We drove to Fjaerland today and had a nice visit with Anne's great aunt and uncle. After driving to see where Anne's grandmother grew up and went to school, Anne and I explored the many book stores of Fjaerland.
The bookstores have tons of second hand books and most of them operate on an honesty basis... customers just leave the money in a box or are instructed to go to the ferry dock to pay.
We didn't see many people in Fjaerland, just a tremendous amount of books. All kinds of books in many languages. Barns and houses have been converted into the shops. The buildings are drafty and cold and have that infectious old book smell. Scouring the shelves and piles of novels, encyclopedias and journals was kind of like exploring an old attic. The booktown was a neat part of Norway to experience and I highly suggest seeking out booktowns when you travel.
After the booktown, we went to the Bre Museum.
Okay, so there's a little story that goes along with this...
When Anne first told me about her plans for my trip, she said we'd be going to a "Bree Museum." I assumed she meant "Brie Museum" and I got really excited because I love cheese and I thought we'd be tasting all kind of delicious samples. Turns out, "Bre" means "glacier" in Norwegian. Oh well.
But the Bre Museum was interesting! The largest glacier in continental Europe is partially in Fjaerland. Jostefalsbreen has a fresh water equivalent of three hundred thousand millions bathtubs of water. Crazy, right?
The museum also taught us about "The Iceman" who was found in 1991 and how he was preserved by glaciers, wooly mammoths and other prehistoric animals, and the human effect on glaciers. There was a whole exhibit on climate change and energy use. It was clear on all of the charts, plaques, and brochures that the United States is the leader in energy consumption. Regardless of how you feel about global warming, the fact that the United States only makes up 5% of the world's population but consumes 20% of the energy is staggering (Population Reference Bureau; 2007 World Population Data Sheet.)
Anne's uncle drove us out to the see part of the actual glacier. It's huge! As we approached it, the air got colder and colder.
On the way home, we had salted chocolate popsicles (surprisingly delicious!)
We got back home, had supper, then Andrea and Kaia came over to hang out one last time before I leave. Anne made smoothies (she needs to be a chef!) and Norwegian style waffles with raspberry jam and brown cheese. I'm going to miss my new friends and having brown cheese at every meal!
I'm almost finished packing. I'm trying to psyche myself up for extremely long trip back home, but I can't seem to make spending thirteen hours in the Oslo airport sound fun at all. At least there's free WiFi!
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