Short Stories of Norway

I spent one month in Norway on a little island called Skrova.  Here, I lived in a 5 bedroom house with anywhere from 7-12 other volunteers from many other countries.  One of the most unique things about my time here was the midnight sun, which was present during my entire stay.

Here are 9 short stories about my time there.

The Following Stories:

1. Who Ate My Pasta?
2. “Cooking”
3. Dumpster Diving
4. Fishing
5. Arctic Swimming
6. Biggest Jellyfish I’ve Ever Seen
7. Politics
8. Church Service For Matt
9. Learning New Games

Who Ate My Pasta?

(A picture of Norwegian brown cheese and jam waffle instead)

When I arrived at the house I roomed with girl named Martina, from Italy.  We shared a small bedroom with two twin beds.  We didn’t talk much at first because I worked in the morning and she worked in the afternoon.  She also always went hiking when I was going to bed.  After a week or two a German girl, Miriam, arrived and we became good friends.

Miriam and I were sitting in the kitchen after our morning shift looking through the food to eat, or lack of it.  I saw a pot on the stove with a small amount of pasta, lentils, and sauce in it.  I wasn’t going to eat it at first because I didn’t want to steal someone’s food, but it had been sitting on the stove for quite some time.  No one finished it the previous night, that morning, or that afternoon.  It was about 20 minutes before the next shift started, and I knew Martina wasn’t in the house.  I assumed she got scheduled earlier and was already at work.  So I ate the pasta.

Ten minutes later Martina walks in the door and goes to eat her pasta, but it wasn’t there.  She looked frantic.  “Who ate my pasta?”  Miriam and I stared at each other knowing damn well I ate the pasta.  She repeated it numerous times in her Italian accent, “Who ate my pasta?”  I took a deep breath and explained that I ate her pasta.  It had been sitting on the stove all night and morning–I didn’t think anyone was going to eat it.

Luckily she didn’t hold grudges, but I have never had my stomach drop so fast.  I felt especially bad because she was hiking prior to her shift, and had planned on eating the pasta right before work.  But she didn’t have it when she returned, and she didn’t have time to make more.  Plus she was vegan, so she wasn’t able to snack on anything we had in the kitchen.

“Cooking?”

There was this adorable Spaniard, Noa, who was from Barcelona.  Her main reason for volunteering in Norway was to learn English.  She was taking classes in Spain, but she still struggled to speak–it was very broken.  However, hearing her constantly mess up and struggle, but always laughing about it gave me the confidence to speak terrible Spanish to native speakers.  To this day, my fear of messing up while speaking is practically gone and I doubt she has any idea it’s because of her.

One day we decided to go paddle boarding with a couple from France.  They were also living in the house with us.  Since there were only two paddle boards, Noa and I shared one and the two French shared the other.  We took turns paddling through the harbor, and eventually we had some wind at our backs.  “We’re cooking,” I said.

Noa, who was sitting in front of me, whipped her head around and stared at me in confusion.  “Kook-iing?”

I started laughing because I often forget how colloquial phrases sound to non native speakers, and explained to her what it meant in this situation.  She spent the next minute repeating the word “cooking” which I found adorable and I think about it a lot.  To this day, I still say “cooking” in her accent.

Dumpster Diving

One thing all of us volunteers bonded over was our lack of food.  While our hosts were not obligated to provide us food, they did ensure all of us that they would before arrival.  Because of this we all were relying on them.  And while they did provide us with groceries each week, 7 bananas and 2 dozen eggs is nowhere near enough food for 12 people.  And it created guilt for me every time I ate, especially the bananas, because not everyone got one.  Many of the volunteers would take the ferry to the mainland and dumpster dive at the local grocery stores.  I remember someone returned with seven or so boxes of raspberries that had been thrown.  Score!

But one night someone asked if anyone dumpster dived at the little store on the island.  It was 20 seconds from the house.  Turned out, no one had tried, so we all took a field trip to the two garbage cans behind the store and began digging.  I can’t remember everything we found, but the bread was for sure grabbed.

Being from the US, dumpster diving in a big no-no.  So bonding with people over dumpster diving remains a fond memory.

Fishing

There were two things we were always doing at the house.  One of them was fishing.  When I first arrived there was a pole but no lures.  Thankfully Yannik bought some from the mainland and we all followed him to the shore to go fishing.  He was very knowledgeable about the types of fish found there–I for one don’t remember any of them.  On numerous occasions whales could also be seen swimming a couple hundred yards off shore.

I grew up pan fishing, so I was comfortable and familiar with using a fishing rod, but I got to watch many of my friends use one for the first time.  There was this German girl named Mali who I went fishing with a few times.  One day we were fishing and I left about 10 minutes before her.  She showed up to the house with a very nice sized fish (forgot the name) and asked if I could fillet it.  The knives were very dull and I’d never filleted anything other than panfish, but that was enough for them to trust me.  Because it was such a nice fish, I ended up YouTubing how to fillet that specifc fish so I would not butcher it.  I think it turned out all right.  Not my finest work though.

Swimming or Cold Plunging?

One of my favorite things to do on the island was go swimming.  You may be wondering if the water was cold that far north in the summertime.  Yes! Ice cold!  But after that first dip and a few seconds of catching your breath, it doesn’t feel that cold.  This is likely because you lose feeling in your arms and legs.  

