notes from norway 1

tak • means thank you in norwegian !

GOOD EVENING AND MORNING ESTEEMED SUBSCRIBERS! For reasons that will become obvious in a few paragraphs I was extremely tired yesterday but today is my second day in Norway! I do love a good Scandinavian adventure.

This time I’m joined by esteemed subscriber Winnie Li, and right from the start we were getting a rough go at it all with a FULL GROUND STOP FOR ONE HOUR at JFK due to lightning. 

I was sweating bullets and shitting bricks. Just sitting on the tarmac waiting to take off, marinating in my own despair that somehow we were going to miss our connecting flight. I was googling alternate flights (none) checking the travel insurance (situation doesn’t apply) looking at alternate ways to get to our final destination (none).

We were gonna get cooked. A frog sitting in a pot nearing its boiling point. Unless we decided to run. 

Reaching our final destination of Svolvaer requires a few steps:

1. Flying to Oslo
2. Tight transfer to a flight to Bodo
3. Chill transfer to a flight to Svolvaer

The problem: the tight transfer involved entering the Schengen area, entering Norway then re-entering the airside of the airport. 

After rushing off the plane in Oslo we begged the officer to let us skip to the front of the line. Thankfully we were allowed to be process first and after that it was off to the races. Sprinting across the warm wooden floorboards of the airport, we ran up and down the Norwegian scenery, flying up escalators and bounding down flights of stairs before we arrived at the security line.

“Short breaths, please!” said the guard as he checked our boarding passes. 

Desperately, I asked if we would make our flight. Thankfully, he said we would. With five minutes to spare, we rolled up to our gate. In 20, we were in the air. 

After a relaxing transfer in Bodo we boarded our final plane ride: a 30-minute ride aboard this very small DHC-8-100 Dash 8. 

That was pretty much the end of the eventful was for the day. We landed in Svolvaer and picked up the car and drove into town. Since we were too early for the AirBnB check in Winnie slept in the car while I took a walk around town. 

I entered this war memorial museum and I walked into this room and it had a huge Nazi flag and lemme tell you I looked like that one meme of the guy looking up in horror!!!!

It was honestly a cool museum! Some notes

• anti-Nazi museum, only reason there’s a lot of Nazi stuff is because they invaded and occupied Norway for a bit before getting beat back!
• Lots of Sami — a people indigenous to Sweden — helped guide refugees from the occupation into neutral Sweden and saved a lot of lives
• The Norwegian resistance was trained in a place dubbed “Little Norway” in Canada

We checked into our AirBnB and after a short wait we got going and checked in for our RIB tour! We saw sea eagles, jelly fish, and toured a fjord. I personally also saw my life flash before my eyes when our guide was ripping it over the waves. 

The next morning I did a little walk and grabbed cinnamon rolls and cardamom buns at the bakery for breakfast. Coffee was eh. Rolls and buns were SMACZNE. We hightailed it over Henningsvaer where we were greeted by a very cute town. Winnie stopped by a lot of the Norwegian wool shops before settling on one. 

We also saw the super viral soccer field which was meh — especially compared to the FISH SOUP I had after at Fiskekrogen!! Absolutely amazing with a good amount of veggies in it. I am now a fish soup fan. 

If you thought that was the end of the day, you would be incorrect! We hit the Viking museum which was quite alright. The movie was interesting and I did get to see some cool artifacts as well as an re-enactment of some Viking stuff. 

We then left while ignoring a hitchhiker to check out an old Nazi radar post at Borga Eggum. And that was when the views started. Boy, when I tell you there were views and sheep and everything. When the sun shined down ans illuminated the entire face of a mountain was when I truly understood how some religions could worship just the sun. It was majestic and powerful in the same sweep.

Since this post is getting long and I’m tired our next stop was Uttakleiv Beach where there were more sheep a well as this tide pool that somewhat looked like a dragons eye. 

And then we hightailed it to the next AirBnB! I’m sitting here at 11pm desperately typing on my phone trying to get this out so I can go to bed. 

So far, Norway has been so beautiful and honestly freeing. Work has been rough and I’ve really needed a vacation for a while. Something about the crisp Arctic Circle air and the smell of the sea and the sun shining on cliff faces and the cute little sheep and the red fishing cabins is doing it for me. I’m recharging!!

Catch you guys tomorrow!