First trip to Norway

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Originally uploaded by mechanicaldan1

It seemed a little bit like home in Wisconsin. While flying in, I was able to look out the window because the weather was really nice. After landing, I was quite surprised to find out it that was 28°C, which translates to 82°F. In addition to a lot of water and the rolling hills, I noticed that there is a lot more color with the buildings compared to Scotland. They use a more familiar method of construction on the residential houses, which is a wooden construction with siding, but the roofs had either slate or clay tiles. There are a lot more tall, blonde haired people just like me, so I’m pretty normal here. Many of the people have a similar “look” to my relatives in Wisconsin, but I definitely know I’m in a different county as soon as I see anything with letters on it, as they aren’t in English, and many are considerably longer than English words.

I stayed at the Quality Hotel in Stavanger, and after giving my hotel a once over, I was pleasantly surprised to find a mini frig stocked with beer and wine! So, the first thing I did was to open one of the Troika candy bars and a Ringnes beer. Cold beer and chocolate was just what I needed. The hotel just happens to be less than a mile from a beach. My coworker pointed this out when he dropped me off, so after dinner, I took a walk down to the beach. It was really pretty, and I snapped some pictures with my phone because I forgot my camera in Aberdeen. The pictures are a little on the crappy side. Mobile phone cameras aren’t quite up to the task yet, but they are getting close.

I’m not sure if it was a common site, but on the way to the hotel, we ended up following an electric car. To me it was fairly obvious because it was a little on the square and ugly side, with just a little bit of kit car flavor. It was really neat to see, and as we got close to it, the license plate did identify it as an electric car. Speaking of cars, I had some additional proof that boys are pretty much the same everywhere. As I left the beach, I bent down to tie my shoelace, and suddenly a beat up station wagon with a couple of teenage boys comes sliding across the gravel parking lot. The windows were down, some music was blasting, and they were smiling as they slid and stopped in a parking spot. I had to smile too. Norway seems to be my kind of place.