Bodø III

August 9, 2008

We ate a leisurely breakfast before we headed into town. The big plan for the day was to head out to the cabin, but first we wanted to catch the free concert downtown. Operating under my go with the flow marching orders, I put on sunscreen and hopped in the car.

First was the youth concert. They featured a number of talented young adults, ranging from classical clarinet to under-enunciated, but well sung blues. They also played on a theme they have apparently been running through out the week of concerts of checking the temperature against the national weather service. We were five degrees (C) warmer - 15 instead of 10!

The day's sponsors were giving out free food. That's right, free food. There was coffee (of course) and pizza, grilled salmon and some kind of meat. First you have to understand that I haven't been speaking English unless I've called Seattle on the phone and also that it was pretty noisy in a crowd of several hundred people outside on a Saturday afternoon with a concert going on. Johan brought me a plate of delicious looking grilled meat with potato salad and asked if I'd ever had **kjøtt. I wasn't sure, but it looked good so I tried it. Tasty and a little gamey, I figured it was moose, but I wanted to be sure. I was going to ask once we got to a quieter place so I could report accurately what I had eaten, but I knew it would be awkward since they had said it several times at the concert. Fortunately, before going to bed, Anne said something about kvalkjøtt. For those of you who don't speak Norwegian, that's whale meat and it was good!

Now, back to the concert. We also heard Terje Nilssen, popular all over Norway and from the local area. The headliner, who came on after we'd been standing in the sun for two and a half hours, was Morten Abel. Rockin' pop music. Great summer tunes. If you're looking for something catchy to round out your summer music collection, look him up!

We made it home, packed our bags and piled into the car again. Anne and I passed out almost immediately while Johan drove. The scenery is so beautiful that I always wish I could stay awake in the car, but I never do. After about an hour we stopped for ice cream; my first Norwegian ice cream and I have to say - Norwegian ice cream is even better than Swedish ice cream! Another half hour of driving (I stayed awake this time) and we arrived at Steinviknesset in Gildeskål.

The house is beautiful inside and out. Anne and Johan worked on fixing it up every weekend for almost two years. Now it has all of the modern conveniences (except a dishwasher) and is absolutely perfect. We stayed up late (not that that counts as news anymore) looking at all of the photos on my computer and finally went to bed when the battery was about dead. Hopefully we'll go fishing tomorrow!