Final wrap-up

Our short trip to Scandinavia didn't seem like a short trip at all, largely because the bulk of our time was spent in such a rural place and we didn't have easy (at ALL) access to the Internet. We slept late and took a long daily nap, we drove around the place, we took hikes in a forest, out near the end of a peninsula, and in a glacier valley. The trip started badly, with SAS losing our luggage and taking way too long to get Marc's to us, which was a big problem primarily because it was very cold and we didn't have our coats or warm clothing until we finally got the suitcases.

What surprised us? A few things surprised us the most:

1) The lack of fish in Norway. You just can't buy fresh fish at the markets in Lyngseidet, and we were told that this is common. In the Lyngen area you just know a guy who catches them, or you catch them yourself. Magni told us with a grim expression that there are one or two corporations in Norway, now, who control the fish. Norway IS fish, fishing, fishermen (and a history of Vikings!), so this shocked us both, and I had the impression from Magni that it's a sad turn of events.

2) The huge expense. In many ways this trip was the polar (polar, hah, no pun intended) opposite of trips we usually take. Usually we go places where the main thing to do is visit produce and meat/fish/chicken markets, and usually those same places have extremely cheap and delicious food. On this trip, though, there were NO markets of that sort, and the food was extremely expensive. A beer at a pub in Tromso was $9, and a Burger King Whopper was $15. No exaggeration. In Copenhagen, our small breakfast of two cinnamon rolls and a cup of plain black coffee was $35. That never failed to shock us. Magni and Ole told us that the taxes are so enormous in Norway that it's hard on the people; food is taxed at 50%, for instance. One thing we'd read before we left was that we should never comment on how expensive everything is, because the Norwegians know it all too well already. And boy, is it.

3) The 24-hour light. I was the only one surprised by this, Marc wasn't surprised, but I was expecting that the 24-hour light would influence my ability to sleep in some way. It didn't, at all. We also thought there might be black-out curtains since we stayed in places that were set up for tourists, but there weren't any -- and we didn't need them anyway. I thought it would make it hard to sleep, to go to sleep, to stay asleep, but that didn't happen any more than it usually does for me. It did make it hard to understand what was going on when I'd wake up in the middle of the night. 2:30? Does that mean night or day? I had no easy cue about whether I should try to keep sleeping or go ahead and get up, but that's all. Of course we were jetlagged too, but I still thought it would influence me in some way and it didn't.

And then I hadn't realized that the fjords, those enormous, deep, long inlets from the ocean, would behave like the ocean. They would go out at low tide. They would lap the beaches, in places where there was a beach.

We were both moved by the beauty of northern Norway, and we were tickled by the 24-hour light. It was a bit surreal to see the sun in the sky at midnight, and it was pretty great not having to worry about getting back to the cabin before dark, since it was never dark. We were both surprised by the incredible infrastructure in Norway; even in the most remote places, the roads were beautiful and there were streetlights everywhere -- a necessity, we suppose, during the Polar Night.

These pictures capture my favorite moments, in random order:

the gorgeous beauty of Balsfjord -- and blue skies, which were unusual. North Norway to the T.

Gosh. Copenhagen. And the thrill of an accidentally great photo. :)

Listening to Dixie Land Jazz in Copenhagen.

the beauty of a European capital, Copenhagen

this beautiful river, in the gorgeous forest (below) in  Lulledalen Skogssti

and then this magnificent glacial river in Lyngsdalen/Vuosvaggi

and drinking handsful of icy cold water in the hot sun -- helped in every way by Marc

and another square, another beautiful European capital -- Stockholm this time

and the rugged remote beauty of Russelv, on the tip of the Lyngen peninsula

and being chilly and windswept together at Russelv, but at least we had our coats

and the magic of seeing the blazing sun at midnight

and Marc making us lovely dinners every night in our cabin
in Svensby, at Solheim Fritidsgard

and the soft dreamy magic of pink light at midnight, seen from our cabin in Svensby

