Norway's Top 20

Well, after much deliberation I have found the Top 20 pictures from our trip to Norway last weekend! That's right, I said twenty. It took me a long time to cut it down to that many, too... the scenery was simply too stunning and I want to share it all with you. The word stunning actually doesn't do justice to what we saw in Norway, but there really aren't even words to describe how truly mind blowing God's creation can be sometimes. I can't even wrap my head around it.  All I can say is that I highly recommend taking a trip through the fjords of Norway if the opportunity ever arises during your lifetime. You won't regret it, I promise.

I wanted this post to be purely a picture post since there are so many, but I realized there are a few extra things from our trip that couldn't be captured with pictures. So before we get to all the beauty, here are a few more of those wonderful life lessons we learned while in Norway....

1. Norwegian subtitles for Harry Potter change not only words, but names too... I'm not quite sure why exactly, but for some odd reason the subtitles referred to George as "Frank"? Which makes me wonder if the Norwegian version of the Harry Potter books had Fred and Frank Weasley... And if so, why? Does the name George not exist in the Norwegian language? I want to know!! It was very strange to say the least. However, despite the weird name-changing subtitles, I still saw Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (part 1) before anyone in the United States could because we went to the midnight premiere Thursday in Narvik. Pretty cool, right? I thought so.
2. Don't get a parking ticket with a rental vehicle while visiting a foreign country... Yeah, I'm sure this might seem like common sense but it's kind of one of those things you don't really think about until it actually happens. You know? Unfortunately, it did happen to us while we were eating lunch on Friday. We didn't really think much about it at the time other than it was expensive and annoying... but now we can't seem to find a way to actually pay the darn thing! The guy at the gas station in Narvik gave us the impression that we could just go to the bank when we got back to Sweden and pay it like we would pay any other bill. Awesome, that sounds easy! Not. After spending hours downtown asking five different banks, Ryan found out that the guy at the gas station didn't know what he was talking about after all. So now we're kind of screwed. We checked the website listed on the back of the ticket, hoping it would just let us put in some credit card info on the site and we'd be done with it. Wrong again. I sent an email to the email address listed on the back of the ticket three days ago as well explaining the situation but I haven't heard back. Most of my free time this week, I'm sure, will be spent trying to deal with this so that a notice doesn't get sent back to Hertz saying we haven't paid. Because if that happens, we'll be in trouble... we'll have to pay the original ticket, a fee for not paying on time and a fee to Hertz for having to take care of it for us. What a mess! Did I mention that the entire ticket is in Norwegian? Yeah, what a mess...
3. Don't let the boys do the grocery shopping alone... otherwise you might end up with over 3 pounds of bacon, 8 pounds of ground beef, and 36 eggs for only five people to consume in only two and a half days. Oh, and they'll forget the taco seasoning too! Men, I tell ya...
4. The Toyota Prius may very well have the least comfortable seats of any car I've ever rode in... pretty self-explanatory. 

Well, now that I got all that whining out of the way.... 

Ladies and Gentlemen.... may I present to you.... 

Our trip to the Lofoten Islands... 

The sun rise lighting up the snow-covered trees during our train ride Thursday morning to Narvik.

Narvik, Norway. Although this isn't one of the most beautiful scenes we saw during our trip, it reminded me so much of Duluth. The old houses and the hilly streets made me feel right at home.

A view from outside our cabin at Sandsletta Camping...

The view from our deck...

Hahahahaha this is Brett dancing and singing to the Willow Smith song "Whip My Hair". Watch the music video for it on YouTube... it'll make more sense to you then.

Driving through the Lofoten Islands...

My favorite picture of Ryan and I from that weekend..

A picture of Tyler taking a picture...

Norwegian farmland on the coast of the Atlantic Ocean...

Giant morca tracks... we decided it was too big to be just a moose and it was definitely a moose crossed with an orca.

One of the best sunsets I've ever seen... The water was so still that when I looked at these pictures on my camera and flipped it upside down, I could barely tell. That's how clear the reflection in the water was.

So we through some rocks in the water so you could tell the difference between the reflection and the real thing...

Amazing..

This is one of 10,012 paintings of scenes from the Lofoten Islands done by a man named Stig in Narvik who is in the Guinness Book of World Records for "The Most Paintings Done in a Year". The back of our painting even has an official certificate. It was a little expensive, but I guess that's the price you pay for a little piece of history...

The moose Brett spotted while driving on our way home Sunday. Good find, Brett!

The End! 

I hope all of you back in the states had a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend... I was definitely feeling homesick this week missing out on all the good food. (Even though my waistline wasn't... haha) I'm thinking I'll have to make up for it by eating twice as much when Christmas finally comes around...

T-minus 23 days until the Bogarts return to the states! Whoo hoo!

Peace, Love, and Pumpkin Pie!

-The Bogarts