Hi folks, country musicians, fjord walkers, cloud gardeners and fellow participants, unexpected room-mates and folly colleagues in what can be called a collectivisation CROWD, hi to everyone on the road or not, and hi to the authors currently on the bus. Seemingly the authors disappeared for a little while, leaving only small traces of their journey. Listen to the silence of Norway.

Let me first give you some updates on the tour. Norways hotels are still on strike, obviously, as I hear from the bus. English news are very rare on this matter, though a site News in English.no tells that it is quite a struggle for hotel management, staff and tourists in Norway. Some of the hotels have closed down, some big ones, and the people who wanted to stay there had to look for a new room. This results in a doubley tense situation since hotels are currently on a minimum-level of employees. The flares between the hotel management and union-workers are triggered by further accusations.

And through the Norwegian nature, the view alternates between  wooded and undulating areas, then opens out again to a great horizon with large expanses of water in front. Norway has a total area of 125,021 square miles (323,802 square km), which includes Bouvet, Jan Mayen, and Svalbard Islands. Odile has the right tone for this:

Keep the spirits up, my friends, it’s not long until the reading in the Lillehammer Library. Keep on going! You know, “the word “slalom” (slalåm) originated in Morgedal, Norway, home of Telemark ski designer Sondre Norheim. The first syllable, sla, means “slope, hill, or smooth surface,” while låm is the track down the slope. The normal slalom was a cross-country run over fields, hills, and stone walls, weaving through thickets. Slalom was first contested as an Olympic sport at the 1936 Winter Olympic Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, where Norwegian Schou Nilsen won a Bronze medal in the Women’s combined event.”

Would like to hear from you on the bus! What’s up? Unfill the silence.