and the picture postcard beauty of the Lyngen Alps

and the charm of the Tromso harbor

It was a very different kind of trip for us; we're not so much European travelers as SE Asia travelers, but it was a huge thrill to see those magnificent fjords, the glacier valleys, the rugged and beautiful landscape. We didn't interact with enough Swedish people to have any sense of them, but we did with Norwegians and Danes. The Norwegians we met were friendly and helpful and very proud of Norway, although Magni and Ole's comments about the economics of living in Norway moderated that pride just a tiny bit. But Norwegians love being Norwegians, and rightly so. They are proud of their beautiful country. They keep a bit of distance between themselves and you, but they are nonetheless friendly and helpful. (And as a cashier told us in Tromso, Norwegians love machines!) One thing that struck me was that I felt so much more free in Norway than I ever feel at home in the US, and I kept wondering about that. It seemed to stem from the way you can just go anywhere you like, there, and that left me with a feeling that people trust each other not to be terrible people. (And in fact, that trust seems very well-deserved.) It isn't that I walk around the US thinking I'm going to be murdered at any moment, but at the same time it's never a shock at all when our next big slaughter happens, so in some way it's in the very far corners of my mind. But there, people just trust each other and I really felt that. We are fetishistic about fighting for our 'rights' but seem to have lost sight of the right to just be free and happy, and they seem to have kept the proper order of things, in my opinion.

One thing I felt in Copenhagen was the easy happiness that always shows up in global happiness indexes. Like people in Amsterdam, they bike everywhere, no matter the weather. Everyone we interacted with was unhurried and easy, and I liked them very much.

And so farewell, beautiful Scandinavia. I had a wonderful time. I will keep reading Norwegian authors, and now I'll have a better understanding of the stories and the people and the places.

Next up on our travel itinerary, a return to SE Asia -- Vietnam and Thailand in November.

Midnight Sun

Our last full day in Norway was such a delight because the weather turned sunny and warm. Blue skies, just a few puffy clouds, and nice temperatures meant we didn't need to wear our coats. It also meant we finally had a chance to see the midnight sun.

On our last evening I sat on the small porch to draw the mountains across the fjord,
while enjoying a Norwegian beer.

I heard the cow bells and glanced up to see this guy walking his cows. Later we had to step through
the landmines of cow poop littering the road.

When we went to pay Ole and Magni for our five days in their cabin, we had expected to do the financial transaction and be on our way; it was 8pm and we hadn't eaten our dinner yet, which we planned to do right after paying them. We walked over and Magni asked if we wanted coffee or tea, and it turned out that she had made a big plate of waffles and they wanted to sit and talk with us for a while.

So we sat, we ate waffles (made with milk from their cows) with homemade jam and brown cheese -- which I ate, and it wasn't bad just kind of creamy but tasteless -- and drank coffee and talked for about an hour. We asked how many cows and sheep Ole tended (four calves and several sheep) and then I mentioned that I enjoyed the smell of the barn, the manure. Ole and Magni both laughed, and Magni said it's a romantic smell: "farm romantic." And apparently there is a reality show that's popular in Norway that's just like our show The Bachelor, but with farmers. After a round of 'speed dating,' the show spends several weeks narrowing the field to one final man or woman. Magni said it's funny because people are so ridiculous, and I said it's the same in the US. There is another reality program where contestants have to work a farm using methods from the early 1900s, and that's not a funny show because it's very hard work.

They had a young man helping Ole on the farm for the summer, from Chechnya. This was his second summer with them; after the first summer he said the work was so hard he'd never come back, but he did come back after all. He sat with us and finished off all the waffles. Another man came by with some fish he'd caught, and then he sat and chatted in Norwegian with Ole and Magni for several minutes. We can't exactly figure out what Ole does; mainly he seemed to drive his tractor back and forth all day to and from the barn hauling manure, and one day he mowed the grass. The young Chechen boy seemed to finagle the sheep a bit. Perhaps he had land elsewhere that he farmed.

I had such a stereotype in my mind of "Norwegian farmer" based on Garrison Keillor's "Norwegian bachelor farmers" from Prairie Home Companion. But Ole didn't fit that, of course. I mentioned that I'd just finished reading all four of the Knausgaard titles that have been translated into English at this point, and both Ole and Magni kind of grimaced a bit. Magni knows Yngve, Karl Ove's brother, and both of them said that Knausgaard was not liked in Norway -- which I had heard myself. Telling the family secrets, not a good Norwegian way to be. He's very American in that way, and very un-Norwegian. But then Ole started asking me if I'd read other Norwegian writers -- Ibsen? Have I read Ibsen? (Yes, I have.) "He's a dramatist, you know," Ole said. I mentioned that I'd started reading Knut Hamsun and they both approved. Nesbø, Ole asked? I will, I promised. We'd seen their enormous library when we'd go into their house to use the Internet, and it was very impressive. So yes, Ole is a Norwegian farmer who loves Ibsen and Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. I tried out my few words of Norwegian and despite it sounding to MY ear like I was pronouncing things as Ole did, he always did this kind of smirk at my pronunciation. Although both Marc and I feel socially awkward and anxious about this kind of thing, I enjoyed the conversation we had with them very much, and feel like it was such a good part of our time there.

