Trondheim

At 7am Norway was still not as cold as I was expecting and as Espen and Stian later pointed out, it was unusually warm for this time of year, got to love global warming.

Espen picked me up from the station and we went back to his house. I expected to be tired but after a lot of coffee and a shower I felt brand new again.

I’m not sure if Espen was perhaps thinking I was a little bit of a weirdo for coming all the way to Norway, seeing as we had officially only known each other for 2 days, over 8 months ago. 

While I was staying in Spain with Beccy, Espen and Stian had passed through Granada for a couple of days on a small trip through Andalusia.  They had written a note on couchsurfing looking for people to hang out with. At that time I think Beccy and I were drinking giggle juice, watching Johnny Depp (unfortunately not in person) and dancing around the house to ‘Caravan Palace’, so meeting two random Norwegians seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do. 

They were probably expecting some Spaniards but they got Aussies instead (as I had by that time significantly re-aussified Bec from her hybrid Spanish form).  We had a lot of fun and kept in contact through facebook over the months and so it was really nice to see them both again and felt like we had known each other for much longer.

 

I expected Trondheim to be a city but was pleasantly surprised to find a small (ish) town on the banks of a river.  We wandered down through the old quarter of the town and over the bridge to the beautiful cathedral; it was unspoilt by tourists and extravagance and was quite peaceful. 

 

Stopping at a cafe, for the first time in Europe I experienced the phenomenon of cafes and restaurants supplying blankets for their outside customers. It wasn’t that cold as we were in the sun, but I was still excited by the prospect.   More coffee and a Norwegian waffle later we walked through town to see if we could wake up Stian, a difficult task I was warned.

His car wasn’t home and he didn’t come to the door, but eventually after a phone call he stumbled out to meet us and then promptly invited us to walk down the street to get some spring rolls.

We headed to the Park to meet some of their friends as Stian practiced his Australian accent, which was pretty good actually, I later found out that he had probably been watching ‘Home and Away’ for tips (yes, Norway also has Home and Away...) .

We had a beer in the park and then headed to a restaurant on the wharf and later Stian invited us to his Dad’s house for a BBQ.  I have missed a good BBQ, they were a little apprehensive about having an Australian to dinner  who’s traditional dish is pretty much a BBQ, but it was SO yummy, it had been a while since I had eaten meat, I've accidently become a vegetarian.

The next day Espen and I drove to his summer house that perched on the coast of a fjord near the town of Vistvik (Espen warned me it was not a ‘proper’ Fjord, but it was still magical to me).   I was really lucky to have the opportunity to drive through even a tiny part of the country and to see how beautiful some of Scandinavia really was.  The air and sun looked so fresh; it almost seemed to clarify the landscape which was literally picture perfect.   

Closer to the cabin, the roads did get a little sketchy and the underside of the car may have picked up just a couple of scratches. There were also signs warning of moose, the prospect of which made me kind of feel (and probably act) like a little kid on a school excursion.

Espen’s cabin was so pretty and isolated, there was nobody else around and the view was stunning. We cooked dinner (we meaning Espen) and decided to have a scrabble tournament (in English) with a Norwegian board from the 1950’s.  This meant throwing out half the letters (all the pretty Norwegian ones) and ending up with almost a complete English alphabet. 

As a native English speaker and someone who enjoys words, I arrogantly thought I had it in the bag and even accepted the terms that the loser has to take a midnight swim...

Let’s just say that I won, just. I’m going to leave it at that because I get to write the blog so I get to be biased. 

The next day we bush bashed (well, rock slipped) our way across the coast to an old abandoned house, which was creepy in a romantic way. Supposedly the man who lived there died in the 70’s and it had been abandoned ever since. He was married and one day when he was away during a storm, his boat somehow undocked itself and floated out to sea. His wife swam after it but couldn’t pull it ashore and so stood for hours in the freezing water and later died of pneumonia.  It could be a children’s story for stormy nights, but being there in that vast yet secluded place, I could imagine it. 

We spent the entire day lounging around on the deck and catching up on all sorts of things. Espen had promised that the water was full of porpoises and when the wind died down you could suddenly hear water spouting from the surface.  I have never seen a porpoise before and I got to follow three of them slowly gliding across the water looking for food.

As the sun started to slip away it was time to head back to Trondheim so that I wouldn’t miss my bus.

We met with Stian and went for dinner and discussed the possibility of opening a brewery in Australia.  Espen would brew the beer, Stian would distribute it (they both have suitable skills in this field) and I would do...something.  And best of all Stian could perfect his Australian (preferably Brisbanian) accent.

 

They dropped me off at the bus and it was genuinely sad to say goodbye, they had both been so good to me and I’m really happy that we got to catch up once again in a random situation.