So we hiked. Luckily, it snowed again last night, so there was another nice, traction-yielding layer of snow on top of the ice and pack-down, slick snow. I have discovered here that the muscles one uses to balance oneself on ice are not often used, and I have funny aches in leg muscles that have, up until today, remained on tropical vacation. They're not happy to be back.
The walk is actually quite relaxing, except for the funny pain I get in my back when I walk a lot (I suspect that I have no cartilage and whatnot between two of my vertebra, which makes me grouchy on top of in pain). There's always an energy about the early morning, even when there is no sun to determine when morning actually is. It's the energy of awakening, the energy of anticipation of what the day could be, even a sluggish energy of people procrastinating the commute to work. Smells of coffee and breakfast and wood-burning stoves waft from every home, and sounds of window-scraping and car-starting are soft in the "snow quiet." Schoolchildren slip-and-slide across the roads on the way to class, and business men pop the collars of their coats against the winter morning.
We make the airport with plenty of time to spare, and hop our plane back to Oslo. We see the sun attempting to rise above the mountains in Tromso, the pinks oozing from behind the clouds and up over the peaks only to twinkle out into the darkness of an Arctic winter. Our last hurrah here.
The trip into Oslo is smooth, and we arrive in our first sunlight for a few days. I didn't miss the sun at all, and my new need for sunglasses is slightly distressing. It doesn't last long, and the sunset arrives around 3 pm. One thing must be said about Norwegians: they are hardy people. It is well below freezing here, and the women are all dressed to the nine's in short skirts and slinky tops under their fur and wool coats. And men and women both are sitting outside. OUTSIDE. In the States, when the temperature drops below about 65, cafes close-up their outdoor dining areas and make for the warmth behind windows. Here, it seems the cold is a light annoyance; people seem to wish it were warmer, but admitting a lack of control of the weather, simply give in and eat and drink (cold beers!) outside while retaining their coats and gloves. And I see it everywhere; this is no isolated incident, but a true trend. I noticed it in Tromso, also, now that I think of it. But Tromso is a young city, a college city, so some of that can be attributed to the brashness and stubbornness of college kids. I mean, I wore flip-flops year round in college; it's not a far leap to assume that I would have also frequented outdoor bars in the middle of winter.
We find our hotel, right in the middle of what seems to be a Little Cairo, full of Middle Eastern restaurants and shops and no beer. We drop our stuff off and proceed to... find a bar! It's the best way to settle in somewhere, right? We wander until we find a suitable place, Jonmikel's choice. It turns out to be a fabulous jazz bar with fantastic, slinky, sexy ambience. It's full of people who all seem to know each other, as well as a group of businessmen who don't speak Norwegian and only passable English. The bartender, like so many in Norway, slips between Norwegian and English as naturally as I switch songs on my iPod, and I am reminded once again how utterly awesome bilingual (and trilingual, and onward) people are, and how one of my greatest regrets from my schooling was not pursuing a language until fluency. Most Norwegians haven't thought twice about switching into English for me, whereas I would have to concentrate for hours to have a decent conversation in Italian or Arabic.
Have I mentioned that Norway is a phenomenal place?
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