The walk to the beach was a very peaceful, rocky walk.  I remember Roman would always try to walk barefoot, but he was obviously in pain during some sections of the trail.  It was roughly one mile and the last quarter was hiking on the mossy terrain.

The beaches were pristine, beautiful, and blue.  Skrova is actually referred to as the Hawaii of Lofoten. And there was rarely anybody at the beaches.  After all this is an island.  My record for staying in the water was 30 minutes, something I’d done a couple times.  I like to think I could’ve stayed in longer too, but I always had to keep in mind that it was a 1 mile walk back to the house.

Biggest Jelly Fish I’ve Ever Seen

(Picture is a small Lion’s Mane)

When I first started working on the island, I worked with this lady, Lenka, from the Czech Republic.  Imagine Sandra Bullock from Miss Congeniality–spitting image.  One day we decided to take the paddle boards to the beach, which is about a 20 min trip with the wind.  Once we made it to the beach, Lenka decided she wanted to do a loop around the island, so she started paddling down a straight that would eventually open up to the sea.

I had seen a couple Lion’s Mane Jellyfish on our way to the beach that were 6-7 feet long, but nothing that concerned me too much.  The bell (head) of those jellyfish were no larger than a volleyball.  These jellyfish would disappear near the beaches, but they started to show up again when we headed into the straight.  We were both standing up on our paddle boards.  We were halfway through the straight when the beautiful blue water deepend and turned black.  Not knowing the depth of water already scares me.

Then, I passed by a Lion’s Mane Jellyfish that was at least 20 feet long, and I almost instantly crawled to my knees and stared at my board, trying to prevent myself from having a panic attack.  I looked up and Lenka was so far in front of me; I don’t think she has fear.  I slowly turned my board around and convinced Lenka that it wasn’t a good idea to circle the island.  Luckily she came back with me and I never saw another jellyfish that big.

Politics

If you know me, you know I hate politics.  I remove myself from all political conversations, and I refuse to give input.  It’s not that I have no political opinion, but rather that Americans are incapable of discussions.  It is always an argument, and there is never an intention to listen to the opposing points.  In addition, so much information is attained via Facebook or TikTok, and I will never argue with someone whose main source is social media.

One night we were all sitting in a circle in the living room and politics came up.  I didn’t plan on speaking; actually had zero intentions to.  But one by one everyone discussed their opinions and concerns and views about different things and no one raised their voice once.  Eventually they started asking me questions.  Since I was one of two US citizens, they most likely assumed I had strong political views, especially with all the media coverage US politics was getting.  They were probably expecting some educated opinions from me but I was honest.  I didn’t feel confident speaking about either side because I didn’t feel confident about the credibility of the information I had attained.  The other American was from Texas and she was democratic.  Naturally I talked as a republican (not because I am one, but because I think it’s important to have both sides present for a discussion, and I grew up in a very Republican household).

The Texan talked about her dislike for guns; I talked about how I grew up with them.  She grew up near a school shooting; I grew up at a school where kids often had their guns in their car after hunting.  She grew up with guns used as a murder weapon; I grew up with guns as a recreational tool.

Other topics like healthcare and college came up, but speaking about guns was the one that stuck with me the most.  It is one of the touchiest subjects for any American, yet everyone listened in silence.  When I was finished there was no argument, just a few questions and comments.  And no one ignored or hated me because I defended the use of guns. (However after my time in Europe my argument would be a bit different)

Church Service for Matt

Matt was my friend from England.  I guess he had been at the house for some time before I arrived, so him and Kate got to know each other quite well.  The day before he left, Kate insisted we do something special for him.  I have no clue whose idea it was (probably Kate’s) but all 12 of us walked into the church and decided to throw a “service” for him.  (Our house was connected to a very small church, so all we had to do was walk through a door.)  We all sat down with our Norwegian bibles and listened as Kate gave a semi-serious, semi-humorous speech about him.

Using the church in this manner may have been a bit disrespectful, but I won’t let that take away from the memory.

Learning New Games

We always had the evenings to ourselves.  Sometimes we would go on midnight hikes together, and sometimes we would all do our own thing.  Some nights we’d sit in a circle in the living room and play games. 

One of these games was called Wolf (or something like that).  A few people were the wolves and they would try to kill other people.  I was the witch so I resurrected someone.  I still don’t understand how to play, obviously, but I was so stressed out the whole time.  It was fun but I’m glad we only played it once.

Another game we played was a music game, and much easier.  Whoever had the headphones had to sing the song that had been picked for them by the previous player.  The goal was to guess the name of the song that was being sung.  It was a little embarrassing because you couldn’t hear yourself sing, but it was super fun.  I had an advantage because all the songs were in English, but many others had the disadvantage because English was not their first language.

The last game we did was arm wrestling.  I actually did not arm wrestle but I watched Kate beat up on the boys.  We all learned that night that Kate’s dad was a professional arm wrestler, so she shared some tricks.  Roman was the first victim, and I believe he lost the first round.  However, Kate was nice enough to show us some tricks to win, and Roman ended up beating her after she taught him.  I don’t arm wrestle, but I do occasionally remind myself of the tips, just in case.

Below, is a random video of us peddling around the island one night.