Norway.

August 2010 Dan S., Patrick M., Craig S. and myself have gone to Norway for six days. Camping every night in a different place, we've been moving around the southern part of the country named Vestfold.

We have camped around the Goksjø lake. We have found a small boat and borrowed it for several days. The whole area was probably not as beautiful as the western part of the country near Bergen or Stavanger where the fjords are, but still I thought it was stunning there. It was a great break from modern life.

Rocky hills heavily covered by pine forests around the lake certainly gave it more charm. There were picturesque summer houses scattered along the shores, most of them hidden away behind several trees. What's interesting, is that most of the summer houses [and farm houses] were red. And also, by most houses or government-powered institutions like railway stations or post offices there are Norwegian flags. I've read that Norwegians are very proud and patriotic, but I didn't know it came up to that level.

After several days of day-time rowing and explorations and night-time sitting around the fire and pondering, we set sails to the Skagerrak. It's an arm of the North Sea, between Norway and Denmark. It took us around 8 hours to get to the shores, but it was rather worth it.

During the last two days we have found many interesting things including old books and old coins from Finland and Sweden. We found all that in certain abandoned houses [in one of which we had to spend a night].




What I also found interesting were the Norwegians. Most of them very cold and closed in, hardly covering up their rather negative feelings about strangers. I don't really blame them. Norwegian history is full of plagues, wars and occupations, and the country remained a poor farming based country until the middle of the 20th century, when large amounts of oil were found at the bottoms of the Norwegian Sea. So now, that they finally have achieved mere 1st places in the 'quality of life' and the 'income per capita' statistics, they don't want to lose their position.

But we also have met a family of VERY hospitable Norwegians. They were staying at their summerhouse near the lake, and we came up to their house asking for directions to the nearest shop [as we were getting close to starving], and the women of the family presented us with plates of fish, bread, drink, fruit and what not, which was really quite shocking. Then we decided we would rather trade with them, as they had loads of food at the summer house anyway. So that was a time-saving event...

On top of that, the oldest man of the family has offered us to show us how to fish in the lake, how to skin and gut the fish, and then how to cook them in the best possible way. He told us he can get up to 50 fish in one hour on his own, which sounded quite over the top, but our four managed to get 10. So that was our dinner ready.

Anyway, the Norwegian during our conversation said: 'We can be rich, or very wealthy if we want to work. If we don't want to work, we are poor'. He hasn't explored any new truths certainly, but I think he dusted a very important one.
I wonder if the whole Norwegian wealth is based on this philosophy.

Anyway. An extremely interesting and visually pleasing country.