God tur!

It's one of those funny facts of psychology that it's much easier for me to write when I have very little to write than when I have to write a lot. This past weekend was really wonderful, which is why I've written almost nothing about it. Too much work, people, and I'm lazy!

Let's start with last Thursday, when I got to see the (formerly stolen) Scream and Madonna displayed in the Munch museum. They were laid out flat in display cases for only about a week, I think, before they sent them off for repairs somewhere on the continent. The Scream was not really so badly damaged, just some tears at the corners and a few scrapes on the paint. The Madonna had at least two puncture wounds, however. It was fascinating for me to see how much the museum has changed since I was last there--just two weeks before the big heist. In 2004, they didn't even check your ticket. You bought one, and then wandered through some glass doors. After a while, a docent walked up to me and asked to see my ticket, but I'm pretty sure it would have been possible not to buy one, if you managed to dodge security. Now you have to go through a metal detector and have your stuff x-rayed before you even buy your ticket. And then, they have these fancy machines to scan your ticket before you enter the rooms where they paintings actually are. It's quite a trip. Anyway, it was morbidly cool to see the damaged paintings, but, to be honest, there's a lot of Munch out there besides the Scream, and that's the stuff I tend to like best. (Although the Madonna is one of my favorites.) I especially like his woodcuts -- something I didn't actually know until I saw their collection two years ago.

The next morning, I got up early early early to catch a train to Geilo, a small resort town between Oslo and Bergen. The train ride from Oslo to Bergen is notoriously beautiful, and most of you know how much I like trains, so, basically I was happy as a clam on the way there.

Okay, and now my blog refuses to cooperate by allowing me to upload more photos for you, so let me just proceed by telling you that I have many beautiful pictures which you will hopefully be able to see later ...

We arrived in Geilo at about 11:30 am. The air was definitely crisper than in Oslo, more autumnal if you will. We went off to find the little cabin that Lisa's friend Jake (our Canadian representative) had reserved for us. It turned out to be very little and very cute, and since it's the off-season (nearly too late to hike, way too early to ski), the guy behind the desk was very bored and very eager to be of service.

We took a road up into the mountains north of town that afternoon and ended up winding around through the many cabins (and sheep pastures!) along the way. Eventually, (eventually meaning, after going up and up and up and up so that our thigh muscles were screaming; at least, mine were) we reached the plateau, which was very stark and barren, ala Wuthering Heights, except more tundra-esque. The only plants were lingonberry and blueberry bushes (which are more like crawling underbrush than bushes) and many strangely colored types of moss. Also, there were these cute little black caterpillars. I got one to crawl onto my shoe.

We meant to go for a short hike on Friday, but somehow a short hike became 20km. (whew) But it was definitely worth the exhaustion. The worse moments had to do with a footpath that had basically turned into a small stream, which made for a lot of hopping from rock to rock and getting our socks wet; also, we had a little trouble finding the town again once we made it down from the mountain. But those are the kinds of things you forget in the afterglow of a goal accomplished.

On Saturday, it was pretty damn difficult to move, but I managed. We hiked south from town this time and found a footpath that essentially went up the forested area between ski runs. It was a foggy, drizzly day, and one could tell they had many such days before, because the trail was pretty marshy. I made quite a few plaintive noises as I squished around, trying to keep from getting waterlogged. Also trying to keep my sarcastic humor from descending into out-and-out whining. But, again, making it to the top felt really good. We arrived at this big lake that appeared to have a small cabin at one end. On further observation, this cabin turned out to be in the middle of the lake. Of course, now we're thinking, how the heck do you get to it? Then we saw the rowboat turned upside down on the shore. We didn't row out there. Would've been cool, though ...

One really strange thing about the area we hiked in was that, no matter how remote or God-forsaken the landscape looked, you could turn a corner and find a cabin with a road leading up to it and a car parked in the drive. How or why this has been accomplished I have no idea, but there you have it. It still feels like you're roughing it; I mean, you just hiked 8km through bogs and over rocks and through trees, but all of a sudden you cross a gravel road with an Audi parked on it. I mean, what the ... ?

The upshot is that they also have little cabins that serve coffee and waffles, and you can shuffle in wet and cold and grumpy, like some miniature troll, to rest and warm up. Which is what we did.

There's not much more to tell about the weekend. It was great to get away from Oslo, and it was even better to remember why this is a wonderful country. If you are the hiking and camping kind, I highly recommend a trip to Norway. The place is covered in trails, and it's legal to camp anywhere you want, as long as you're 100 meters from a structure. Also, they have these networks of cabins scattered all over the place, so you can walk from hytta to hytta for several days and cover quite a bit of territory. The season is over now that it's becoming cold and wet, and it won't be ski season until January, really. But hopefully I'll get another chance to hike a little in spring. And when I get my blog to cooperate, I'll show you what I mean.

Ta da!