Smells like...

Hello again!

its fippin' cold in Norway. We've had some snow.

Sorry I haven't been punctual on the blog. I have not had internet in 7 days!
here goes....

Before we departed our Fauske friends, we all went to the Nexans plant where they manufacture all sorts of cables. Fiber-optic, seismic, submarine... Lets just say that this plant impressed me enough that I think I'm going to buy stock in it.

On our way to Mo i Rana, we stopped at the Arctic circle center and were "Baptized" in a grand fashion. This meant that Rolf and Corky handed me a piece of paper while simultaneusly shoveling snow down my shirt. YES!

Mo i Rana was a busy city to stay in. We arrived late on Friday night and had a very nice dinner and some wines with Arna and Vigleik Haga, our host family (Pooja and I stayed together again). This might be the cutest couple ever.

They are extremely intelligent, and they know so very much about the history of where they are from, the town they are in now, where they have traveled, greek mythology, any any other obscure piece of information you could hope to know about. Arna was a small, Sami child when WWII began and she told us an incredible story about her family during this time.

On Saturday, Pooja and I went with Arna to Vigleik's work. He is a cultural embassador for the Rana Kommune so in the morning there was a dedication to the first mayor of Mo i Rana; Per Magnus Karstensen. He is 97 or something like that and he also did many other important things in his life and for the town, hence the dedication.

he hated it. (just kidding)

After that, we went to the bibliotek to hear Norway's most famous poet, Jan Erik Vold, read another poets poems. I don't care for poetry in the first place, so listening to 2 hours of Norwegian poetry was mind numbingly boring. This was really the only bad part of the day.

Jan Erik Vold

We ate lunch with the Mayor and then went to a Recital/Scholarship award ceremony for talented, highschool musicians inside the Rana Museum where Arna used to work. The saxaphones played inspector gadget.


-Had some dinners and then went out to Babettes to meet up with Mason and his host family for some drinks and live musics. -Haggled with a cab driver.

Sunday, Ana and Vigleik took us to Sweden! We went to Tarngby. Everything was closed because it was Sunday. Usually, its a pretty happening place when there is snow around - it is a ski resort town. So, we looked into some windows of some stores and then stopped at a grocery store and I bought some beer and chocolate because things are infinitely cheaper in Sweden.


After that, we went to their "hut" in the mountains. This actually turned out to be a cabin and it was really cute. I was worried that my facebook hype about staying in a hut in the arctic circle wouldn't be as cool now, but it was. It was small and there wasn't any electricity or plumbing, so we drank a lot of Famous Grouse to keep us warm and we didn't pee.


That day, I saw more reindeer than I could have ever imagined. Also, Rudolph was a female because the males lose their antlers in the winter time.


On monday, all 5 of us met at RanaBlad, the local newspaper. We were given a tour of the facilities and learned a bit about the 108 year-old, non-political, very local, newspaper.

After that, we traveled to the Industrial Park and slept through a 3 hour power-point presentation of the Steel Plant. God, that was hell. I did manage to learn a few things: They recyle 800,00 Tons of metal every year by melting into new steel. And the carbon monoxide that is produced as a result is harvested and sold as energy. They have a cooling system that also removes the energy from the smog and that is converted into electricity which powers the entire facility. There is an extremely long conveyor system that transfers the metals to the plant which is super smart, by not having trucks driving back and forth through town over and over again. Norwegians are ridiculously energy efficient.

Last stop - the National Library! Here, I thought about Lauren and missed her. We didn't staye here too long but we were shown the important parts. The archives are set into the mountain where the temperature is controlled inside the 4-story building, for better conservation of the documents. There are 421 meters of shelves and the oldest document they have is from the 12th century.
(secret library archives)
They are currently building more space inside the mountain because they are filling up quickly. There is also an archive for old, nitrate films from the 1950's. Its pretty cool because its all sectioned and each one is in its own cell with special pipes that prevent disaster. I don't know if you know anything about nitrates, but they produce their own oxygen so they keep burning until its over, even under water. They're very sensitive and the place would explode if one caught fire. Hence, smart cells. They're also digitizing everything and they have lots and lots cute, Norwegian boys handling lots of expensive digitizing machines.
(cute boy)

Inside the actual library, you cannot check out books. It is for archival purposes only; but if you needed to see a document for research, then you could be lent a copy of something. There are computers that file everything in a giant warehouse to be super efficient and retrieve items quickly.


Tuesday morning, we left for Kræmmervika Rorbuer,(http://www.kremmervika.no/) in Stamsund, Lofoten, about 9 hours north of Mo i Rana. We caught a high speed boat to Bodø and had lunch with our friends
and then hopped on the Hurtigruten, a Norwegian cruise ship!! It was a really luxurious ride!

Kræmmervika is a fisherman's village full of cottages and boats to use for fishing. We had a nice time there and our accommodations were sweet. Thanks Torgunn!! There, we had an informal rotary meeting and some dinner, and met everyone and Anders, the incoming president of the klubb was our new friend and host over the next few days.

Bruce, me and Anders

During our stay in Lofoten, we did some really smelly things that I have no interest in doing EVER AGAIN! We went to a facility which recieved fresh cod, killed the cod, sorted the cod, and then began the drying process, and had a lot of finished product. Did you know there are 15 ways to sort 1 type of fish? yeah...

pouring cods out

gettin' our cods sorted...

A dried cod weighs 33% of its original weight. It takes about 4 months to dry cod.

mmm, stacks of dried cod

We thought this place smelled bad until we went to the next place- A cod processing plant. mmmm... Jeg like ikke da!
We had to suit up in plastic suits and wear shoe covers. Thank god because we trudged through fish guts and buh for about 40 minutes, examining the neat process of alive fish to frozen and packaged fish.

"i do solemnly swear not to vomit"

In this day, we also went to the Lofoten Maritime College. People learn how to become sea captains here and there is an amazing ship simulator called Poseidon.

The captain also has a cute dog, Jasper.

Also saw a salmon hatchery. Norwegians grow better fiske by feeding them microrganisms that aren't necesarily nutrious themselves, but they feed the microrganisms a special food that helps the fish when the fish eat those microorganisms. Therefore, the fish grow bigger and better, faster. UGH! I love Norway.

gettin' the fiskes grown

When we got home, we then went FISKING (fishinh) with Anders and Petter! I slid into my safety suit (more for warmth than safety)
and then headed out on the beautiful Norwegian Sea. Mason and Tim caught some eatable fiske, Mason's being the biggest, and then we went back. I'm going to save the fiske slaughtering details for bedtime stories for my grandchildren. Petter kept the fiske.

When we returned, we smelled so awful. SO AWFUL. In the morning we smelled so awful. SO AWFUL! Our clothes smelled SO AWFUL! FiskeJeans! We were told that this smell, is the smell of money.

Before we left, Anders and Terje took us to the Viking MuseumTerje had brunch waiting for us at his house. Vikings are ridiculously awesome.

Nicole the Viking!

tthe water glasses are insanely small in Norway
Terje and his son, Per

Next Blog: Arrival in Sortland and Harstad-ing

There is a lot of "tubed" food in Norway
evidence.

more midnight sun