Tuesday, October 2, 2018

Norwegian Numbers


         We’re baaack. Two glorious weeks in Scandinavia and enough material to last a lifetime. Not that this will become a travel blog. But indulge me a bit.
          First of all, let’s start with Norway. It’s every bit as gorgeous as you can imagine, with thunderous waterfalls, majestic mountains, and amazing fjords.  The chocolate is swoon-worthy, the people are kind and helpful. 
But there’s one area where the fairy tale breaks down, and it’s when locals estimate how long it will take an average American to walk to a given location. As if the entire population has agreed on this figure, any given person in Norway will tell you it’s “just a 15 minute walk” to get anywhere.  Often they will add some comment about how invigorating and delightful this can be.  However, they are not pulling a heavy piece of luggage with a broken wheel. 
Nor are they people who avoid the gym, and who drive if anything is more than a block away. They also don’t realize that they have grossly underestimated said “walk,” and that 15 minutes is actually 45.
Nope, they are walkers and hikers.  They feel a rush of, I don’t know-- fitness?—as they stride briskly through hill and dale. It’s like they’re all training for the Olympics.  (How every destination can be uphill escapes me, but this also seems to be the case. I also think it should be against the laws of physics for a vegan to pull a HAM string, but here we are.) 
There are literally people in Norway who herd hundreds of sheep by hand in the rain and on steep cliffs that look as if you could fall to your death, should you take one wrong step. Like wind-up action figures, they don’t even break a sweat. And those sheep are the real reason I said we’re baaack.
But I miss those sheep and their owners and their waterfalls.  I just wish someone would write a travel guide called No-hike No-way Norway for wimpy travelers who walk three times more slowly than locals.
You can order one of my books to read while you wait for next week’s blog—that one will be about Sweden.

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