Oslo to Ålesund to The Juvet Landscape Hotel - Day 2

"What day is it," asked Pooh. 
"It's today," said Piglet. 
"My favorite day," said Pooh.

There are a couple of things I am aiming to do every day while on vacation. The first is to do my physical therapy exercises. That might be a blog post itself at some point.

The second is to meditate. I recently took a course at work on energy levels and focus. One of the things I learned is to take time out of your day just for you. Take a break. An honest to God break. I downloaded the app "Calm" which has different guided meditation. This morning's meditation was based on Winnie the Pooh. Specifically, The Tao of Pooh (an excellent book that I've read a couple of times). Specifically, Wu Wei, the Taoist principle of "not doing". Letting your life take it's course without over thinking or over complicating it. If you haven't read The Tao of Pooh, you should go do that right now.

Waking up this morning was quite difficult, after having been up until midnight last night with the blog. It was totally worth it though! And starting the day by laying in bed, meditating to Pooh Bear, well, that was just the right medication for me.

So, at 7:30am our alarm went off and at 8:30am we had breakfast with Chuck and Dag. Breakfast was a typical buffet style with eggs, bacon, fruit juice, yogurt. Then there was the Scandinavian twist of brown cheese and different fish options like mackerel and kaviar (a spread that comes in a big tube), pickles, olives, liver pate, very pink salami other meats, cheeses and bread. There was instant coffee available as well. 

Side note here: One of our big treats back home is a fortnightly (bi-monthly / twice monthly) delivery of Blue Bottle coffee. It is one of the happiest times of our month, especially for Krista who has a penchant for good coffee. I won't say she can't function without coffee in the morning, but she is certainly MUCH happier WITH a cup in her hand first thing. So, we decided to treat ourselves on this trip and bring a bag of ground Blue Bottle coffee with a pour over coffee maker, so Krista could brew some guaranteed good coffee first thing in the morning. And there she was, like a barista-for-one, brewing her tasty coffee next to a plate of brown cheese (which has the consistency of a slice of peanut butter) and waffles with nutella. I was very proud. Treat Yo Self, girl!

After breakfast, we found out that Dag would be our tour guide for the day. Last night, Krista had mentioned a park she'd seen on Atlas Obscura - Go to this website and see what cool things are near you! First stop, Vigeland Park.

This park is full of visually stunning and controversial sculptures. Apparently, it is a story of life - beginning to end, representing also the challenges of life - general struggles of man, having children and fighting dragons...like you do. The women fair much better against dragons than the men. Guess we know how to handle ourselves.

I was completely in my element at this park. I love sculptures and I was not disappointed. (More photos to come for the below - Krista took some stunning photos that haven't copied to my tablet correctly)

Yes, there was a monolith of a pile of bodies.

After running around the park, we stopped a grocery store to see what fun food they have. We also grabbed some lunch before heading out on the metro to pick up our bags from the hotel. 

Jam that was promptly confiscated at the airport after we forgot it was in our carry on

After that, we took an Uber to the Opera house, where we were promised we could walk on the roof. We had no idea you wouldn't take stairs to get there. I don't know how else to explain it except the roof starts on ground level. SO AWESOME!

Krista giving it some scale

After the Opera House, we took a train with Chuck to the airport.

Thanks Chuck!

Then I got REALLY TIRED and passed out on the flight to Alesund. Krista took some amazing photos, which I will share later.

The Alesund airport was really cute. There is ONE baggage carousel and then you're outside.

We rented a car, stopped in Alesund city for lunch.

I thought pizza sounded nice, but accidentally ordered pizza with salted cod. Not my favorite pizza ever.

Then a two hour drive to our eco-hotel.

We arrived after dark and cannot wait to see the views! I'll fill you in about what so special with this hotel tomorrow. 

I can say that we are both blown away with Norway's beauty. The green, the nature, the water, hills, mountains, cliffs. It's shocking how gorgeous it all is. And we're pretty dang proud of ourselves for deciding to get out of the city and drive deep into the West. Getting away from it all. Taking in some stunning scenery. We're so happy...and so...so tired.

Good night for now. More tomorrow.