Could it be? Our final country was about to loom on the horizon...Norway - NUMBER 30!!! Yes, we entered the wet and spectacularly gorgeous country of Norway at about 2:15 PM, having driven straight up the northern half of the west coast of Sweden from our parking spot near a gas station south of Goteborg. Since both Nicole and Dian were still not yet healthy we decided it was best to take some inside the car time and charge right through to the fjord country northwest of Oslo, without stopping and walking around in either Goteborg (save it for the return trip) or Oslo (save it for after the fjords).
The southeast corner of Norway was unremarkable, flat and green and turning to forests. And, surprisingly, a little messier than most places we'd seen across Europe. But we saw only that one road.
We called Laara, the daughter of our good friend Colleen, with whom we stayed for several weeks in Piegaro, Italy when we reached Oslo at 4, and told her we'd catch her on the down side, in time for the big Constitution Day celebration 17 May, and chatted easily with her, charmed by her ready laugh. She said if we got back by the day before the big holiday we should spend the night at her place - nice! and convenient - and we kept a-rollin'.
We followed the side of a huge, long lake and it got a lot more interesting, with snow covering the mountaintops and us wondering if we were going to see it on the road. (Yes, a little, by the side). We saw campsites every five kilometers! -- actually not good, because they were expensive, and that didn't leave much open road for us to pull off on our own on that back road. As we headed as far as we could (without falling prey to rolling cabin fever), up the beautiful Hemsedal Valley, we came to the little namesake town, a real ski resort probably packed in the right season but pretty deserted in May, and asked if we could sleep near the gas station and were told yes, no problem.
As we wheeled around to choose a spot a young man stopped his white VW campervan ahead of us and Charles rolled down the window and got the conversation started off warmly with, "Nice car!" Our fellow Westphalia enthusiast was named Mattias and after satisfying his curiosity with some questions about our car and journey and coming over to look at the map with us to give advice for nice things to see, he asked where we were staying that night and when we said "right here," he said "naw, why don't you come park behind my place, it's just up the hill, you'll have a better view and use of the facilities. I'll give you a key so you can come in whenever you need to." Hoping for the best, we accepted the offer. And finally, one of Dian's cherished travel scenarios came true: someone we met on the road, a complete stranger, took us home. (Probably added to the mix was that he was a young, handsome Dane.)
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| Tunnel with a hole |
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| Norway's playful |
When we got to his driveway we were struck by the magnificent sight of the looming snow-capped mountains with their ski slopes, through the tall pine trees. His girlfriend Katja came unexpectedly around the corner as he was showing us up the stairs, and said "Oh! Hello! What have we here...?" We thought Mattias was about to get into a little trouble but it turned out he is active with VW camper groups and often invites travelers to stop by and stay at their place, sometimes remembering to tell Katja, sometimes not. She asked him rather playfully, "So -- how long have you known?" and Charles rushed to Mattias defense -- "Five minutes!! Really!" So she fell right into step, all smiles and fine with it ("... of course!") and asked if we were staying overnight, offering a spare bedroom in their roomy, neat, mountain cabin-style upstairs apartment. We opted to use the bathroom but not the beds, and Katja insisted we come up for a nice breakfast the next morning, made all the more enticing because it would be Mothers' Day (at least, stateside - not in Sweden, where she was from).
We chatted a while about their life there, why two people from different countries would come to a third to live, and the short answer was, snow, great snow, for two people who love skiing and snowboarding. They looked at Canada and a few other places, but settled on Norway where they got jobs easily, she teaching kindergarten and he working with special needs students and later with tourists (when he later took a farm job working with calves, he said they were much easier), all positions qualifying them for large government subsidies on their housing, and other benefits. They were paying next to nothing for their beautiful spacious apartment with the million-dollar view, and just got the keys to the three bedroom home they had applied for, at only $160/mo higher than the apartment. Even though neither were now working at those government-favored occupations.
Most pay around 30% income tax in Norway, they said, yet many get subsidized cheap housing and everyone gets free schooling through university degree, complete health care, six-seven weeks paid vacation, and so on and so on. Even Danes and Swedes covet the benefits of Norway's system, much of it financed by their rich oil and gas deposits which were NOT turned over to corporate interests for obscene personal profits but instead maintained as a resource of the people of Norway, for their benefit. All the electricity needed by Norway's four million people is generated by water power, so virtually all the oil and gas is sold on the international market and that goes in government coffers. Gee -- we have such a better system in America, don't we? Aren't you fellow Americans glad Exxon makes $4 billion PROFIT per QUARTER and your price at the pump keeps going up, up, up...?
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| Llama farm (but not Mattias' farm) |
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| A GIANT trailer park |
They were going to a birthday party late that night, even though Mattias had a job working on a farm with early hours he said he loved it. "I hug the calves when I feed them, it's so nice, so... romantic...... when I'm not shoveling manure." We turned in by 10:30, even though it was still very light out.
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| Charles, Dian, Katja, Mattias, and Nicole (behind the camera, of course!) |
They were going to a birthday party late that night, even though Mattias had a job working on a farm with early hours he said he loved it. "I hug the calves when I feed them, it's so nice, so... romantic...... when I'm not shoveling manure." We turned in by 10:30, even though it was still very light out.
You guys are my HEROES! OMG! You are incredible! Nicole, if you are reading this, you are getting the BEST EVER education there IS! College can't do this!
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