Leaving Trondheim

We began moving out of the apartment on August 2nd. Over the next few days we gave some of our stuff away to friends, sold our furniture to our landlord, cleaned the apartment, and stashed most of our luggage with The Natives. Our landlord reclaimed our keys and gave us a ride to the airport at noon on August 6th.

After cleaning our apartment for the final time we celebrated by jamming a Swedish birthday candle into a lime.

Our destination was Gothenburg, Sweden to hang out with The Swedes and attend the Way Out West festival. Of particular interest to us at the festival were The National, Neutral Milk Hotel, OutKast, and Robyn.

The festival had two stages that were not covered; this was the larger of the two.

A third stage was placed inside of a tent to enhance the club atmosphere.

OutKast were underwhelming and created controversy amongst the locals with their videos of gyrating, scantily-clad women. However, no one took offense to Robyn spending 10 minutes pantomiming a sexual encounter with a robot during her set on the following evening.

We really like spending time with these guys.

The weather stopped cooperating on the final day of the festival; disposable rain ponchos weren't the only way that people escaped the downpour.

We finally had an opportunity to visit the Liseberg amusement park; it is very Swedish and a great place to spend a sunny afternoon.

Our unwillingness to ride the scary rides thoroughly disappointed Anders. I totally would have maybe ridden this children's ride except someone had to stay behind to take some blurry pictures. I think the intensity of the smugness on Becca's face interfered with the camera's autofocus system.

After spending five excellent days in Gothenburg we flew to Munich so Becca could show me a few of the places that she had visited with her parents during their trip in 2013.

The Augustiner-Keller beer garden is definitely the best place to spend a sunny afternoon in Munich.

The beer gardens in Munich are truly exceptional.

The Hofbräuhaus in Munich is worth visiting if only to stay long enough to take a photo like this one. It is loud, crowded, and unpleasant so don't plan on staying long. Pro tip: get there early and eat dinner at the Wirtshaus Ayingers that is located across the street before your visit.

The most interesting beer selection that we found was at the Schneider Weisses Bräuhaus.

River surfing is a popular activity in the Englischer Garten even though it's very much against the rules.

We had the opportunity to pat this old man on the head at the Hellabrunn Zoo.

After three full days of wheat beer we hopped on a plane to Bergen, Norway. Despite the non-stop rain we took a tour of the fjord (not recommended) and purchased a Norwegian sweater for Becca (recommended). It stopped raining long enough for us to ride the aerial tramway to the top of a nearby mountain so we could watch the arrival of the ship that we were going to ride to Trondheim.

Most people ride the tram to experience the view from the top of Ulriken. However, it is also possible to ride the tram to the top and then hike or mountain bike down.

On the 17th of August we checked into our cabin on the Hurtigruten for a two-night voyage back to Trondheim (via the famous Geirangerfjord). Normally, boarding the Hurtigruten is as easy as checking into a hotel. However, if you board in Bergen expect to spend an hour checking in, waiting, and watching a safety video.

Our cabin port holes were at least 10 feet above the water line. During a storm the sea became rough enough to submerge them.

We had moody weather during our trip to Geiranger: low-strung clouds, occasional patches of sunshine, and just a touch of rain.

The spotty sunshine caused rock faces like this one to look almost metallic.

Although our ship was giant compared to this little ferry, there was a cruise shipped docked at Geiranger that was giant compared to our ship.

We spent a fair amount of time speculating about how people physically arrive at little villages like this one.

Of course the first thing that we wanted to do when we arrived back in Trondheim was to head back to our apartment. We no longer had an apartment, of course, so we decided to embrace our new status  as tourists until The Natives got off work. We followed the walking route that is suggested to people that are visiting by boat and also ate a hamburger at the new bar in Solsiden.

One of the things that we had neglected to do until that point was to visit the Leif Erikson statue on the waterfront (it's a copy of the one in Seattle).

We spent our two final nights in Trondheim hanging out with The Natives in their apartment. Our flight was very early so we called a day in advance and ordered a taxi to take us to the airport. However, after standing outside for almost an hour it seemed obvious that the taxi wasn't going to arrive. It took another 20 minutes and several phone calls to get someone from the taxi company to send us another car. When the driver arrived he knew we probably weren't going to make our flight so he began speeding as soon as we exited the parking lot ... and was pulled over by a police car two blocks later. The police officer chastised the driver for speeding but let us go 10 minutes later and the driver immediately began speeding again. Once we were on the freeway I paid for the ride in advance to save some time and our driver left the car running while he helped us run our bags into the terminal. Even though we didn't get to the counter until 30 minutes before the scheduled departure we still managed to check our bags (after a lecture from one of the two ladies that checked us in).

Our first dinner back: Travis' ribs, fresh corn-on-the-cob, mashed potatoes, pickled asparagus, and Hopworks beer.

The rest of the trip back was uneventful and Becca's parents picked us up from PDX. Then, as is tradition, William met us at Hopworks for lunch.

Norwegian Road Trip

The Natives invited us to tag along with them on their summer vacation this year. They are both from the north so we decided to meet in Tromsø for a three-day music festival (Buktafestivalen) and then go from there.

The weather on the entire vacation was gorgeous. This photo was taken around midnight and if you look closely you can see a few members of the band Opeth hanging out on a bench outside of a hotel.

