Date: 13/08/2024 Location: Bergen, Norway
The moment the plane descended, I knew Norway was different. Other places spread out in logical grids—cities, mountains, rivers stitching them together—but here, the world fractured into emerald islands scattered like broken jewelry. Tiny kingdoms, each with a single house crowned in pine trees, floating in water so dark it looked like spilled ink. Maps hinted at it, but nothing prepared me for the quiet chaos of beauty.
The tram rattled through streets washed in liquid silver by sudden rain. Bergen’s wooden houses wore graffiti like lipstick stains—playful, unexpected. Then came the hail, sending me fleeing into McDonald’s.
When I emerged, the sky was a promise half-kept: blue gasping between clouds, I climbed toward the forest.
No Google Maps. Just blind faith and a local’s grin.
“Follow me,” he said, “I’ll show you real Norway.”
We walked beneath pines older than heartbreak, and I confessed how Asian artists romanticized these woods. “What do they say? ” he asked. “In the velvet dusk of love, the forest hides the heart’s untouchable shadows, whispering lonely longing too wild to tame,” I replied.
That this forest looks exactly like fairy tales promise. A kingdom of emerald where moss grew thick as velvet carpets, where ancient trees stretched so high they vanished into the sky. Their roots formed arched bridges over whispering streams, while sunlight fell through the canopy like liquid gold — It feels like magic might spark in the air at any moment.
Troll carvings from Norwegian fairytales hid in the bark, placed to lure children deeper into the wild. At the viewpoint, tindal rays pierced the clouds like a spotlight for this small town.
“Last month,” he said, “these bushes dripped blueberries.” He scavenged one orphaned berry for me. It tasted like sunlight and soil - nothing like supermarket plastic.
“First meal was McDonald’s?” He feigned horror. “Shaaaaame. Try this.” The reindeer sausage sang—smoky, gamey, with fruit jam—a surprising symphony of flavors.
Date: 14/08/2024 Norway in a Nutshell Trip
Dawn came wet and reluctant. On the train to Voss, I obediently sat left as advised—then missed the right-side views but found left-side glory: lakes mirroring the sky, farms clinging to hills like patches on a quilt.
In Gudvangen, the sun staged against the forecast, gilding the Viking village’s runes (NFR: survival, wealth, evolution).
The cruise was a duel with the elements—wind sharp enough to flay nostalgia from bones, fjords looming like cathedral ruins reclaimed by the sea.
The Flåm Railway was the encore: waterfalls weaving through cliffs, their mist turning the light silvery and soft.
By Myrdal, the mountains tucked themselves into cloud quilts. I floated home through a dream of steam and peaks.
Date: 15/08/2024 Location: Bergen, Norway
Three hours writing postcards. Three hours pressing ink into paper, trying to trap the untrappable. Outside, Bergen wept its usual tears—a city of 300 rainy days a year. “You were lucky,” he said. “The first two days were stolen sunlight.”
I ate one last reindeer hotdog, mailed paper souvenirs, and gifted a postcard to him—“Come back in spring,” he urged. “Try Odda. Try Stavanger. The Arctic never apologizes for its skies.”
At the airport, I bought deer sausage, a taste to smuggle home. As the plane ascended, I finally saw it: clouds like rumpled bedsheets, the sun a careless jewel tossed among them—nothing like Bergen’s rain.
