Alpbach

After leaving my home away from home in Norway I flew to Austria, for a journey deep into the Tyrolean Alps. My destination was Alpbach, a tiny little village that is more important for world events than its size would let on. Not a few conferences and retreats of great importance have been held in the beautiful little town. The group that I was a part of was called the Alpbach European Forum. The Forum brought together students from all over world to offer the opportunity to learn about the European Union, European integration, and the possibilities that the future holds. All that aside, it was nice to wake up to this every morning…

The conference center was filled a lot of the time and we got to meet some really interesting people

This was the big speech…

That is Ban Ki-moon, the General Secretary of the United Nations. Not everything was formal of course, we had a lot of informal dinners and receptions that allowed us to mingle with the other students and some of the dignitaries. One evening I got to sit next to the Austrian Ambassador to the United Nations for dinner and later shared a lot of wine with my colleagues and a very influential Norwegian ambassador who was heavily involved in the middle east. I have pictures and names, but I am not going to post them here on a public site. So you will just have to make do with the pictures from a couple of more relaxing days when we went up the mountain…

That was from the first time, it was a beautiful warm day. Here was the second time…

As you can see, it snowed a bit. So we didn’t go to the very top, which was okay with me since we were up about 7,000 feet and the air was kind of thin.

I met a lot of people from all over the place and made a lot of friends. It was a really great experience for me.

My Norwegian Family

Norway provided me with a lot of time to enjoy the outdoors. This was a welcome relief after jumping from city to city for so long. After the weekend at the cabin, more fishing!! This time Sig, Steinar, and I were salmon fishing on the river…

Pretty sure Sig was being ornery when she took that picture. We stayed out quite a while…

I hooked a really nice one that was a feisty jumper (that’s how we knew he was a nice size). I fouled up though when trying to get him close to the net and he got off the hook. Oh well, that is why it is called fishing, not catching. Sig had more luck, but her fish was smaller…

Tasted good though…

Do not ask me why I have such a foolish look on my face.

As I said, there are many opportunities to enjoy the outdoors in Norway. One peculiar method was this contraption set up on an abandoned railway…

We rode it from Namsos to Skage and back. It was a lot of fun and it gave me a chance to take a few pictures of the river and surrounding area…

There were places to stop along the way…

But we were lucky and stopped in the middle when Sissel saw some delicious wild strawberries growing along the tracks…

That was fun, but fishing for the first time on saltwater was really fun, and it was our next plan. We headed to Sigrid’s great uncle’s home on the coast; Sig’s grandma and cousin came as well. Unfortunately the first day was extremely foggy and rainy so we spent most of the day hiking, eating blueberries, and waiting…

It finally cleared enough for us to head out though…

Here was the group wishing us luck…

No luck…

But we had fun…

Had to call it in after only an hour as a new set of rain clouds were coming in. The next day was much better…

As was our luck…

Our catch :)

They were delicious!!

Now is the part of the blog where I shamelessly brag about my wonderful summer and attempt to convince my mom that Christmas in Norway will not be enough…

I actually saw some porpoises playing in this fjord, but the sun was in the back and trying to time your photos with the jumps is impossible anyways.

Well, my time in Norway was absolutely amazing. I have left out a lot of stories, but it is better that way since I will be going back at Christmas to visit my new Norwegian family…

Those last photos were taken on the last night as Sissel made cloudberry jam (in norsk it the berry is multe)…

Just one more thing for me to look forward to on my return :)