In one week, I will have been in Norway for two months, and I have learned about many of Norway’s cultural obsessions. Among others, I have explored wool socks, odd fish products, and cardiovascular activity. This past weekend, however, I investigated one

Norway’s most important cultural touchstones: cabins.

There were a few odd things about this trip. For one, I was invited. My friend’s Norwegian co-worker, Brigitta, won a free stay in one of the university’s cabin, and she apparently chose to invite 3 close friends, two coworkers, and then a whole bunch of people she didn’t really know, most of whom were Ukrainian. This brings us to the second odd aspect of this trip: of the 13 people on the trip, 7 were Ukrainian. That’s 53% of the whole, which I believe is a significantly higher proportion than most cabin trips. Third, Kevin and I were quite a bit younger than the rest of the group, excepting one of the Ukrainians, who was the four-year-old daughter of two of the others.

So this trip was a little strange. But, I came to Norway for somewhat strange adventures, and so off I went. This cabin was in Utne, which is a small town on the Hardangerfjord a couple hours west of Bergen. Brigitta picked me at at my dorm on Friday, and two hours later, we were driving off the ferry into downtown Utne.

The cabin was lovely, and the Ukrainians were charming. It was a little awkward at first – considering not even all of the Ukrainians knew each other – but things warmed up quickly, especially after I told the story of the time my Grandpa sent me a box of horse turds covered in chocolate. That’s the kind of story that can cross any cultural divide, although I did have to explain what the word turd meant.

The next day we decided to hike up to the top of the plateau, which was about 2 or 3 miles south of our cabin. However, it was also about 3000′ up. Of course, it was astonishingly lovely. Here are some pictures:

Kevin and I split off after lunch and headed along the ridge to score some killer fjord views. We went quickly, pausing only to climb small cliffs and recite lines from Lord of the Rings. Here’s Kevin pointing out which direction the orcs have gone, and some more pictures:

On the way back, we decided that we would cut the corner back to the trail. This would have worked perfectly, except that we kept running into cliffs. We found a way around all of them eventually, but there were a couple sketchy moments when we probably should have backtracked.

In the end, however, we made it back in one piece just in time for the traditional Norwegian dish of Fårikål. This is a dish of potatoes, cabbage and hunks of lamb stewed together for long periods of time. It was quite delicious, but it was the kind of dish that really conveys just how poor Norway was before it found oil. Also amazing was how much salt the Norwegians put on their stew – I was watching one of them next to me, and I honestly thought she had accidentally ruined her stew by spilling salt all over it. Then all of the Norwegians did the same thing, and seemed to love their stew all the more.

The evening and next day were much quieter – apparently, when Norwegians go to cabins, the main activity is sitting around, playing board games, and eating. On the first night we played a trivia game, which was challenging for the non-Norwegians in the crowd. Sample questions included “Who, in 2011, was appointed Dean of the Oslo Medical School?” and “What kind of sewing was used in very old skiing boots?”. You know it’s going to be a tough question when it begins “what kind of sewing”. On the bright side, there were several questions about American things, and they were childishly easy – “how many points is a touchdown worth in American football?” for example.

The game du jour on Sunday was Settlers of Catan, which is awesome. I didn’t get even close to winning, but I did have a lot of opportunities to swindle Ukrainians out of their sheep. But, sadly, we had to return to Bergen, and here I am again in dorm room. Hopefully, I’ll be able to go on some more adventures this weekend, so stay tuned!