Once again, traveling has left me unable to decide upon an appropriate title.

Every country I have been to has something uniquely unto itself.  Something that sticks in my mind and my heart and that I carry with me always.  I cannot count the number of times I have described Australia as Gold, Belgium as Perfectly Pastoral, Iceland as the Most Profound Combination of Man and Nature.  I cannot count the number of times I have called up memories of those inexplicable intangibles and sat with them- clear as the day I met them.

Norway… Norway, at least in winter, Sparkles.  I know- I sound like an over-Frozened five-year-old getting ready to belt out 'Let It Go.'  But bear with me.  Because I am not.  I am categorically not.   

On the advice of a charming Norwegian lady I met on the bus yesterday, I made a quick trip out of the city (the conversation, by the way, started with me asking 'If I were leaving tomorrow, what is the ONE thing you think I should do in Oslo.'  Her response?  'Oh, you must get out!'… I love it…, a gal after my own heart.).  I took the Number 1 Tube out to Frognerseteren, sitting on the left side as she suggested, and watch the crowd of Oslo disappear into the hills of the suburbs.  I watched the city retreat in to the far-far background of the country.  

And something like a mile can make all the difference in the world:

Above the fog-laden streets of Oslo is a bright, sun-washed series of hills.  

And I mean bright.  

The first thing that struck me as I stepped out of the tube an into the fresh air was the shine- the glimmering, glittering, near-blinding shine of it all.  

When the sun comes out to play in the Norwegian Winter Wood,  it's as though the world is made of diamonds.  Everything sparkles.  The trees, the roads, the little-berried plants that have somehow survived all of the harsh cold with their plum and raspberry colors intact.  After a while you forget that it is ice you are walking on… until, of course, you (me) slips and goes ass-over-tea kettle down a steep incline.  

Good thing this portion of my trip is solo- otherwise there would have been robust laughter aimed in my direction.  

Of course I wasn't watching when I planted that ill-placed footstep.  Nope, I was witnessing.  I was thinking.  I thought of all the different descriptions of nature that I have heard throughout my life, trying to pick out the one that most appropriately fit the vista that I saw.  And here is where we veer from the 'sparkly'.  

I heard somewhere, probably read it, clouds described as the sea: 'a sea of clouds'.  And here's the thing- I saw that today… well, sort of.  What I saw were clouds lingering in the valley above Oslo, but below Frognerseteren.  What I saw was the sea- if the sea were made of clouds.  If the sea were a diaphanous thing, made of ether and belief, instead of salt water; bracketed by forest and distant, wistful land, it would look like something like this (again, forgive a photo that does not do justice even a little):

I am not entirely sure how much time I spent staring at that- watching the clouds move like waves toward me, sipping a coffee.  I sat within and outside of time, warming in the bright bright sun and forgetting for a moment that the world was below me.  

But, as I sit in the hostel bar and type this while haphazardly watching a bison dissected on Norwegian tele…  yes, there it is-  

The world again.  

And until next time, Dearests, 

Hat De Bra.