Travel-Trails

This year my parents did something they haven't done in thirty years: they spent their summer holiday driving through Norway. And so did we. To check where they were going, we decided to meet up with them at the cabin of Annett's parents. Don't get me wrong, it was the only way we could avoid running in to them on our own holiday.

At the cabin Gaute introduced us to his new girlfriend Runi, and we went fishing with the eight of us. We caught a lot of fish, although my mother caught mostly water plants, trees and other leashes.

There is a Norwegian proverb stating that there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes. In the pouring rain, Annett's mother, my father and me the next morning took the boat to fetch a net. Because I borrowed effective rain gear, the rain wasn't bothering me at all. Instead it made the fishing experience somehow more real. The sky and the water both had the same gray color, and the only color was coming from the forest: several shades of green, fading to gray with distance. Pretty, in a mystical sort of way.

Afterwards we prepared the fish outside in the rain. Outside, to keep it clean inside. This time Bastian had to share the fish heads with Inu, but he didn't seem to mind. I guess more than forty fish heads is a lot, even for an ever-hungry Labrador.

Inu had the time of her life. She was constantly exploring the area around the cabin. We didn't bother anymore to keep an eye on her all the time. She managed to fall into the water, and so she swum for the first time. And she lost her first milk teeth. A couple of times we had to put her in the room, because she wanted to play with Bastian all the time. We think of her as the annoying side kick of Bastian. This is too much for Bastian, with his hundred dog-years he just doesn't manage to play so much anymore.

It means a lot to me that my parents know what my life here is like. By the time I post this on my blog, Maarten and Marian have payed us a visit. In the autumn we plan to go camping in the mountains together with Joost and Annieka. Bjørn will probably start working for Trolltech in Berlin, and might go to its main office in Oslo now and then. I'm glad that our advertising of our sleeping couch is paying off.