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About as opposite as you can get from Morocco.
From the green, cool, and wet environment, to the exorbitant prices, to my lack of social interaction these past 10 days, my time in Stockholm and Norway has been a complete polar opposite from my time in Morocco.
That doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, though. Far from it.
First of all, why did I come here? Honestly, the main reason is because it's a part of Europe I'd yet to see. A goal of this "Europe Part 2" trip has been to visit places I'd missed last fall. It's as simple as that.
Another reason is because of that contrast with Morocco, which made itself known immediately when I arrived. As I walked across Stockholm to my hostel at about 1:00 AM, I was amazed to see that the sky wasn't fully dark (stuck in a perpetual blue hour). Here, in the northernmost place I'd ever been in my life, the nights never truly get dark in the summertime, and these white nights have honestly taken some getting used to. After 10 days here - and a lot of early mornings getting woken up by the light - I've recognized the value of night time, and I'm ready to return to a normal day/night schedule.
Late-night arrival near the hostel
I didn't realize how much I missed greenery and rain and drinkable tap water while I was in Morocco, and so Stockholm felt like a breath of fresh air. The STF Skeppsholmen Vandrarhem hostel helped a lot with that, sitting on a little green island in the middle of the city with a perfect home-y vibe that made it one of the most comfortable hostels I've ever stayed in (even though I was in a 16 bed dorm). It was the perfect place to recuperate and go through the tons of photos and video clips from my time in Morocco. I couldn't really allow myself to embrace and explore Stockholm until all the organizational work was done, and after a day and a half of holing up in the hostel to get through it all, I finally published my previous blog post, A Moroccan Dream. This was easily one of the most creative and fulfilling things I've done in a while, so go check it out!
Anyways, enough about Morocco. Stockholm itself (once I actually got out and saw it), is an incredibly beautiful city, with a different vibe from any other European cities I've seen. I guess that's Scandinavia for you. I spent a day wandering through the old town and the Djurgården with my camera, visiting the Abba Museum and the Vasa Museum - which features a a fully preserved 17th century warship - and I even stumbled into a procession of the King and Queen of Sweden. I had noticed a general buzz about the city for a few days by now, and it turns out that June 6th is actually Swedish independence day! I guess I picked the perfect time to explore Stockholm; it seems that I have a knack for randomly stumbling into independence day celebrations, since this also happened to me in Sydney, Australia.
The Vasa warship
Swedish royalty
IKEA meatballs (in Sweden)
ABBA: Björn, Agnetha, Frida, and Benny
There's not much else to say about Stockholm, since my three days in the city only really ended up being about one and a half. On top of all the organizational accomplishments, I also sat down and (excruciatingly) figured out my plan for the coming week.
Rural Norway.
I felt the urge to just retreat into nature and be by myself, Into the Wild style (sorta). Obviously, without a car or a campervan (which would've been the ideal way to see backcountry Norway), and no tent, I was completely reliant on the public VYbus networks and various Booking.com listings. I quickly realized that Norway is EXPENSIVE - the most expensive country I've traveled to yet - and coupled with the lack of hostel availability, I ended up paying a lot of money for this segment of the trip. You only live once, I suppose.
To put it into perspective, a FlixBus journey back in Portugal would be like 10 bucks max, but here in Norway even the shorter bus trips were 60 dollars or more (and the longer ones could reach 100+). If that doesn't quite do it justice, I'll explain using kebab units. Back in Spain, a typical dürüm kebab would cost about 5 euros. Trust me, we ate enough of those that I know what I'm talking about. Yet here in Norway, the same thing costs 17!
You get what you pay for though, and everything here was held to a super high standard. The buses were nice and clean, and my accommodations even nicer. In fact, those long (expensive) bus journeys past snow-capped cliffs broken up by waterfalls and through sweeping forest landscapes were a huge highlight of my time here. Something about looking out the window at a gorgeous new environment just never gets old to me. In Sweden, I realized that everyone agrees Norway unanimously has the better nature, so my first order of business was taking a bus straight to Oslo.
It's a tiny, quaint city that's walkable in about an hour and only worth spending one night in, but to me it served as the gateway to all the wilderness Norway has to offer.
Oslo
When packing for this final Europe leg, I failed to realize that it might be a bit (a lot) colder and rainier up here than it was in Portugal, Spain, or Morocco. Looking at the forecast for the coming days, I caved and bought a raincoat and a fleece in Oslo. I'm so glad I did.
The next day was again spent on the bus, heading north and finishing in the small rainy town of Oppdal, which is special because of its proximity to the Dovrefjell national park, the only place in Europe where you can find wild musk oxen (more on that later). In Oppdal I had a whole little cabin to myself (the only accommodation available at the time), which was pretty sweet. Naturally, I did everything I could to romanticize my life living alone in a random town in Norway; I cooked and watched Ratatouille and wandered around.
My cabin
On my full day in Oppdal I got up bright and early to join a "musk ox safari," which was just a guided hike in the park. Even with a nice new raincoat and my 3 sweaters layered on underneath, I was still chilly up in the tundra of the national park. As the tour guide with the long Norwegian name that I've unfortunately forgotten said, "there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothes."
But man, it was beautiful, even in the rain. I've never really been to an alpine tundra environment before, and the tour was super informative. They even gave us tea and cinnamon rolls at the halfway mark! Dovrefjell is the only place in the world where musk oxen exist without predators like wolves, which means population management is a huge focus here. It also means that the animals have adapted to roaming on their own, rather than staying in a herd, which greatly increased our chances of spotting one. We ended up seeing 5 different individual musk oxen over the course of the day! They're huge animals, visible from a distance, and aggressive towards humans if they feel threatened, (so we only ever saw them from a distance).
