I often think that the answer to everything lies in a good hike. Something about the mixture of breathing hard and sweating, added with a touch of misery and muscles screaming, combined with the need to grasp onto the earth and those things attached to it, while bouncing from here to there, has a way of opening the brain and unwinding the complicated into the uncomplicated. Simple, sweet clarity takes over. Time stands still, or better yet, it ceases to exist completely. It is just you and the world. Simplicity in its simplest form.
By the time this post goes live, my parents will have arrived. We will be exploring Norway together for just shy of two weeks. I am looking forward to sharing this wonderful place with them!
We will spend the first several days in Bergen, exploring the area by foot, train, tram, bus, and ferry. I am most looking forward to the 5.5-hour ferry from Bergen to the town of Flåm, deep inside the Sognefjord, which is considered to be “the king of the fjords”.
Then we are flying 2-hours north to Bodø to board the 4-hour ferry to Rein, in the Lofoten Islands. This will be my reunion with an area I had such a hard time turning my back on last summer.
We will then explore the Lofoten Islands by car, staying at cabins along the way, eventually making our way back to Bodø and then Bergen for the big National Independence holiday on May 17th.
The next day we will board a train to Oslo from where my parents will jump on an overnight ferry to Copenhagen where they are to spend another week getting reacquainted with my mom’s host family from the year she spent in Denmark almost 50 years ago! I will instead return to Bergen by train.
I have no doubt this will be a wonderful journey and a break from my routine in which I can briefly escape back into the tourist side of Norway, back to that side of Norway that I first fell in love with last summer.
Lessons from: Two Guests, One Hike
- Norway is home to the best (and most expensive 😬) hot chocolate I have ever had! It is made by melting dark chocolate chunks into milk and then is topped with a lot of homemade whipped cream. It is a drinking experience I never want to end.
- The Bybanen (light rail) social norms of being modest, not eating or drinking, and keeping to oneself go out the window when a bride-to-be boards. Then she and her entourage can come aboard with an open drink in hand and a speaker blasting music. The contrast of this behavior to everyday Norwegian daily life is striking!
Something interesting: May-the month of Holidays.
Everyone knows that Europeans enjoy much more time off than Americans do, and I have joyously experienced this firsthand. You might remember the week off everyone enjoyed for Easter, when even grocery stores were closed except for one bridge day in the middle. But April was nothing compared to May.
May 1st is International Labor Day.
May 8th is Independence Day, also May 9th is a holiday.
May 17th is the Norwegian National/Constitution Day.
Time and time again, everybody takes a break from work to enjoy the many customs, parades, bands, rituals, foods, and celebrations that come with the plentiful holidays!
A Look Behind the Curtain.
Last Wednesday was Labor Day in Norway, a day where I could, in good conscience, put studying Norwegain and searching summer job postings aside. Instead, I spent the morning with my Canadian friend over coffee in the Sentrum (town center) and then returned home to meet my neighbor Tony standing in his driveway. We began chatting about this and that, and then he invited me to a neighborhood BBQ at 6pm. I was touched by the invitation, but it also sounded hard- spending the evening with all Norwegians, trying to understand what they were saying, feeling like I should practice speaking, more new people, more putting myself in uncomfortable situations. At the same time, I knew that if I did not go, I would regret it, so I summoned the will.
And as usual, the ruminating before was the worst part. Once I joined everybody contained by a circle of chairs clustered into the small culdesac with a smoking BBQ on one end roasting sausages and hot dogs, it all became quite simple and easy.
I was welcomed into the group with such warmth. I spoke Norwegian, and they spoke Norwegain (surely, painfully slow for them). Admittedly, we switched to English often. One of my neighbors, Eli, convinced me to play a few rounds of basketball, the teams consisting of 4, 14-year-old boys against 3 adult women. The boys played American music, and one even rocked the double hat, proclaiming he was from the movie White Men Can’t Jump. I laughed the entire time.
Eli invited me to a literature reading and discussion at a local art studio on Friday. She admitted it would be all in Norwegian, but thought perhaps it would be good practice! (I did go and understood almost nothing but enjoyed it all the same. Everyone was so nice. 🙌🏻)
Tone prepared two hot dogs in Norwegian fashion for me. One on a bun with mustard, ketchup, dried onions, and potato salad. Yes, the potato salad was on the hot dog! The second consisted of all of the same ingredients but was wrapped in a 6-inch Norwegain-style tortilla (made with potato) instead.
As I enjoyed the company and let the events of the night soak in, a realization came over me. In that moment, it became crystal clear that I was experiencing what was actually the best path into a new country- spending time with the people, becoming friends, and letting doors open up naturally over time. This can not be forced. It takes investment, commitment, and time. People are the main ingredient, not work experience, resumes, or blindly applying to jobs.
As if on cue, Eli has since offered, without being prompted, to speak to her employer about job opportunities for me. Nothing may come of it but that is of course far from the point.
She Simply Wanders 
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