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

Hut Life

Hurray for Norway Huts! This is the most extensive system of trails we have ever experienced.

The Norse folk know how to do it up! 10 to 15 mile hikes between huts, bigpeak ascents, well-marked trails, georgous huts with full meals, showers, saunas, why aren't we doing this every weekend?!

We trained and bussed from Oslo to Jotenheimen National Park where we started a 4-day trek from Gjendesheim, Memerubu, Glitterheim and to Spiterstulen. The huts are serious mountain lodges, old school Bavarian style (Otsego for those of you who know the reference) and very well-maintained. We opted to camp each night and save ourselves some serious Kroner. Things can get reDONKulously expensive in no time--camping near the huts means full use of all facilities--how lovely!

A typical day started with a massive breakfast at the lodge--multiple plates of food, especially for Chris! Homemade breads, cheeses, incredible milk products, soft-boiled eggs, yummers. We hiked 6-7 hours each day over the famous Bessengen knife edge, across glacial lakes and plateaus and culminated with a summit of Glittertin, the highest glaciated peak in Norway!

We highly recommend the huts, and some you can ferry into without having to hike between them. It's quite an experience. We hope to be back in winter for some serious skiing--6500km of trails are waiting for us!

Signing off from Alesand, in the fjord country--going to explore the coast for a few days, then through Lillehamer and down into Southern Sweden.

Our Norwegian is pretty pathetic but we are trying! He en God Dog!

The crazy Norwegians-
Sally and Chris

Olso Mania

    Where to begin?! Perhaps at the beginning...5 AM Saturday wake up. 6:16 AM
The Blue Star Bus arrives. Van ride a la high school. Sitting in the back, way back bench.
Can't beat the price, however. Plastic bag our wedding-era backpacks (right, just a year old).
TSA spots an illegal Cream in chris' bag. Flaxseed rub he borrowed from Barry Bonds? No,his six pound jar of peanut butter.
Nearly came to blows. Only upside is his bag is dramatically lighter.

Nothing wild about the flight to Chicago. Sally sat next to a fairly dramatic woman who was extremely uncomfortable in her seat. Sally was more than aware of this problem. Nearly came to blows.

Chicago to London. Managed to land in the exit row bulkhead having somehow had two seats at opposite ends of the plane.
Gave the booking agent a huge hug. Ate surprisingly well on the flight. I had this Indian dish and Sally a taste of Italia with stuffed shells.
However despite being full we slept not at all. Too much on our minds...

London Heathrow to Oslo. Got some much needed winks in the airport and on the plane.

Oslo. Architects dream. Airport. No detail left behind. Form and function in every aspect. Have some pictures but may be a few days before we can download...

Skipping ahead - into Oslo - find out hotel which happens to be in the Embassy district. Major houses and beautiful colorful streets of formidable stone buldings. Serious goodness. Landed our gear in our fine hotel and headed to get some local tourist beta.

Turns out there is a bike rental system. Highly practical and fun. So we signed up - $12 each for 24 hours - and started toward a very funky part of town up the Aker River to find the purportedly best pizza in Norway. We have a thing for pizza. These bikes are a riot. 3 gears. Really stout. Usually with some minor ailment. And logically Oslo has tons of bike lanes, even though we'd often just ride down the center of the road. ; )

Pizza and several flea markets later, we headed back to home base, batteries running very low.
Sally zonked at 8. I followed shortly thereafter. Day 1 being the
Better part of 48 hours.

Day 2. Today. Needs serious photo emBELLishment. To come. Breakfast of champions. The spread was, how do you say in Norge, fregengud!! Tons of this and that. So chris piled on plates of bread, swedish pancakes and norwegian forest berry treats. Sally dined on Lox and Lox of tasty fish and musleix.

From there, we rolled downhill to our bikes and headed to the Viking ships! Quite possibly the coolest museum building - accented the ships perfectly- we saw three burial ships that we unearthed ('were', that would have been a lot of work for this morning) you had the visual of what scale these were and a lot ofthe itemsthat accompanied this incredible age of dominace. Without these ships-no Vikings. Or at least not In places like Greenland. Just the right punt of information and stuff to see. We hit it right. Soon the massive euro tour buses landed and you could barely scratch yourself (without running the risk of improperly scratching someone else). From there we hit the beach and witnessed a little nude bathing. Quite amusing as the nudist colony consisted of 3 and 5 year olde running wild. Lots of laughs.

From there we did a picnic lunch up at Vigeland Park. Again, incredible attention to detail. A massive park containing the work of a single artist who depicted humans in their natural state - full of play and fun and yet hugely dramatic setting and design. Picutes, once posted, will 'splain ( inside sally chris joke- 'splain me' was famously uttered by our south American ski touring guide winter before last - man named Chago).

From there we hit the DNT to get our hut to hut hiking trip
Squared away - DNT is the hut system and hiking org of Norway that has an office in Oslo - then did hit the hotel for some down two while it poured rain - and got some groceries - tell me you don't love explorig foreign grocery stores? Total riot. Ran into a gluten and wheat intolerant Portuguese man who contintually asked us to read the labels. With bad breath. We did our best to track down the ingrediants and not pass out.

Oslo opera house. Insane. Hour? Late. Sally said last call for blogging was an hour ago. Night all. Sending warm Norwegian sweater hugs to all.

Scandihoovian travels ahead

Sally is owning her Norwegian Heritage and Chris is now every bit Norwegian by default! We are about to embark on 3+ weeks of Scandihoovian travels to Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. We are feverishly packing everything into our lightweight packs (yeah wedding gifts!). We are considering this trip a delayed Honeymoon of sorts, we hope to take an annual Honeymoon every year :)




Chris likes to have everything packed days in advance-












Sally is still deciding which capris to bring! hmm...





Heading out Saturday morning--Portland, Chicago, London and on to Oslo!

Shut eye much needed--signing off until the Norse country--