Matthew in Norway: Hardangerfjorden!

My wife and me at Hardangarfjorden.

Norway is known for its spectacular fjords. Maybe you are like I was, before I had love for Benedicte or any interest in Norway at all, and don’t know what a fjord is. They are river like inlets from the sea, often surrounded by cascading green mountains or little towns built into the hills. They are usually a mix of saltwater from the northern Pacific Ocean and freshwater from melting snow in the mountains. In some areas they are deep enough for cruise ships to tread in, but in others they are shallow enough to see the fish you try to catch. The entire west coast of Noway is weaved with them due to the rocky mountainous terrain. I would recommend going to Google Images and typing in “norway fjord”. More than half of the pictures that will come up will be of the beautiful country, and it may help you get a better idea of what a fjord is.

I first learned of the fjords during my first visit here last December. During my second visit here in March, my Mother-in-law bought me a very nice sweatshirt. On the inside of the designer bag it came in was a beautiful picture of a fjord in Hardanger–a region in Norway know for its scenic beauty. Thats when my fascination with Norway’s beauty began. I took the bag home to California and posted it on my wall to remind me of the colorful country I so longed to be in with my girl. I had only experienced the fjords in pictures and stories, so when my father-in-law told me that he was going to take my Bother-in-law and me on a three day hiking trip beginning in Hardangerfjorden, I didn’t know how to tell him thank you enough or how blessed I felt.

We drove for two hours, crossed the fjord by a ferry, saw the construction of the 1,300+ meter long suspension bridge connecting the two sides of the fjord, and started our 7 hour hike to our cabin. The scenery we saw on our hike was unlike any other I have ever seen. We hiked 1,000 meters up through green forest, over rocks and boulders and along side of a raging cold river. We saw massive waterfalls hundreds of feet tall, constantly roaring with power and constantly filling the air with a damp mist. We got cramps. We hiked up a very steep mountain side of solid rock so smoothed out by years of glacial pressure it was literally dangerous to come down when raining. We would get to the top of one mountain and in exhaustion hope that the cabin would be just over the ridge, to only see more and more scenery and no cabin in sight. Sometimes I felt like Frodo and Sam in Lord of the Rings on an exciting but seriously long extravaganza. I experienced drinking true crisp mountain water from freshly melted snow, and no, Arrowhead Bottled Water doesn’t taste like what it says: “Bottled at the source”. The water was so cold, that when I plunged my hand in it to fill up my drinking bottle, it began to ache before the bottle was full.

We finally got to the cabin and, oh, I slept so rock hard that night. We fished all day the next day, but because the water was so cold, the fish refused to bite. The cabin was located in the valley between two large mountains which the snowmelt river ran through. It was so interesting to me to see such large mountains up close. I looked at the mountains and down the valley between them, and thought that it was a push-over ten minute hike to the other side, but after an hour of hiking to the fishing hole, I realized how much more ground it was to cover.

Benedicte and I have been doing quite a lot of hiking lately. Just ten minutes drive from the house is a few mountains that are very popular to hike. You can hike to the top where a big “golfball” is just like in Orcutt Hills, California, or you can hike around the local drinking water reservoir. We go alone, or with her friends, or with her family. Her mom took us on a hike around the water reservoir and kicked our butts. Shouldn’t it be the other way around, the young newly weds waiting up for the mom? Impressive Mamsen!

Learning Norwegian is coming along well. Its exciting for me to be able learn a little bit more every day. Its definitely work though, especially not being able to take an academic Norwegian class yet and having to learn it with my own initiative. I never seriously thought about learning a language until. Its not just memorizing words for vocabulary. There is grammar, pronunciation and word choice. In English we say “I put on my pants”, but in Norwegian they say “I take on my pants.” Even if you say all the right words and even if you get the difficult pronunciation correct, the other person may not understand you just because you didn’t say something the way their culture says it. Imagine if someone said that they want ice cream by saying “I will have ice cream.” You eventually would figure out what they meant, but it would take a little processing. When I actually try to communicate something serious with a Norwegian, in Norwegian, I feel like I am a little kid learning how to speak. It makes me think, when about I was young learning English. I don’t remember being this frustrated with all the specific sounds and having to get them correct. In fact, I don’t even remember learning English.

I appreciate now that I know how to say anything in English and can communicate clearly and precisely to any one what I want to say. I realize that human beings have an amazing ability of having a complex idea then babbling off dozens and dozens of different sounds in a specific order in a very short amount of time to communicate. The listener then hears the sounds, tones and lengths and can process the same or similar idea. Its not until we hear a foreign language with unknown sounds, some that we didn’t even know we could make, do we realize how amazing the ability is. That is my deep thought about learning a new language.

I’m enjoying being here in Norway. I miss my friends and family back home too. I’m greatly enjoying being in love and married to my best friend. We are learning so much together–about ourselves and about each other. Many people have told me over the years that marriage is work, that it takes effort to bring two individuals with independent lives together to make one life. I’m finally living that, and its exciting. I so thank you God for giving Benedicte and myself such clear communication skills with each other.

There is a line of text in our Norwegian marriage license that stuck out to me when the priest read it before us. It has been on my mind ever since. I don’t know all about the “ins and outs” of marriage yet, but I do know that I am so happy to be learning with my best friend, the person who I love more than I knew I could love.

“There is no contradiction between love and unity on the one hand, and freedom and autonomy on the other.”