They may look like huge wooly cows, but they're actually more closely related to goats. As we walked we'd occasionally see bits of wool and fur stuck to bushes, where a musk ox had wandered and gotten caught. Their wool is super soft and ridiculously warm, to the point where in the 60s it was used in the lining of space suits! I took some off a few bushes to take home as a souvenir. Overall, this was a very out-there, informative experience that I'd highly recommend.
Musk ox through a telescope
The day after the musk ox tour, I hopped on a bus back down to the town of Lillehammer, where I spent a night as a pit-stop before my next destination. It's nice enough - nothing special - and I went for a run by the lake and watched the World Cup opening ceremony. I would have liked to continue north from Oppdal, but my schedule didn't really allow it. See, if I'd had my own car or camper, everything would be so much easier and I wouldn't have to rely on pre-existing bus routes and times, but in this case I was constrained. I definitely intend to return and do a proper Norwegian road trip.
On my series of long bus rides through the country, I'd had the constant, futile itch whenever we passed a cool river or waterfall to get out of the bus and explore. My time in Borgund finally fulfilled that desire.
I picked this spot purely because of the famous old stave church nearby (more on that later), and the VYbus dropped me off in the T-intersection town (if you can even call it that) of Borlaug. I was truly in the rural backcountry now. My accommodation for the next two nights was an hour and a half walk down the road, and I'd planned to take the local bus. However, I soon realized that it only started operating in July, and it became apparent that I was here a little too early in the season. There was a stark lack of any tourist infrastructure, and it was also still chilly and damp.
I was forced to walk on the side of the road with all my bags, at the heaviest they've ever been (I'm lugging an entire Moroccan rug around for god's sake). I'm making this out to be a bad thing, when in reality it was gorgeous and felt like quite the adventure. I was finally able to stop at each river and waterfall and explore around. 2 hours later, I finally made it to the Steinklepp Camping site, where I again had a cabin to myself!
Walking on the side of the road
Steinklepp Camping
As I mentioned before, I picked this area in the middle of nowhere because of the famous Borgund stavkyrkje, a wooden Viking stave church built in 1180 which is miraculously still standing. The only trouble was, with the buses not working, it would be ANOTHER hour and a half walk to get from my cabin to the church. Luckily, as I was doing my evening grocery shopping at a supermarket 20 minutes walk down the road, the nice Norwegian owner showed me to a bike rental stand nearby. I hadn't realized this beforehand (I did very little research about this area before coming here), but this area is on the Kongevegen, or "King's road", a historical route from west to east Norway. Apparently, they had just begun putting up a few bike rental stations for the summer season, spread out along the road for people like me. When I saw that singular blue bike behind the supermarket, it felt like a gift from god. Now, my plans for a true adventure began to take shape.
The next morning I headed out along the Kongevegen towards the stave church. It was very impressive - and all the more so when you consider how old it was - but honestly I was expecting it to be larger. It's almost comically small when compared to a person these days. After only like 15 minutes, I was done seeing everything. Imagine if I'd come all this way just for that!
But the bike saved me. I decided I was going to bike all the way to the end of the King's road, to a town called Lærdalsøyri that sits at the very edge of the famous Norwegian fjords.
Norway is absolutely gorgeous (shoutout Slartibartfast), and this was the most beautiful bike ride I've ever done, despite me being soaked for most of it. Previously that title was held by the Queenstown to Arrowtown loop in New Zealand, but it got beaten by this ride through cloud-capped mountaintops, past rivers, roaring waterfalls, and quaint farmland. It was also the longest route I've ever done: the out-and-back stretch that I did came to a total of 47.5 miles. Of course, it was mostly downhill getting there and mostly uphill going back, which meant the final quarter of the journey turned into a little personal hell. Yet it was so worth it, and the feeling of finally making it back to my cabin in the woods was unbeatable. It's kind of funny now that I've visited TWO countries famous for their fjords (New Zealand and Norway), and in both I've yet to truly experience them. Here, I got the briefest taste before turning right back around and biking back.
Borgund stavkyrkje
Lærdalsøyri
When I wasn't biking long distances, my time in the middle of backcountry Norway was very quiet and solitary. In fact, you could say the same for this whole Scandinavian trip in general. I spent a lot of time sitting with my thoughts or reading a book, and at no real point did I mind. I think this could be seen as a testament to how comfortable I've gotten being alone in new places. Some spots here in Norway felt extremely far out, simply due to the lack of other people around me. It's the most solitary I've felt on this gap year, but I enjoyed it and tried to savor every moment. If it had gone on for too much longer though, I'd probably go crazy. I'm not superman.
Now I'm back in Oslo again for one final evening before my flight home. I can't believe it's my final night in a hostel ever (on this gap year). I can't help but think back to that first night in a top bunk at the Flying Pig Uptown hostel in Amsterdam, and realize how far I've come. But I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll save the summary and philosophical anecdotes for the final blog post to come some time after this one. :)
That's it!
Mark
P.S.
I'm going to a World Cup game in Boston with my dad when I get back (Norway vs Iraq, the cheapest ticket there was), and because I'm definitely not going to root for the USA, and since I'm here in Norway right now, I've chosen to be a pseudo Norway fan this summer.
The plan was to get a jersey while I'm here and wear it to the game. I've looked in every sports store in each town I've been to and they're always sold out of Norway jerseys; the one time a store had any, it was closed on Sundays and it happened to be a Sunday! The kit is beautiful, so it makes sense why it's sold out, and so sadly my dream of getting a Norway jersey in Norway might just be impossible ...
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