Animal overload

Narvik

We left Harstad after we toured Statoil and arrived in Narvik in the afternoon. Narvik Rotary Klubb checked us into our hotel. This might have been the most uncomfortable hotel stay ever. It was a closet sized room with only one bed and Pooja and I had to share this room. Mason and Bruce had the same situation. The "bed" that I slept on, was a couch. It did not pull out (det var det hun sa). The staff put some sheets and a pillow on it and called it my bed.

AWESOME.

After we settled in, Pål and Rune took us to get a fiskeburger (Æ liker ikke fisken burger) and then to the top of a mountain via ski lift car. It was a nice ride.
Pål made sure to let us know that we should go home alone that night.



The next day it was REALLY nice outside and so instead of enjoying it, we took a train to Sweden where it was only 5 degrees and cloudy and rainy. We had lunch there and then drove back. HMMPH!
Boarding the train
Wishing we weren't going to Sweden.

gettin' mah borders crossed

Luckily, we got back to Narvik in the afternoon. I met up with Elizabeth Roman who is a professor of Biology at the Narvik college. She is working on waste management in the Northwestern part of Russia where they just live in their garbage practically.
the "college"

After that, I met up with Frode at the Narvik Storesenter and we chatted for a bit until his friend, Eirik came and then we went to AmFi. I joined them for their daily 4 hour ritual of sitting in a Kafe and people watching. I think they had a good time. I took a picture of Eirik's car and I'm going to try to sell it to people on Craigslist.
FOR SALE

We went to the Polar Zoo in Bardu the next day in the cold and rain but it was still the best time I had. Merethe from Narvik Rotary klubb drove us there with her son, who became Mason's best friend.

Mason's best friend.


It was really crowded in the van. I had to sit with the luggage.

Marianne, Lise and Ann Lisbeth came and they brought Trygve and Martin with them. We also met Elin and her husband, Kyrre, Leiv-Bjorn and Sebastian, an Australian exchange student also, Maria, an Ecuadorian exchange student.
it was raining.
Martin
everyone else

Wolverine
Wolf

I had a fantastic time and Sebastian and I fed 4 baby, arctic foxes. This was the best time of my life. I want to feed baby animals for a living. For the record, baby arctic foxes are the cutest things in the world. This is factual information.

Pooja and I stayed at Leiv-Bjorn's house with his wife Heidi and their children: Steingrim (15), Sina (13) and Emma Kjerstein (12). This is a very friendly and athletic family. Heidi and EK ran a marathon the day we got there in the freezing rain. They're hardcore.
Heidi made us waffles for breakfast :) First waffles of the trip and they were heart shaped! Heidi also gave me the recipe for Kvaefjord Kake aka World's Best Cake.

Elin made us two fabulous meals - Taco night! and Indian night! Elin is the bomb.

Leiv-Bjorn's great-great grandfather is Bjønn-Erik, or Bear-Erik or as I like to say, Bear-ick. He is famous for hunting bears for a living after one of them killed his sheep. We visited the cabin that Bear-ick built himself a long-long time ago and we had a picnic (not a toyota picnic).

We visited a Husky sledding operation and played with the dogs and checked out some sleds too.
momma and babies
so cute. i want to squeeze them

dont look for too long. all this cute starts to hurt.

the sled they will pull one day...

After Bardu, we spent the day with the Finnesnes Rotary Club and Kyrre in Finnesnes and Hamn.
We went to a troll house which was definitely entertaining and of course, great photo opportunities. Bruce and Tim had a duel...


...while Mason and I became rulers of the troll empire.

I learned some troll stories and we all bought these candies that were sour and tasted like wax but we kept eating them anyway.

This is a wall full of pacifiers of all of the babies that the trolls ate.

getting eaten by a troll.

Next blog: Last stop

Surfer Pony
Had to leave my mark in the Hotel. I thought this was pretty clever.