Much to tell and little time to hold your attention, so I will dive right in. I will mention that I spent three weeks in New Hampshire working, but compared to Norway, deserves only that amount of recalling. So allow me to begin...
Leaving NH, your humble narrator spent about two and a half days traveling to get up to Vardo, Norway. If you look on a map, Vardo is about as far northeast as you can go in Norway (you can see Russia from there). Vardo is a very small island nestled far up in the Arctic Circle. It is mostly inhabited by reindeer (pictured here), but there was a small population as well. Surprisingly though, Vardo has had a very interesting past. There are bunkers built into every hillside (used for resistance against Germany in WWII), a very old military fort, and a very ugly history involving the killing of many innocent pagans, aka, "witches".
This second picture is from the inside of the Witches Memorial. It is a long hallway with plaques containing the information of all those killed (over 100), what they confessed to, and how they were killed. Basically it was a horrible time to be a woman. Something as small as an argument with a neighbor could be enough to be accused. Once accused there were two paths that would lead to your imminent death. Option one was to be tortured until you confessed to anything. I suspect almost anyone would admit to "worshiping Satan" after two days under a knife. Once you confessed to witchcraft, you would be burned. Option two was called the Water Test. It was believed that Vardo was the epicenter of Satan's work in all of Europe. It was also believed that water was the element of god. The water test involved being stripped naked, having hands and feet bound, and being thrown into the water (arctic ocean mind you). If the accused sank, and drown, they had been "accepted" by god and were in heaven. If the accused floated, as all humans with air in their lungs would and did, you were a witch. At that point you might just be burned, or perhaps you would be tortured until confessing, and then burnt. Everyone's religious beliefs are wrong... except for yours of course.
While in Vardo, we worked 5 days a week. This allowed for a few shorter road trips in the far north on the weekends. This is a picture of me in a place called Nordkapp. It is as far north as you can go in Europe. The winds were blowing at like 70mph while we were there. It took us about 18 hours to do this road trip as most roads go along the fjords, and nothing is close together that far north.
The food took a bit of getting used to while being there. Standard breakfast in Norway involves fresh bread, deli meats, and fish. I did get to try some interesting and unusual foods though... whale, moose, reindeer, eel, and cloudberrys.
This was an image I was happy to not only experience, but also photograph. This was taken right out of my hotel window. Rainbows occurred on a daily basis, and sometimes more than once a day. My work up there involved working on a radome ("no photography" was strictly enforced). The best day I can recall of work went something like this...
Get up on top of the dome (about 150' tall). Rappel down the side, making repairs to the fabric. The sun's out and it was pretty warm, and a cool ocean breeze makes it feel like fall. In front of me the view is of the small island of Vardo, scattered with small pastel colored houses (though mostly red). To my back is the endless arctic ocean (a group of whales swims by with some frequency). On my right, fjords fade in the clouds. And on the left side, far across the water is Russia.
Once the job finished, your humble adventurer took the boat (pictured in the rainbow photo) called the Hurtigruten (pronounced Hoot ih rootin). I had a two day boat ride from Vardo to a place called Svolvaer. Between the women of Norway and the boat ride alone, I have never seen so much beauty in my life. Check out a picture of Troll Fjord if you would like to see what I mean. The boat ride went all along the coast and weaved through the islands and fjords. The only real downside of the Hurtigruten was that it was mostly occupied by old German couples. At one point there were so many grey and purple haired fogies in a line, I thought I might have found myself on the boat crossing the river Styx (bahahahhahahaha).
Once off the boat, this is the view I was greeted with in the Lofoten Islands. I spent a night in a place called Kabelvag where I was able to get my hands on a rowboat and cruise around a fjord until dark.
After spending the night in the Lofoten Islands, I caught a bus going to a place called Sortland. There is a website I would encourage anyone interested in such things called Couchsurfing.com. You can sign up to be a host or a surfer. You maintain a profile, people write reviews about their experience with you, and so on. Anywho, I had gotten in touch with a number of people before I got to Norway and they had welcomed me to stay with them. So I went to Sortland to stay with a guy named Svein. When I arrived he had four people from Israel staying with him. This photo below is of the lake he lived on (the tallest mountain in the background is a famous rock called Reka). Svein was a very worldly, kind host. He cooked me whale, let me take his canoe out, had a 21 year old cat, and his house reminded me of a cabin in the northwoods of WI. We had great conversations about culture and life, a jam sessions with the Israelis, and spent some time splitting firewood for him.
After spending a few days in Sortland, I caught a bus to a place called Fauske (pronounced Fas kah), and caught the train further south to Trondheim. Many of my travel days were day long ordeals, usually at least 14 hours, but it was a great way to really see the country. Many locals I met told me that I had seen more of Norway than most Norwegians, as most Norwegians choose to travel internationally instead.
This photo is of famous old Trondheim. I had the unfortunate timing in my travels as school was starting up again. All of the youth hostels in Norway are dorms, so once school begins, the hostels close and you are left only with hotels. Norway has the highest standard of living in the world, and two of the most expensive cities in the world... Oslo, and Trondheim. So my stay in Trondheim was unavoidably expensive. It is also a place of high fashion and shopping, so much time was spend walking around observing. To give you an idea of what prices were like... an average dinner, say a hamburger was about $35. A beer, not even a micro brew mind you, was about $12 per glass.
So I was very fortunate in my travels in the sense that the couchsurfing hosts I had were overly generous. Luckily for me, my host Siw (pronounced Seeve) picked me up from Trondheim and drove me to her house in Sunndalsora. Norway just continued to unravel more and more beautiful scenery. The town of Sunndalsora is the kind of place that most Norwegians haven't even heard of except salmon fisherman, and BASE jumpers. There is nothing going on there. The lady I stayed with though was so kind. She had 11 Icelandic horses that she used for therapy for recovering drug addicts. She took me riding one night. This photo was taken from her yard. Keep in mind that these mountains are probably at least 4000' tall. Siw even owned a piece of one of these mountains, including the waterfall, and mountain spring in it. We cooked each other traditional dinners, spoke of culture, family, and life in general. After spending a pleasant two days in the Sundal valley, I took another day long train ride to Bergen.
...Endless scenery...
In Bergen I met up with a friend of a friend, a kind and beautiful girl named Johanna (pronounced Yo-ha-nah). She showed me around Bergen, took me out hiking and swimming, and even brought me to a climbing gym. Something to note about Bergen is that it is much like Seattle... it rains almost everyday. Off and on, all day long.
Due to the rain I didn't get many good photos of Bergen, but here is a really neat, old part of town. There were many art studios, and shops tucked back in here. After a few days in Bergen I had but one more place to go... back to Oslo to catch my flight home. Unexpectedly the 12 hour bus ride from Bergen to Oslo was the most scenic traveling I had done in Norway, second only to the Hurtigruten. Norway is the land of countless waterfalls. I must have seen well over 100 waterfalls in my two weeks of traveling... unreal.
So anywho, that was the bare minimum I can portray from my trip. There are so many more stories I would love to share about the trip, but it would just be too much for this blog. I am back in the good ol' US of A. I find myself in MN right now, spending a little time with the family. I will head back to CO soon where I have off until the 17th. Then I head to CA for two weeks of work. What happens for October and the coming months remains unclear at this point. There is talk of Germany, England, and Australia coming up... so stay tuned. And remember... don't do anything I wouldn't do (but be sure to tell me all about it if you do).
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| My beautiful Norwegian troll girlfriend |
