Road Trip, Backtracking

When we first thought about driving from one big city destination to the next, we saw that the distance from Copenhagen to Oslo was about 7 hours and then it was the same from Oslo to Stockholm, and then the same again back to Copenhagen.  We decided that was too much, so we took Stockholm off the list. This means that we opted to backtrack, which is not in either Rebecca's or my nature.  However, when you are seeing something from the other direction and you have only been there once, it doesn't seem like you have really seen it before. And all the signs are still impenetrable so you can't even think, oh yes, I remember that. This is not billboard country, except in the cities, so all the signs are basically Scandinavian Mille Bournes.

Leaving Oslo, we drove down the coastline of the fjord, getting occasional glimpses of the big scenery (not quite as winding as the road to Hana, but not unrelated) as well as views of small coastal towns and lots of boats.

Because I asked, Rebecca recounted for us the highlights of the stories of the Norse gods and giants, including an analysis of why those myths are actually more useful to the Norse people than the myths and legends of the Greeks. In a nutshell (because she has read Norse Gods and Giants front to back so many times, she remembers this), this part of the world is a dark place, with a reality of scary chaos, and the stories were part of a culture that kept the chaos at bay as they stayed together around the fire. It's not that everybody believed these stories, but they grew out of a body of oral history that was written down sometime in the ninth century CE.  This is equivalent to the Torah as a document of origin and foundational stories. I am fascinated to think about all the simultaneous societies that were in existence around the world. It takes forever to piece all that together. In high school, you just don't know enough to be able to understand how all the various world civilizations were evolving, no matter how hard you try. Becca says Benjamin knows about a podcast that tackles this through tracing specific objects as they emerged in different cultures -- I need to remember to ask about that.

Traditional Norwegian cave (not mountain) trolls.

Before leaving Norway, we stopped and got our tax refund for our one substantial purchase plus Jon spent the last kroners in his pocket on a bag of chips.  Not a lot of choices at that particular tourist stop.

As it happened, we were passing the same Swedish town of Stromstad at lunchtime so we decided to return, trying out a restaurant that got excellent reviews by other passers-by (or perhaps by the owner's family, as Jon pointed out).  It was in a re-purposed train station right next to the harbor. No English spoken but we managed to de-code the menu enough to order lunch. We couldn't quite believe it, but it was true that every lunch was price fixe for 89 kroner -- and it was a huge amount of food.  Once again, on real dishes with very nice chairs and tables, not at all in the mode of casual dining.  Soup, salad bar (full of pickled stuff), bread, coffee and a main course.  I ordered fiskasoppa and got a monster bowl of creamy soup with loads of fish and shrimp.  Too much shrimp, had to off-load that to Becca. We took home most of Jon's vegetarian pizza and we finished R's bowl of Swedish-style nachos together.

The rest of the trip was unremarkable, on a super highway that doesn't feel much different from home once it gets dark.  When you get off the highway you have to navigate many roundabouts.  We like roundabouts very much and wish that the US would figure that out. Going past Goteburg, we got stuck in a very long traffic jam and lost about half an hour. So they do have traffic jams in Sweden at rush hour.

Our next beds were in a small town, up a very long and winding road into the country.  The hosts are a young family with a large house, an au pair, and plenty of space to spare.  They gave us an extensive tour of our basement rooms. I am sitting in the office of the woman of the house who clearly has a profession that involves writing books and doing something with a lot of paper and binders. There is a copy of her book in English sitting here on the couch, so it must be for our benefit, called The Art of Focus. The book jacket says she is a Swedish shooting world champion, lecturer and officer in the Swedish army.

It is 8:15 in the morning and it is just starting to be almost dawn.  The view from this house (we are on the edge of a tall hill overlooking a bay, maybe) will be spectacular. Last night R. did not miss the opportunity to do something Swedish, and we went into the sauna that is part of our space.  By the time we finally had enough, the thermometer said 72 C. And we only had it cranked to 4 on a scale that went to 10.  Whoosh.

This is a very different way to travel from the ways we have done it before.  Because there are no easy ways to interact with random people in a foreign country other than shopping or eating out, this is one way to do that and to see a lot of different domestic settings.  People have to be quite trusting to let strangers into their house, but there is a system that allows them to turn down our request, and both host and guest are registered online. This house has lots of clues about the lives of its residents (reminds me of Uncle Babe) but some of the apartments were empty and soul-less (in Copenhagen, that apartment was clearly just a rental, not a real home).  So far our favorite space was the one in Oslo, partly because of its proximity to real life outside and partly because of the nice young man who rented it to us -- even though he clearly had no propensity for sweets: we could not find a trace of sugar in his cupboards.