No(r)way!

I’ve been staring at my screen trying to think of how I should begin this post. I started yesterday, wrote a couple paragraphs and then deleted them, and then started over a couple times. Eventually, I gave up, watched “Friends” and went to bed. Nothing seemed to capture, portray, or live up to the exact emotions I felt and it was incredibly frustrating.

At this point, pretty much everyone I know knows that I spent my weekend in Norway. I can sum up my time there in eight words: “it was awesome, I want to go back.” In essence, Norway is amazing. The friends I went with and I spent the weekend in Bergen which is a city built into mountains and on a fjord. All of the buildings are either old or built to look old so everywhere you look there’s a mixture of modern culture with old world architecture and it’s beautiful and thought provoking.

Jumping for joy because nature is awesome

On Saturday we decided to hike Trolltunga. For those of you who don’t know Trolltunga is a rock that sticks out above a fjord near Odda, about three hours outside Bergen, and it’s an 11km hike to get there. I am by no means a professional hiker. I hike parts of the Appalachian Trail every once in a while and enjoy hiking in Colorado when I get the chance but this was the biggest challenge I’ve ever taken on and I was so excited.

It sucked. The hike was super hard but after the first two kilometers it became much easier. Once the stone stairs were finished, I was able to set my sights directly on reaching Trolltunga, something I’d only dreamed about doing. It’s pretty cool to actually achieve something you only dream about because once you’re there it seems surreal but then you pinch yourself, take some pictures, and then realize that it’s reality.

Wondering across the Norwegian mountainside was an adventure. Rocks were everywhere and made up the majority of the landscape, something that I’m not used to coming from the east coast. I did slip a couple of times as my boots, backpack, and pants could show but that was just part of the adventure of it all. Sometimes the slip would hurt or jolt me but it made it more fun. 

We made it to Trolltunga about four and a half hours later and it was worth all of the slips, the aching legs and feet, and the sweat covering my face. Yes I’ve seen pictures of it, but once you see something in real life, it changes your view completely. Honestly, the entire rock and hike is surreal. I’m no geologist but rocks shouldn’t really stick out that far without falling but it does and it has for thousands of years which is pretty cool.

The top of the mountain was freezing and I sang “Let It Go” in my head for an hour and a half while we waited to take pictures. In the midst of the rain, mist, and snow, I couldn’t help but be amazed at everything that had happened in the past few hours. I’d flown to Norway, slept for a couple hours, and hiked longer than I’d slept. If you’d told me three months ago that I’d spent a weekend in Norway hiking Trolltunga I’d laugh and say “that’s nice, but it won’t happen.” BUT IT DID. Bucket list item checked off

We made it back down the mountain with a few more slips and a lot more mud but it didn’t matter since we’d made it. The hike down was much easier than the hike up and even though my toes and knees were in pain for the middle kilometers, we didn’t stop until the bottom. I took a minute to fill my water with some fresh aqua but that was it. After the hike, it took us 45 minutes to wash off ourselves and our boots and then another three and a half hours (we got soooo lost) to get back to Bergen. But we watched the sun set on the day over the fjords and getting lost, the mud on my pants, and the sweat in my hair was worth it. Norway is beautiful, 10/10 would recommend.

Thankfully, Sunday was spent wandering around Bergen and not hiking a lot since we were all somewhat sore. We tried fresh whale from a vendor in the fish market, got Starbucks (!!!) and ate lunch at a traditional Norwegian restaurant. It was the best weekend I’d had in a long time. Norway is so cool and getting to see two different aspects was really interesting. Now, I’m just counting down the days until I can go back.

Once I can actually write with some more caffeine and when my thoughts are more aligned I'll actually write more in depth about my experience hiking Trolltunga and in Norway. Trust me, this won't be the last of Norway.