But finally, back to our cabin for Marc to make us one final dinner, and then we waited around until about 11 and headed back to Russelv for a chance to see the midnight sun. Russelv is on the tip of the peninsula so the mountains don't obstruct the horizon, and since the sun is relatively low in the sky although still quite visible, an unobstructed view is best. We'd been there on our first day, during the day, and we tried one other midnight to no avail, but this last night it all worked:

It's MIDNIGHT.

MIDNIGHT.

Back at Svensby, the light was so soft and pink -- the mountains looked pink,
the fjord was pink-tinged. Just so dreamy and beautiful.

We were up early to catch the ferry to Breivikeidet the next morning, and then on to the Tromsø airport for our flight to Oslo and on to Copenhagen. Leaving Norway we had much better views from the air -- no clouds this time -- and the views were breathtaking:

an archipelago

beautiful fjords

and snow- and ice-topped mountains

but flatter and greener in the south -- Oslo below

Next stop: Copenhagen. Farvel, Norway.

Lyngsdalen/Vuošvággi

Vuošvággi is the “gateway to the highest mountains in the Lyngen Alps and the highest mountain in Troms – Jiehkkevarri, which is 1834m above sea level.” It’s a tremendously beautiful valley, and in one spot you can see three glaciers (though we still haven’t figured out which ice masses are glaciers and which aren’t). When we woke up this morning and it was such a gorgeous, sunny, blue-skied day, we decided to head over to the valley for a good hike. For yesterday’s hike in the forest, I wore a long-sleeved shirt, a fleece sweatshirt, a scarf, and my warm down coat, all at once and the entire time. Today I just wore a long-sleeved t-shirt and sometimes my scarf, and I was sweating. What a difference. Seeing the forest on a cloudy day was not bad at all; there would’ve been little light trickling in anyway. And seeing this majestic valley on a clear, sunny day . . . well, it was just spectacular, in every way.

But the first tricky bit to navigate was finding the entrance. There are no signs for any of these places (or restaurants or cafes, for that matter), so we never know if we’re in the right place. Our guidebook said to park at the Furustua in Furuflaten. What is a Furustua? A building? A park? A river? A lot? We knew it’s a proper noun but that wasn’t enough to be helpful. 

this woman stands in front of the Furustua

 Luckily we saw a cabin that seemed to be “the Furustua” so we parked and walked back up the highway to the football field, where we were supposed to turn left and find our way to the path. The thing about a place on a fjord is that you know at least one direction not to turn – not toward the fjord. So we turned at the football field and set off, heading for an alleged bridge, which we found.

the view back toward the fjord

standing on the bridge looking toward the valley

and away, toward the fjord

ready for our walk in the sun

Unlike the hike in the forest, this hike didn’t have any signs or posts, no direction markers, no nothing, but we did have a topo map and as long as we kept the river on our left we couldn’t go wrong. It was an easy, level walk, an occasional place where there was a narrow, gravelly ledge to navigate, but mostly it was just a beautiful walk along a pounding glacial river in the midst of an alpine valley. 

 

We both kept thinking about The Sound of Music (alpine valleys will do that, I suppose), and I had an old song in my head I remember from Girl Scouts – “The Happy Wanderer,” I think it’s called:  I love to go a-wandering / along a mountain track / And as I go / I love to sing / my knapsack on my back. / Val-der-ee / Val-der-ah / Val-der-ee / Val-der-ahahahahaha / Val-der-ee / Val-der-ah….

We’d left our water in the car, but you know, there was a gorgeous glacial river just right there. Finally the path wound down next to the river, so we walked to the rocks along the edge and I drank handfuls of icy water. It was so delicious. The sun beat on my back, the water was pounding past, and thundering down the face of the mountain just ahead, and there were birds singing everywhere. It was one of those experiences where you feel like if you died right in that moment it would be OK. That’s how I felt.

cold and sweet water......but emphasis on COLD!

The place was packed, though; we passed a couple of people going in, and a couple coming out. For this part of the world, that is PACKED. Once we passed them, though, the place was empty and remote and I just kept thinking that it stands there just like that, through the Polar Night, and the Lights dance in that valley I bet, and when I’m back in New York City, or in Austin, or when I’m in Vietnam in November, those mountains will be standing astride that beautiful valley in their watchful silence.

