he fed and monitored the netted pens. Part of having so many fish in one place (30,000 per pen) is that they attract other fish outside the pens. We dropped a few hooks down on the other side of the boat and seconds later were pulling up 3 - 5 pound cod and salmon.



It seems that everything has a satisfyingly 'scandahoovian' feel to it, and that includes this somewhat bizzarre house. An event I have been unable to witness, but have confirmed with several sources is the occasional mowing of this roof by a troup of goats. I could think of nothing more fitting than a spread of several fine cakes, coffee, pine furniture all accompanied by the gentle crunch sound of some goats maintaining your property.

Norway has several different meals:

• Frokost (Breakfast)
• Formiddags Mat (Before dinner food)
• Middag (Dinner - 3:00)
• Ettermiddags Kaffe (After dinner coffee)
• Kveldsmat (Evening food before bed)

This in and of itself isn't so different from Canada. What is different though, is that most of these meals will probably be eaten 2-3 times daily, in some sort of culinary 'Groundhogs Day'. The food is fantastic though, and the only hardship is trying to maintain a shape which can be described in words other than 'roundish'.

It feels like we've just arrived here in beautiful Norway, and we are looking forward to seeing much more of the fjords, ambitious mountain hikes, visiting with Anette's family and fishing.