You Say Norge, I say Norway

          Here’s the deal with Norway.  It’s honestly so gorgeous it hurts your eyes. You cannot imagine the sweeping beauty of this land, and I know because I went there when I was 19. In fact, I will be there as you read this (although I am no longer 19). I’ll have been there for two weeks, with side trips to Sweden and Denmark. Check out this waterfall, just one of many there (and the teeny tiny person in the picture). 

          The main reason was to go with our daughter, Nicole, because she lived there for 18 months while serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. 

Here are some photos to show you some of what I hope to see there. 

It looks like a perfect fairy tale village, doesn't it? 

Then there's this:

And this:

I might even kayak in a fjord!

But I will definitely not do this:

 I scheduled other blog posts to run each week while I’m away, including this one. My plane touches down tonight and I’ll get to tell you next week about what will surely be disasters, if only in my attempts to say a few Norwegian phrases (which Nicole tells me I am doing with a Russian accent).

For one thing, I’m trying to learn how to say goodbye.  But in Norwegian it sort of sounds like “How da goat?” which makes me want to say, “My goat is fine; how’s your goat?”  And I guess we’re all pretending to have one. I am also troubled by the fact that "expensive" and "animal" are one letter off and sound the same-- "dyre" and "dyr."  Luckily I won't be trying to buy an expensive animal there. Then again, English is littered with such duplications: bass, park, leaves, bat, down, fine, bowl, wave, second—we could do this all day.

So enjoy this scenery which is free, and buy my books, which are not. Although they’re darn close. Oh, and "darn" is another one.