Sea and Mountains Meet

I have arrived at my next and final stop on my Viking Tour and I have been welcomed with quite the busy week!

I left Tromsø on Monday December 5th with sweet but sad goodbyes. My flight took me a few degrees south from 69th parallel down to a city by the name of Bodø at the 67th.  The flight was brief, but being above the clouds in the north you can see the vast orange of the sun skirting the globe before fading into the navy sky lit by the moon...I couldn't peel my nose away from the window of the aircraft.

Flight Path

By now you would think the seasoned traveler within me would have a smooth journey to my next destination. WRONG! This is me we are talking about and nothing is every smooth or easy. It was a quick walk to the ferry terminal from the airport but of course I get lost because the Norwegians seem to have a weird thing about street signs as in they are not there, or hidden from view. 



Not only did I get lost walking to the terminal but once I finally made it onto the ferry and began the trip out to the islands they failed to announce my stop so I did not get off. I was able to get off the next stop and through language barriers and utter confusion my ride was able to pick me up by car and drive back to Nordskot before taking the boat to Manshausen Island, my current place of residency. 

Stretch to Manshausen

The population on this resort island is 10 at the moment, two humans, 7 sheep and 1 ram; it's like the happy story of Castaway. My new "boss", Børge Ousland, was here for a few days with another one of his guides and some guests, so the island has a flow of other inhabitants. 

Island in Twilight

 
This week was a busy week! The resort is still under development so there are a lot of projects to be done...like putting together Ikea shelving -_-. It was the devil of my day. It was a giant piece of shelving that did not fit in the room it was intended for so I was tasked to assemble the thing and then re-assemble in the room which was far too small and this shelf had no business being built in there. 

But that is not all! O no. Let's recap: I took my first ambulance ride because I was so sick I truly believed I was going to die and that sickness lingered for a solid 3 weeks. During those 3 weeks I banged my knees up on some ice. Almost broke my arm on another occasion. So now, to top it all off, while moving this Ikea shelf I sliced the back of my hand open on an exposed knife. It was a beautiful display of flaps of my skin with a clean cut soaked in red. 

Such is life. 

On an exciting note though, we went to pick up the ram from shore yesterday! I never thought I would see a ram in a small boat let alone ride with one. 

Stoic

Watching The Dream Team's (what I like to call the sheep on the island) reaction to their new member of the heard could have been it's own reality show. They were very unsure of him, and like most girls ran from this new monster as one entity..."what one does we all must do!!!"

After a while some of the ladies got a little ballsy and would delicately inch towards this new monster. By evening though they seemed to all be settling in and the "getting to know you game" had passed. 

"Who is this guy?"

I tagged along with the guests on their kayaking trip around the neighboring island. The area here is almost tropical. You can see down through the clear blue water made light by the white bed of the sea. And to play on the tag line for Manshausen, this is truly where sea and mountains meet. All these islands are surrounded by massive peaks springing from the water. 

I apologize for my lack of luster in the recent posts, I find I have a hard time focusing on writing when there is so much outside of my computer to experience around me. But I dedicated myself to doing this blog for all those that read so I will continue to keep it updated as promised! 

To close, here is a photo most of you have been waiting for. Ta-da! 

Hello oh beautiful remnants of Sun activity!