![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
*** Sat Sept 28
In the morning our clothes were perfectly dry. I still have no idea
how that worked; the dryer did not vent, so all the moisture was
trapped no matter how hot it got (and it sure did get hot). I folded
while Rob showered.
When we went down to breakfast, Rob had a chocolate chip cookie.
There was no white bread and there were no cornflakes. I did fine,
though, with my little Mini-Wheat-like cereal, wheat bread with jam,
cracker bread with butter, and OJ and tea. I saw more of the goldish
brown stuff. It is indeed a type of cheese.
Rob chatted with the lady at the desk, who had done our laundry. The
clerk last night, her husband, had mentioned going to California
several times, so he asked about that. It turns out their son had
gone to the Bay Area to learn to fly helicopters. He is now a pilot
on the north shore of Norway. Just as we were about to leave, I ran
in to ask what "K0yring til eiendomane tillate" meant. Twice now we
have seen that attached to pictogram-signs indicating no cars. She
said it means you can go, no one will stop you. Hmm. She also said
"k0yring" was pronounced "chuy-ring". I don't know how the K turned
into CH, but now I know how to pronounce that diphthong. It's exactly
like the French "oeil".
We drove north on E39, taking a short detour down 57 to see the
Bringeland airport. The road got smaller as we went, as so many
valley roads seem to do, and we were surprised to find a sizable
airport with a control tower, arrival/departure doors on the building,
and even a flying club. No one was up today, it seemed, but the
control tower was occupied.
Past F0rde, near Moskog, we detoured along a one-lane mud road and
across a rickety wood bridge to see Huldefossen, a vigorous waterfall
pouring into a wide flat valley. Then we followed E39 and 5 along
J0lstravatnet, a glacier-fed lake. Those are a beautiful teal color.
It is really quite striking. The closer to the glacier, it seemed,
the more the water shaded towards turquoise.
We were headed to serious glacier country. At the end of
Innvikfjorden lie the towns of Older and Loem, each with a tiny road
leading to a hiking trail which in turn leads to a small arm of the
vast Jostedal glacier to the east. Jostedalsbreen (Yaw-stuh-dolls-
bray-in) is the basis for a very large national park, inside of which
(as with all Norway national parks) there is no motor transport
whatsoever. Farther along is the more major town of Stryn, containing
a glacier museum.
We decided first to attempt the museum at Stryn, because it was
getting late enough that we worried about the museum closing. It
turns out the museum is in fact in Oppstryn, 30km up the valley.
Wonder of wonders, not only did we arrive well before four PM, the
museum had not closed for the season! The cashier was very friendly.
She started a short movie for us, and then we wandered the building.
The movie was quite informative; the building was mostly about
wildlife, while we were much more fascinated by the ice itself. Out
back there was a garden showing many plants that grow in the area.
Most were dying down for fall. We walked through it in the rain
anyhow. At the edge of the garden was the gentle waves of the shore
of Strynsvatnet, another turquoise glacial-fed lake.
Chatting with the cashier, we learned several things. When she wants
to visit the glacier, she chooses Kjendalen (the Kjen valley). She
pronounced that Chen-dole-en: a regional pronunciation variation turns
the Kj into Ch. We learned that the major work of the year is done in
summer, whether farming or tourism; there is very little to do in
winter. Farming is slowly diminishing here. There were once
orchards, but those are gone; there were no other crops. Goats,
sheep, and cows remain, and the goats are fading away as well. People
can't afford to be farmers. Tourism work is often done by a swell of
college students from abroad, who work at hotels and kiosks and then
disappear in early autumn.
I was fascinated by ecologite, the world's heaviest stone and the
"state" (?) stone of Sogn og Fjordane. A polished cube perhaps eight
to ten inches on a side showed the colors -- deep green and garnet. I
could just barely lift one side of that cube off the shelf, with all
my strength. After much dithering I purchased a string of beads and
two little pendant-like stones to make earrings.
I was also fascinated by multe (mull-tuh), some raspberry-shaped
berries pictured on a postcard I have seen several times. The cashier
told me that initially they are red and when they ripen they are
yellow. They grow in Norway and perhaps other parts of Scandinavia,
but we don't have them in the States. She harvests them in mid
August, freezes them, and serves them for Christmas and New Year.
On the museum guide's recommendation, we chose to go to Kjenndal and
visit its glacial arm, Kjendalsbreen. The very last part of the road
was a toll road, apparently on our honor, and moments after we began
hiking we saw a national park sign. The glacier view was stunning.
We were surrounded by high cliffs draped with waterfalls, and at the
head of the valley the dirty blue ice came down to meet the trail.
Along the side of the rocky, gravelly trail, many tiny rockpiles had
been made by hikers. I made one and then arranged small rocks around
it to depict a guy with a roly-poly rock cairn belly. I also had fun
walking in the glacier-melt river with my magical waterproof hiking
boots. When we reached the glacier, a rope and signs warned us to
stop. Glaciers are in motion and are dangerous. We walked around the
end of the rope so that we would be approaching the glacier from the
side, and went close enough to touch it. I was fascinated by the ice
at the edge -- perhaps thousands of years old -- that had jigsaw-
puzzle-like fissures throughout. I worked a piece loose and held it
in my hand until my hand got too cold.
We thought briefly about continuing farther north tonight. We had a
choice to make: approach the Geiranger fjord from the west and take a
ferry to the eastern end (very scenic), or approach it from the east
end because a scenic ferry is useless in fog and thick rain. We saw
no obvious places to stay along the route, so we defaulted back to
Stryn and found a nice hotel facing the water. The clerk offered us
an off-season price for a nonsmoking room on the first floor. Our
room key has a chunk of reindeer antler as the fob!
Rob practiced singing calls a bit while I went down the street to the
Bacchus Restaurant and Pizzeria. There I had a very helpful waiter
whose English was at least as good as anyone's I've met. This turned
out to be very handy because most of the words on the menu were not in
my pocket dictionary. Gr0nsak, for example -- vegetables. I love it:
"green stuff"! Mark Eichin would like Norway. No specific name for
any vegetable; it's just rabbit food, all of it. I had a delicious
fried schnitzel with small potatoes, gravy and rabbit food. Mmmmm.
no subject
The cheese you're describing sounds rather like gjetøst, which I've tried and liked in small quantitites. (I used to be able to get it at Hickory Farms stores.) It has, of all things, a faint flavor of peanut butter to it.
no subject