Welcome back, gentle readers, to my humble blog, for another tale of a journey to a far away land. Let me introduce the cast of this month's trip, in the form of a five man band.
The big guy: Ariel, housemate extraordinaire, the originator of the trip, the human who's going to keep us all alive if anything goes wrong in the woods. She's in charge of making sure our roadtrip playlist contains some local music.
The smart guy: Sean, Cornell friend recently returned to Boston, computer scientist by training, gets very enthusiastic about recursion. He's in charge of convincing us to climb things.
The chick: Me, Haley, the one and only, because I've been working on upping my empathy and emotional support skills lately. I am also the magic user. I'm in charge of chronicling our adventures.
The lancer: Nate, my older brother in spirit, taker of decisive actions in a crisis, the only one of us who has studied nordic mythology to any great degree. He's in charge of carrying the conversation.
The hero: Adam, my paramour, my favorite DM (sorry Nate), clearly the protagonist because he's the one taking a trip to reset after tumultuous life events. Will probably end up with the enchanted sword. He's in charge of making decisions about dinner.
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Today began on an airplane, losing six hours in the Atlantic Ocean as we crossed from America to Europe. I was in a middle seat, next to Adam, alternating knitting and sleep; the windows were too distant for a good view as we glided in for a landing in Oslo.
Nathan, Ariel, Adam, and I flew in; at the terminal, we met up with Sean, who was hitherto in Paris. A tile in the bag check was replaced by a hollow glass cube containing a metal sculpture of a lizard, and I stared at it whilewe waited for our luggage. We were all tired but not sleepy. The group opted for Starbucks for caffeine, but I felt this was a waste.
We have rented a car, a white hatchback we have dubbed Fjord Prefect (Fjorda for short). Sean, the least jetlagged, drove today. We headed straight from the airport for Kristiansand, between mountains and trees and the occasional brilliantly sparkling lake.
I had to confess: I don't actually know what a fjord looks like. Is that a fjord? No, that's a lake. Is that a fjord? No, Haley, that's a magpie.
I guess I'll know it when I see it.
It was four hours in the car, all crammed in, and then we got to Kristiansand and checked into our hotel and went out for food. Grabbed takeout sushi with salmon and tuna that everyone agreed was amazing and strolled down to a park where we sat on a bench and ate in the sunshine. A fort overlooked the water, and we slipped inside, posed by the cannons, teased the swans in the water below. There was an event going on higher up, a wedding maybe, but we slipped out without accidentally crashing it.
Our walk took us to a fountain where water ran down an arch made of slabs of stone. We meandered along the water, then turned back towards town, found a grocery store, and laid in some supplies. Vegetables, cheese, salami. Some chocolate things.
Now we are all in our hotel room for tonight. It's a quarter past nine, everyone is ready to crash, but the sun is barely starting to set, lengthening shadows, not purple sky. Tomorrow we continue on to Stavangar for our first wilderness expedition, so stay tuned.
