Norway - Day 1

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I know I am writing this on Tuesday instead of last night … all I can tell you is that the jet lag got me last night at about 7:30, and I decided sleep was the next thing that had to be done. But 12 hours later – we are ready for business again, or at least we will be when Dave gets back with the coffee.

Flying into Norway was amazing – you fly in over the islands and then you land on what seems to be one of the small islands on a mountain ridge top. As it turns out, there was enough room to land, but I am glad we came in on a city hopper plane. I was looking on Wikipedia – and there are 67 named islands that are listed as close to Norway; when you look at the exhaustive list – there are more than I can count.

Because of the races, all of the buses that normally come into the city center, go only as far as the bus station, and all of the roads down town are closed. The bus station is about a kilometer from our apartment, so we put our backpacks on, and walked. Thankfully, the apartment is on the lower part of the mountain spine we landed on so the hills were not too bad. But you will see in the pictures, that there are places to live where only billy goats should roam. I couldn’t believe it, but Dave let me navigate to the apartment; even more unbelievable, I walked us almost right to it. I say almost, because once we got close, we did have to circle a little bit to find the actual place, and we would have never found it if our landlady hadn’t been outside waiting for us.

Andy would be happy to know that Dave can still walk with 2 backpacks on him – one in the front and one in the back. I carried my own back pack, but Dave had his carry on pack he had to carry as well. I was having flashbacks to our trip to Garmisch with Andy where we walked lots of places with our backpacks - and how much Andy enjoyed these walkabouts.

Our apartment is right on the race course – and we got here just in time for the last part of the under 23 men’s time trial. You will be happy to know that Marianne left us 2 Norwegian flags – suitable for carrying and waving at the races – so we will blend in with the locals this week. Our apartment is awesome – cute and cozy. But we do have one of those induction cooktops again. This is our second experience with these – and I can tell you this is not an appliance in my dream kitchen. Today we are in search of a tea kettle so we can make coffee without attempting to use the stove.

We were able to watch the last part of the race and explore our nearby neighborhood. We are going to have so much fun. Dave has already found a place he can get a reindeer hotdog; I have found a place that only serves ice cream and cocktails; and we have found a 50’s diner – complete with old cars you can eat in. We have scouted the start and finish areas for the race – and it is a great set up – you can watch the big screens with commentary, and then run to the course and cheer the riders as they go by.

The Norwegian fans are awesome. Not only do they all have flags, but most of them dress in their country colors. We have pictures of some of them in today’s post. And they cheer for everyone – especially Norwegians – but also for other teams. Yesterday, there was an American - Neilson Powless - who was in contention for a podium spot. He had been close, and then lost time, and then was making his charge and gaining time, he was climbing up one of the steep sections, the crowd was cheering – and then he had a mechanical where he threw his chain – as he was looking down to see what had happened, he crashed into a barrier and fell over head first. The crowd groaned as all of this unfolded. As it ended up, he lost 45 seconds with the crash and then the bike change, and he didn’t get a podium spot. But he got an amazing cheer from the crowd as he came into finish. He ended up finishing in the top 10; and will race next year for our team NL Lotto-Jumbo. USA did get second place – Brandon McNaulty; Denmark took a commanding first place; France took third place.

History lesson for today – inspired by the first statue we saw of Holberg. He was a writer, essayist, philosopher, historian and playwright born in Bergen, Norway, during the time of the Dano-Norwegian double monarchy. He was influenced by Humanism, the Enlightenment and the Baroque and is considered the founder of modern Danish and Norwegian literature. He lived 1684-1754. Don’t worry – we saw more statues yesterday, and we will get to all of them before we go home.

Today’s races are the Men’s junior time trail and the Women’s Elite Time trials. And we might explore some of the route – maybe find the climb by the funcular. And who hasn’t always wanted to ride up the mountain on the funcular. We also pick up our tickets for Thursday’s “Norway in a Nutshell” tour, and will continue to work on figuring out the monetary system. The Krone system looks easy – but we are having some adjustment challenges. First of all – with the current exchange rate - you have to be able to divide by 8 in your head to figure out how much things cost in dollars. Dave has decided its easier to divide first by 2 and then by 4 .. but he was never the homework parent. Second – you have to get used to paying what seems like a lot for things; our groceries last night were 480 Kr, and coffee this morning was 2 for 36 Kr. So far my favorite coin in the one with the hole in the middle – makes me feel like a Viking.

Last good news before we go – it looks like it will be cool and rainy today; the locals are in short sleeves, we are wearing coats.

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Photos

50's Diner
we didn't want to look too much like tourists - so we didn't sit in it .... yet

Umbrella Street
Lots of fun places on this street

Reindeer Dog Stand
Dave is going to try one before we leave

Holberg Statue
Culture

Scenic
One of the places you can watch the race

Norwegian Fans
Awesome

Balloon Tulips
not sure what the ears are ... but cute