Finishing Norway

Finally - a bank which is upfront about exactly what they're going to do to us.


Until I got to the Lofoten Islands, I didn't realise that it was my dream to live above a fish museum but that changed when I came to stay in the small fishing village of Å (prnounced ooh). This unknown, unfulfilled dream came true as our hostel was located above the Torrfisk Museum which is dedicated to the fishing of cod in the area. And believe me, they took fishing seriously because the place reeked of dead fish.


This was partly due to the shed next to the museum of drying cod which permeated every sensory pore of your body as you walked by. A visit to Å will not be easily forgotten either by smell or the image of the cod: thousands of fish with their mouth's twisted open in a neverending scream of terror - it's quite a sight which will haunt your dreams for the rest of your life.



I'm not joking on this. While the island is ostensibly built on fishing, the Lofoten people like to display their catches in various states of agony. Yeah - they eat whale too.




However, Å is at the bottom of the Lofoten's and is a very pretty place to eat Special K in the morning. The islands themselves are made up of some mountains that are pretty staggering to behold.




Behold!


Ruth beholding the Lofoten magic.



While fishing is the main game in the Lofoten, it means that the wild life mainly consists of seagulls and stray cats who seem to rule the island in a weird feline/avian cold war standoff. There are odd incursions and attacks on the other species but while there are plenty of rotting fish around (and there are plenty), they leave each other alone.


The one other animal we saw was an eagle roughly the size of a washing machine (I may be exaggerating here) which I think was a white tailed eagle. Apparently, it eats small mammals - be careful my kitten friends.


Whatever the case, when the view from your window looks like this, there's very little to complain about.


We then moved onto the Northern town of Tromsø which wasn't that exciting. It did have a whaling monument that seagulls had shat all over...


...and Roxette were about to play. You got the look! You got the look! On the evidence of this poster, I'd say 'the look' is botox.


We also ate moose burger that kind of tasted like any other burger - trés exotic.


We also went to the Polar Museum which had a great documentary about stuffed polar bears in Tromsø. Apparently a large number of tourists come to Tromsø looking for them but they are not on the mainland so sucked in - do your research next time. This is an actual quote from the film "Local businesses have used the polar bear as an emblem for the promotion of its products so we cannot blame the tourists for being so stupid as to think there are polar bears in Tromsø." Thanks dude. Here's me with my stuffed polar friend - rawr!




We also had a few days in the Lyngen which was notable for having an unexplained thirty foot Santa at the edge of town. After this we took our winged chariot into the sun and headed to Stockholm. Good times.

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