Ødderøy, falling into the Atlantic, and Max Manus

Homecoming: Day 3-

"Waffle Island"

Today could be considered the first official day of tourist activity, for yours truly. Christian had been talking non-stop about this place –Ødderøya- which has spectacular waffler (“waffles”). Unbeknownst to me, this waffle-house of Norwegianess stood halfway up a small mountain. But you know what? Eff it. I’m Norwegian and Norwegians, when they want something, they do what it takes and by God, I raised my hands unto the sky and screamed at the top of my lungs- “BRING IT!”

[Editor’s Note: I more or less stated, “Alright, I’m down” and it’s not so much a matter of willpower to conquer this small mountain, rather it’s just a relatively small hike and as we all know, Norwegians like the outdoors and like to walk around. So, when the walking gets tough, the tough get walking, right?]

So we began out hike and it was not bad at all. For a country of fjords and ginormous hills and valleys, it turns out Ødderøya is quite small in comparison, and since the waffle house sits roughly at the halfway point, it was a good morning’s outing. The waffles, though, were mondo overpriced for what they were - store bought pancake batter slapped onto a do-it-yourself waffle iron.

EH, it’s all about the experience, ikke sant?

[Editor’s note: saying “ikke sant” at the end of a sentence like I did means essentially “am I right?” or “don’t you think”. Try saying it sometime, it feels much more….international and suave.]

Interesting thing, though: I’ve been trying hard to use my Norwegian the entire trip and I don’t know what it was (either my backwards UW cap, red flannel shirt, touristy-looking camera, s.v.) but the moment my sentence didn’t make sense, I apologized and said I was from the USA and it was my first trip to Norway (said like this: Unnskyld, men Jeg kommer fra USA og dette er min første tur til Norge) and guess what the dude says?

“Oh, I know.”

If he weren’t such a tall, built, and very strong looking Norwegian man, I’d probably have slapped in the face with my white-glove and challenged him to a duel. But instead, I laughed and said “hahah yeah.” Whatever, you’d have done the same thing if you were called out like that….

After waffles, we decided to listen to the big-Norwegian behind the cash register and follow some trails up Ødderøya because there was a good chance of seeing some wild-life [dyr]. This ended up being a very long hike up the mountain with no animal, or its tracks, in sight. Luckily for us, Christian and I were wearing tennis shoes and were able to trek the mountainside like we owned the fool (though to be honest, we slipped and fell a lot and had soaking feet by the end of the trip from all of the off-roading we did). Even though we didn’t see any animals, we say a lot of coolness that was the WWII bunkers and remnant buildings that the Kristiansand military was nice enough to leave behind for us. See, during the Nazi invasion of 1940, Kristiansand was one of the main oppositions because it is a large port city. And yes, if you know your Scandinavian countries, you’ll have said to yourself- “Wait Mike, most of Norway is port cities”- and you’d be correct, which is why the Nazi’s attacked ALL of the major cities (all ports) and began its occupation in one fell swoop in April of 1940.As you will eventually see when I get around to posting my pictures, I took a TON of photos. See, I only go to countries that are rich with history and give me an inquisitive and awe-inspired history boner; Norway fills the “history-boner” shoes quite well.

SO, boners all of varieties aside, we made it down the mountain just fine, even with a couple of ice-related falls. Once down, Christian whips into a sweet-looking dock spot where the ice had been broken leading up to the shore from the obscure warm weather Kristiansand had just received. And this is where I, Michael Snowden, fell into the Atlantic Ocean.

Short story short: I took an unlucky step between two rocks that were hidden under the snow and slipped right down into the frigid water. It really wasn’t that bad and only my calf was soaked but to be honest- it was hilarious. Had I been walking by and seen it, I would have been that dude you hear in the background that sounds like Nelson from The Simpsons- “HA-HA!”

After wringing some Atlantic from my jeans [bukser, pronounced “book-sir”, with a long ‘O’], we toured downtown Kristiansand. By the way, the city center for a Norwegian town is simply referred to as sentrum [pronounced like the multivitamin “cen-trum”]. Everything was closed because it was Sunday [Sønndag, “sun-dog”, long ‘U’] but it had a really nice feel to it and I felt instantly that if it came to it and someone said “Mike, you’re moving to a city in Norway- where shall it be?” My answer would be Kristiansand. Flat-out. Inflation is still high, but it’s not as bad as Oslo (which I’ll get to in a bit).

At the end of the day, we watched a movie called Max Manus, which chronicles the WWII hero of the same name. Basically, Manus becomes one of the most lethal and successful saboteurs for Norway and unlike movies about famous people- he isn’t a martyr; he doesn’t die in the war! I know, right?!

In any case, this is long enough. I’ve included a link to a (hopefully) subtitled trailer for the movie. Check it out and Netflix the real thing later.

Fra Norge med kjærlighet.