Celebrating fjords and jordbær

Today we entered fjord country.  The car thermometer claimed it was 11.5 degrees in the morning -- not so bad considering it reports in Celsius (53 Fahrenheit), and we even managed to stay dry as most of today's light rain fell while we were in the car.  The clouds were so low we couldn't see the tops of nearby mountains -- they're steep enough to be called mountains, though most of them were under 2000 meters (or 6500 feet)  which was impressive from our starting point of about 100 meters above sea level. 

We drove along lakes and rivers, and saw more shades of green than are available in paint samples.  The water was often a deep almost tropical green, though in the rapids it was easy to see the glacial silt.  The trees were an impressive variety of shapes and sizes.  Although we never got above about 1000 meters, we were above the tree line in some places; not so surprising considering we're at about 62 degrees north latitude (for comparison, Anchorage, Alaska is at about 61 degrees).  We took a beautiful walk on some tundra and took numerous pictures of the sheer cliffs, low clouds, lake, rapids, rocks, lichens, etc. (to be posted eventually, though likely not until we're home). Even though there were several cars in the parking lot when we started, we had the good fortune to be absolutely alone for some parts of the walk.  As we were heading back to the car another couple asked us to take a picture of them and we decided to ask them to do the same for us, so less than a week into the trip we already have a picture of the two of us together. 

Our walk was fantastic!  But the highlight of the day, and one of the reasons we came to the fjord areas, was a boat ride on Geiranger fjord, which is one of the two fjords on UNESCO's World Heritage list.  It was warm and dry enough that we were able to stay outside the whole time and see some amazing geology as well as some impressive farms, though very few birds and no other fauna.  The clouds stayed low so we rarely saw the top of any of the mountains, but we could always easily see both sides of the fjord.  There was an unbelievable number of stunning waterfalls -- in one location I counted over 20 just one one side of the boat -- ranging from wee little trickles to wide torrents of water.  We will post the keepers of the 50 or so pictures we took (J had the camera outbound, M had it inbound so there are likely some near-duplicates). 

No one who knows us would accuse us of being culinary experts.  And yet today I've had the pleasure of three excellent preparations of jordbær, not to mention to the raw variety.  No, it's not bear meat, or meat of any kind.  Jordbær is strawberry.  And like all of the local bær, it's delicious, served often, and used in interesting ways.  At breakfast I had probably the best-I've-ever-tasted jordbær jam....it tasted like concentrated strawberries (I say this with a certain amount of apology to Mom who makes an excellent strawberry jam).  As an afternoon treat, I bought a piece of  sur jordbær lakris (sour strawberry licorice) that was quite tasty.  But the pièce de résistance was the topping for my tasty chocolate tort (much like Jake's at home): a gelled jordbær that was excellent with the chocolate and, shockingly enough coming from this confirmed chocoholic, even better on its own.  Alas, we haven't seen any jordbær by the road selling for 50 pence, though we have seen some for several kroner that we managed to resist.