Touchdown in Tromsų
Tromsų, Wednesday June 3, 5:45 PM.
"Korshen har du det?"
Well, here I am at Pearson International Airport in Toronto, moments before jumping on to the KLM flight to Amsterdam. It would be twenty hours before I finally arrived in Tromsų, but all three of my flights were fantastic. I got a chance to know both of my neighbours on the flight across the Atlantic: a woman from the Netherlands, and a man from Belgium. I learned, among other things, that Holland and the Netherlands are not the same country -- there are seventeen provinces in the Netherlands, of which two are the northern and southern parts of Holland. They were both returning from visits to family in Canada -- the gentleman was a great, great grandfather! They were excited for me en route to Norway, although neither of them had ever been even as far north as Oslo. What should have been bedtime for me turned into a fascinating conversation. I even learned a touch of dutch!
The plane was a bit late arriving into Amsterdam, so I had to scoot to catch the connecting flight to Oslo. All I remember of Amsterdam was that there was only one giant billboard - a huge Nikon ad - in view from the airport. I touched down early in the morning in Oslo and took this shot of the airport. I couldn't get over the mountains. Sure, they were small, but they were everywhere!
The temperature was a comfy twentysomething, and I enjoyed a couple of hours walking around the airport waiting for the flight to Tromsų. My stomach finally won and I made my first Norwegian purchase - a 55-kroner hot dog and drink. This did not bode well.
I'd write about my take-off from Oslo but I slept through it.
I woke up in the clouds. They were so puffy and white I couldn't help but snap a shot or two. What I could see of the lanDSCape between Oslo and Tromsų was quite barren. We slipped into some darker clouds and I lost sight of everything but the fog.
Imagine my surprise, then, when we began our descent and this village in the mountains appeared! I think the photographs say it all.
This last shot is taken from in front of the student housing where I'm living. I've been here three days now, and there's still nothing like waking up to a view like this.