Time Flies...

When you are having this much fun!

Håly smøkes! But a week to go?!?

Excuse our delayed blogging effort.

Between doing more camping that imagined, and late haunts in the city, we are happily finding we end up spending very little time in front of a screen!

Alas, a quick missive here to account for at least a few highlights -- this Danish keyboard, meanwhile, is attempting to put all sorts of æ and ø and € in my text. We wøuldn't mind the €, however I am reminded of typing letters in Italia in '96 where I used to type my letters which read pretty funny because I was constantly apologizing for miss-hits. Hopefully I won't quite have to do the same here...

Okay, we last left you at the hostel in Åndalesnes (intentional "Å", actually). Åndalesnes is a very sleepy town on Sundays, I mean not a single store open, thus we decided to hike up a local peak. Typical Norway. You gain a meter every step. I attempted a swim in the local waters. Though the water definitely had a serious Artic bite. Thus we limited it to stirring our weary limbs in the ice bath. Sally was mildly disappointed I didn't jump in, and provide some noise for the otherwise silent city.

Okay, from Åndalesnes, we ventured on a bus to the remarkable city of Ålesand. Since Sally needed the last available front seat for happy (stomach) riding, I took one of the last remaining seats adjacent to a Ernest Hemmingway-looking fellow. Man turned out to be the Norwegian Captain Ahab. And taught foreign students Norwegian, thus quite fluent. We had a lengthy discussion on all things Norwegian. He lives on this remote coastal island and with his college friends (mind you he is now 60) still rows a boat up the Norwegian coast every year with them for 2 weeks. They gather, wherever the boat last stopped, and row (or sail, if the wind is right) it again. Until time is up, and then park it in the nearest, willing house that can store it. He said, "we don't ask if they can outright store it with the suspect, but IF they know anyone who might be able..." Very clever. And more often then not, they find a landing place for the next year, within the hour. My other favorite aspect of this fellow is he use of "former times". Whenever I'd ask about some unique building trait or vernacular form, he'd talk about "well in former times"...and from the sound of it, much of the landscape today is still built on principles from "former times"...something our photos (or a visit) will show. Slate roofs, thick walls, house coloring...a scan of the Norwegian landscape and you'd be hard-pressed to call out the old from the new. We loved it, and hope to someday build a house that incorporates those notions of "former times"...

I have a large fellow pacing behind me. This is a public terminal, so I may have to give it up shortly...

Ålesand is a dreamy place if you seek a rich flowering of the Jugendstil (Young) movement (architecture). Ålesand is this beautiful coast fishing community that largely burned in 1904. With a national (and international) outpouring of help, the whole city was rebuilt in a matter of years, by the ýoung, German-French trained NORWEGIAN architects in the country. It was like Home+a+rama 1904. Everyone pulled out all the stops of that style era, while folding in hilarious bits and pieces of local lore and Norwegian mythology. Pictures will (eventually) tell the tale...one of the greatest expressions is found in the Apotek (pharmacy), which also home to a museum on the architecture, and a fantastic cafe. We find that some of the best cafes are lodged inside museums. Who knew!?

Alright. Sally is en route to join me for our fleeting, final moments in Kopenhaven and the large fellow has started grunting. Thus, we'll pick this blog up once we land in Stockholm, and perhaps update some pictures, get you through the Fjords of Norway, the still celebrating the Olympics from 1994 Lillehammer, insanely cool Goteborg and our fantastic new (now old) friends there including morning swims in somewhat warmer waters, and K(open)haven, where the World Out Games colored our fabulous time here in a rainbow hue.

Sending boundless wishes of wellness to you all -- you are with us in spirit!

The Travelling Bellberrys