Norway: The Land of Majestic Fjords, Beautiful People, and Beers That Cost More Than My Fish & Chips.
A Journey Through the Kingdom of Norway with My Best Friends.
It has been a gorgeous past few days here in the Northeast. After a two-week deep freeze stacked with days in the negative teens, we've finally been welcomed with Spring in New England -- three days in the middle of January. As you can imagine, this sort of weather has awoken people from their state of hibernation and sent them out into nature where happiness and fun has blossomed like May flowers. I am not one of those people. Instead of enjoying the warmest days out of the next several months, I've laid in bed for 48 hours now with the flu. This foul beast has struck me at the most inopportune of time. Nevertheless, I've decided to put my small amount of remaining energy in my bones into crafting one of the Norway posts that I mentioned would happen a week or so after my last post.... back in September :). I promise that I'm not trying to do this! I just get busy with other life things. Oh and I went to Hawaii in November... so that's going to need a post in itself.
Anyways, drumroll please.........
I look super creepy in this photo, but it's at least proof that I'm not lying about the trip!
Last June, I embarked on an 8-day adventure across the great Atlantic Ocean with my travel buddies, Aaron and Meredith. We'd booked a sweet deal in December through Norwegian Airlines for only EUR 278.30, which at the time was roughly $290 and included a non-stop flight from Boston to Oslo, and a brief return layover in London (Travel Tip: Book through the "Other Countries - English" portion of Norwegian to save anywhere from $40 to $80 on a round trip flight. While listed in Euros, their rates are significantly lower through the European version of the site. The only issue might be with your credit card company being suspicious of the booking.)
While we had six months to plan the trip, we were overwhelmed with the surprising enormity of Norway and quickly realized that one week is not even close to enough time to see what we'd hope to see. The other barrier was the Norwegian language that matched Iceland in its impossibility for us to decipher. Staring at maps and trip idea websites, we were still so lost as to how to go about the trip.... we just knew that we definitely wanted to visit the Lofoten Islands up north, while still spending time in the south. We just didn't have a clue how we'd make this all possible. So what did we do? Well, we procrastinated like we always do. Yup. Months went by and we still hadn't booked anything or truly planned out our trip. Somehow though, in the matter of days we put together a partial itinerary that ended up being pretty sweet.
Day 1
I'm going to cover the trip in sections and I'll likely make you wait anywhere from one day to the rest of your life to see the next portion. I'll start here with day 1.
BOS > OSL ----> BGO
The flight on Norwegian was awesome. I was so shocked at how smooth a journey on a low-cost Trans-Atlantic carrier could be. Flying non-stop on a gorgeous Boeing-787 Dreamliner, we had plenty of legroom and heaps of entertainment at our fingertips. The flight was a red-eye out of Boston and landed in Oslo only 6 or so hours later. (Norwegian may have abandoned the BOS > OSL direct flight as I can't seem to find it anymore. Sorry, ya'll!). Oslo-Gardermoen was a super convenient airport too upon arrival.
Since we had elected to fly into Oslo and not Bergen, you're probably guessing that the first thing we did was ride into the city and start exploring the Norwegian capital, right? If that was your assumption, then you've never heard about how Aaron and I go about our trips. You see - we booked the flight on a whim because who can't pass up <$300 flights to Norway during the Midnight Sun season?... which means that we hadn't actually done research into the geography of the country or the hiking situations. Since I am obsessed with fjords, I eventually realized that the west coast was one of many idyllic regions of Norway that I had always seen in the photos. So, we ended up doing probably one of the coolest things I've ever done. After finishing a 7 hour flight, we immediately hopped on an express train into Oslo and hurried our way onto the Bergen Railway for another 7-hour journey -- this time a scenic train ride that traversed snowcapped mountains, winded through stunning fjords, and passed by charming Norwegian villages. We were off on our journey to the gateway to the West Fjords. Take a look at some of the pics:
The scenery wasn't the only thing memorable about the railway to Bergen. There were two other memorable moments. First, along the journey we witnessed perhaps the greatest composition of children's nursery rhymes that has ever been recited. This young Norwegian couple that sat diagonal from us was putting on quite a performance for their miniature human, not realizing that three American travelers were perhaps more enthralled by her words than the wailing baby.
♫
Beep, Beep, I'ma Sheep.
Meow, Meow, I'ma Cow.
.... Hops, Hops, Hops
Those words rang throughout the train car and made us question our entire lives. Had we been misled as to the sounds of animals in the U.S.? Did Norwegian animals make the wrong noises? Was this woman just downright wrong and we should step in and say something? Will this child grow up and be laughed at throughout his or her entire youth? While we still do not know the answers to those questions to this day, we have since been made aware of the terrifying Beep Beep I'm a Sheep YouTube Video. Viewer discretion is advised.
The other memorable moment from the trip was meeting this absolutely amazing Norwegian woman named Tove who was returning from Oslo where she had been visiting her daughter. Tove was sitting in our grouping of four seats -- two seats on each side of a table, facing one another. Feeling bad that this woman was going to have to share the company of not only myself, but Aaron and Meredith as well, I elected to invite her into our conversations. It turned out that Tove was one of the nicest humans we've ever met and a fantastic conversationalist, filling us in with heaps of information and entertaining stories. Tove was enthralled with my dog, so I'm convinced that she only wanted to keep talking to us in hopes that she could dognap Nikki (my dog) and hide her away in a cozy corner of Norway. Funnily enough, Tove and I have actually become great friends since then, as Tove has taken over as my #1 best friend on Snapchat. We chat daily and send snaps back and forth -- mine of frigid Maine temperatures and my friends being ridiculous, and her's of her beautiful dogs and the majestic new hiking adventures that she seems to embark on every hour.
Bergen, NO
We finally made it to Bergen at approximately 7pm in Norway (or 1pm Eastern Time), meaning we had been awake for only 31 straight hours at that point, worked a full day and been on two 6/7 hour journeys. So as you can imagine, all we wanted to do was catch up on our sleep. Well... we don't really like to sleep on our trips, so we did the exact opposite and went exploring after we had checked into our cute AirBNB atop one of Bergen's steepest streets. Oh and if I didn't mention it, this is the Midnight Sun season in Norway. One can basically wander around the streets through the entire night and the sky will get no darker than the equivalent of about 6pm on a summer night in New England.
With stomachs growling and fuel reserves low, we opted for dinner at a traditional Scandinavian restaurant called "Pingvinen." Okay - we mostly picked it because it was called The Penguin. I treated myself to the 169NOK Plukkfisk - a meal consisting of mashed potatoes mixed with Atlantic white fish and topped with bits of bacon. On the side was delicious flatbread to help fatten me up. To wash it down, I opted for the decent 82NOK Nøgne Ø Blonde. The meal might have been the greatest thing I've ever eaten (probably because I hadn't eaten anything substantial in days) and I would recommend anyone who visits Bergen to head straight for this tiny little gem.
Two hours after first sitting down for a meal and a beer or two, I had to be the one to demand we go to sleep. I know - I'm a huge party pooper and ruined all the fun for everyone. Approaching midnight, we finally opted to drowsily climb the steep street back to our AirBNB where we pretty much immediately sank into a coma for a handful of hours until our early morning tram ride to the airport to get our rental car.
Now that we were going to have a vehicle, the adventure was truly getting underway.
-- If you don't feel like waiting months an unknown amount of time for the next post, check out some of my Norway photos in the Norway Collection right here: Norway Collection.