There was a little patch of the path that was landmined with piles of poop – horse, I think – and just when I thought I’d navigated around it all, I climbed up on a big hunk of rock to take a look around and noticed that I had missed avoiding one pile, which was now pretty firmly stuck to the bottom of my foot. I scraped it on grass and one rock after another, but couldn’t get it clean. Again, the nearby glacial river to the rescue – along with Marc, who took care of it for me while I sat in the sun and soaked it all up.

so sweet of him to do that for me

Maybe the poo came from these guys, though. They stuck out their tongues at us and bleated to beat the band.

We have driven and walked all over this little peninsula in North Norway and have been dazzled by it all, no matter the skies. We have had such fun with the 24-hour daylight; we’ll be out and about and one of us will start to say something about getting back before dark and then we’ll stop – there IS no “getting back before dark!” We’re trying again tonight, assuming the skies stay clear, to drive out to the tip of the peninsula to try to catch a glimpse of the midnight sun. If we find it we do, and if we don’t, it’s OK. It’s been such a beautiful place to spend several days.

Tomorrow we’re up early to catch the ferry back to Breivideidet and then on to Tromso, to the airport. We fly through Oslo to Copenhagen, where we will stay for two nights before heading back to New York City. So with this post I’ll say Tusen takk, Ole and Magni, and Svensby and Lyngseidet and all the mountains and valleys and fjords. We had a wonderful time. Det var hyggelig ȧ treffe deg. Ha det bra!

Lulledalen Skogssti

Today we decided to head over to the next peninsula to the east, the one that abuts Finland, for an easy hike along the Lulleelva River. It’s in a protected area, which means you should not hurt anything or ‘invade’ it, although of course you can forage for mushrooms and berries all you want, and you can just camp anywhere you like. (Too bad, none of the berries are out yet; the tourism guy in Lyngseidet told us yesterday that the berries are around in August.) We drove over to Lyngseidet and caught the ferry to Olderdalen, and then drove ~20 miles to just past Skibotn. 

ferry heading across the fjord

want some food? She has you covered.

the ferry lounge -- the trip took about 45 minutes

All we knew was that it was classified as an “easy” hike, it was 3.1km (and in a loop, we thought even WE couldn’t get lost), and it should take 40-60 minutes. Approximately 170m above sea level. Forest. River. Gorgeous.

As we headed into the forest, Marc sang, “I once had a girl, or should I say, she once had me …” and I busted out laughing. There we were, in a Norwegian wood, and I have to agree with The Beatles. Yes, it is good. So very good.

beautiful place

magical, really

and so so quiet

sweet little flowers

and tall trees

pink

red baby pine cones

and this magnificent raging river --

we could hear it the whole time

three-toed woodpeckers make rings of holes to mark territory

what a great walk

the Lady's slippers

ah, I love a peeling birch, don't you?

but we could not figure out which part was the
inside and which was the outside

so many pinecones

a place to rest at the trail's end

The place was completely empty! There were two other cars in the parking lot, but we never saw another person until we were leaving. All of North Norway feels like this, empty and uninhabited. There were little signs all along the path, some in English, describing the vegetation, or a bit of history (tar pit here, Sami campground there), or giving bits of information about animals and birds that are found in the area. Lots of moose signs along the road and we haven’t seen one yet, but we did come upon a giant pile of moose droppings which was kind of thrilling. We hoped to come across a moose, but no luck. We saw a few medium-small rodents, bigger than field mice but they didn’t look like rats, either. They just scurried across the ground into their little hidey holes.

The ground was soft, and in fact as Marc noted, the whole forest was soft. Not only were there pine needles all over the ground, the ground was kind of boggy, squishy, and sometimes muddy. But the boggy feeling wasn’t due to it being wet; it’s just the nature of the ground. The trees were primarily pine and spruce, and the area is known for its 16 species of orchids, including the Lady’s slipper.

If you’re a real hiker (and we are most definitely not real hikers – we are city walkers), we assume you just know the various conventions for hikes. We, on the other hand, were sometimes unsure where to go because the path either kind of disappeared or split into two or three paths. And it also felt like the M.C. Escher forest too, because we climbed up and up and up and up and never seemed to go down in a corresponding way. There were a few downhill bits, but not nearly as many as the uphill – and yet we did finally end up back at our car, just over two hours later. It was just starting to rain a tiny bit as we were heading out of the forest.

What a gorgeous place Norway is.