The venue for the music festival is a little bay on the southern tip of the island. This was the main stage.

The terrain around the bay is fairly rugged.

The second-largest stage was pretty close to the water (there were 3 stages in total). The little tent to the left of the stage was selling whale burgers.

This was the backstage area for the bands. Several people went swimming.

Northern Norway has a long history of producing stockfish. There was a kiosk at the concert that was stocked with free fish. You simply chose a piece of fish, beat it with the supplied hammer to make it easier to pull apart, and then ate it like it was jerky.

Tørrfisk is delicious. It was fun watching people standing around while picking the meat off of large pieces of cod. A few pieces were inevitably thrown on stage, much to the confusion of the foreign bands.

There were several bands that we were interested in seeing (Opeth, Dropkick Murphys, The War On Drugs, Kåre And The Cavemen) but we made sure to get spots in the front row for Mastodon.

A couple of other friends from work were also in town for the festival. In total there were more than 10 people that we were hanging out with; It was surreal to recognize so many people at a concert above the Arctic Circle.

We needed to take a ferry during the drive from  Tromsø to Senja. It was a Sunday so we ended up having a few hours to kill while waiting in line. Thankfully, the surrounding area was fun to explore on foot.

Senja is amazing. This is one of the first things we saw after driving through a long tunnel.

The sun was always visible but it did get low enough to cast dramatic showers over the rugged mountains.

The Devil's Teeth in Senja.

After driving through Senja we arrived at Håvard's parents' house. They have a beautiful house at the bottom of a mountain in Finnsnes. The house was full of family and we were treated like part of the tribe.

We also spent 6 hours hiking the 8 km from Håvard's backyard to the top of Kistefjell. Although the weather was perfect, we weren't adequately prepared for the biting insects.

This little creek runs down the hill past the house that Håvard grew up in.

The water that runs off of Kistefjell is a drinking water source for Finnsnes. Even in the middle of a particularly warm summer there are still large patches of snow that are slowly melting to form hundreds of little waterfalls everywhere.

The view from the top of Kistefjell towards Senja.

The view from the top of Kistefjell away from Senja.

The little specks at the bottom of this photograph taste delicious. We spotted them while we were walking around the top of Kistefjell.

After leaving Finnsnes we drove south to AL's grandma's cabin in Offersøy.

This view is how AL knows she is almost in Offersøy.

We rode a ferry on our way out of town and got a little closer to the mountains that are in the previous photo.

I spent a fair amount of time taking photos of this beach and eventually ran out of angles so I had to start adding props.

The background looks like it was green-screened.

This little beach was about a quarter of a mile from the cabin. We walked there with a fishing pole but there were no fish. We did get to say 'hello' to a herd of cattle and starfish, however.

The Natives find this photo totally unremarkable: "It's just a fishing boat."

The main road that runs past Offersøy was in very bad shape at one point. Some town folk decided to start naming the bumps in the road and erecting signs. Eventually, the signs were collected and placed in a turnout as a museum.

Just a cow hanging out on the beach.

We thought about going swimming on one of the beaches in the distance but the weather didn't cooperate (it had been 77 degrees the previous day).

AL's uncle let us use the little orange boat on the left. Håvard drove us around the fjord for a couple of hours and whenever he stopped we threw some hooks in the water.

Becca caught this 16lb cod with a pole.

I caught this 11lb cod on the first try by literally dropping a lure into the water, allowing it to sink to the bottom, and then pulling it back into the boat. Fishing up north feels like cheating.

For every fish Becca and I caught, AL caught two.

We really enjoyed hanging out with AL's grandma. She treated us very well and even took care of the fish that we caught on the second boat trip.

This basically sums up the nightlife in Offersøy.

These are called Geitrams and they are my favorite part of Norway in the summer time.

While staying in Offersøy we decided to take a day trip to Lofoten.

The viewpoint at Austnesfjord is breathtaking. We had to visit it twice, however, because the first time it was overflowing with German tourists.

The last time we visited Svolvær was during the winter on the boat to Kirkenes; the mountain in this photo looked a little different then.

These racks in Henningsvær are used for drying fish. The entire coast line outside of the city is full of them.

Lofoten is a major destination for tourists because it's possible to hitchhike everywhere and it's legal to camp pretty much anywhere.

On a sunny, summer day it can be difficult to differentiate between Norway and Hawaii.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time at grandma's cabin but we eventually needed to head down to AL's parents' house in Mo I Rana for a couple of nights. Al's parents taught us what Ptarmigan tastes like and fed us the best trout we'd ever eaten.

We also took a trip to visit (and touch!) one of the arms of Svartisen, a very large glacier. We were so impressed by the glacier that we visited Marmorslottet the next day to see the effect that glacial runoff can have on rock.

The glacier feeds into a large and very cold lake.

Walking on the glacier is prohibited this year. I'm not sure why but these car-sized boulders that had fallen could be a clue.

Glaciers are surprisingly heterogeneous upon close inspection.

This tunnel was large enough to explore on foot but I decided not to after a chunk of ice fell on my shoulder while taking this picture.

Marmorslottet (The Marble Castle) is a giant section of marble that has been shaped by glacial runoff.

The blue water compliments the light-colored marble perfectly.

We eventually returned to Trondheim in time for me to finish my last two days at work. It was an incredible trip and we've committed ourselves to matching its magnitude when the Natives come to America for a visit.