The meeting yesterday was intense and very educational for me, but not really something fun to recount in a blog post like this. We had dinner outside in the sunshine at a sea food restaurant in the harbour together with the Norwegian researchers. The food was very good, the prices very Norwegian (i.e. shamelessly expensive) and the company was incredibly knowledgeable and pleasant.
The view from the meeting room at Universitetet i Nordland
I couldn’t go to bed due to the light. I slept too little and ended up having to rush through the hotel breakfast in order to make it to the ferry on time, and then the three-and-a-half hour ferry ride was spent in equal amounts admiring the drama of the Norwegian mountains and trying to stay awake. This midnight sun thing really messes with my head.
Leaving Bodø
So much blue.
Approaching Lofoten.
Oh, well, I made it to Moskenes, and then Å by foot, together with Juan, and there we checked in at the hostel, had some lunch and then went for a four hour hike. Amazing. Really. The thing is. Though. That I am. Overwhelmingly. Knockdown. Tired. But I took plenty of photos and will hopefully have more energy to describe the amazing scenery here on the southern tip of Lofoten tomorrow. Now, I’m going to sleep in my empty, light women’s dorm to the sound of seagulls gossiping. The sun never sets here, which apparently means the seagulls sleep in shifts, never giving up their loud conversations. Luckily, I’m ready to collapse on the floor. I’m quite sure I’ll be able to sleep despite the birds and the light and the weird hostel bed.
Tørrfisk (dried cod/stockfish) in progress in Å. This is what they used to survive on here, back in the days. Both for selling and for eating themselves, during the long, dark Arctic winter.
The hostel and stockfish museum. The women’s dorm was behind the second floor window, right beneath the triangular roof detail thing. Possibly the most dramatically situated hostel I’ve ever stayed at.
Å seen from the pier.
Katja Malmborg 