Fjørdgasm: Norway on the half shell

My dad bought his Volvo P1800 in Kansas City, Missouri, in 1967. This guy. Not that exact P1800. That one's from Wikipedia, but you get the idea. Same car. He was the dashing young Norwegian doctor doing his residency at the University of Kansas, zipping down Mass Street with his beautiful wife in that white imported sports car. The same car Simon Templar drove in “The Saint”. When he and my mom went back to Norway in '68 just a few months before I was born, they had it shipped. I remember squeezing into the back seat, all three inches of it, as a kid, and, later, driving it. He sold it some 20-odd years ago. Last I heard, it was driving in Finnsnes, the town where he was born. The same town we're going back to, in a white Volvo, this summer. The Volvo Traci is picking up for us in Gothenburg, Sweden. Finnsnes, Norway, 1956. My dad left Finnsnes for boarding school that year. (Photo: Finnsnes ) There are some circles being completed here. I left Norway

The other day I posted on the financial headache that is finding places to sleep, and preferably get shelter from our less than accommodating climate, for anyone who doesn't have bags of money sitting around taking up space. Then I thought, well, I already know what's what because I grew up there. I'm what you might call an expert. Or a local. What if I were thinking about traveling to Norway on a budget and I didn't know anything? Well, if that is you, I'm going to crank out some posts that should be helpful. First, let's place your budget and expectations on a scale. On a scale of comfortable to student , where are you? If you have a savings account and some actual disposable income, this post is for you. If your dinners commonly involve instant ramen and tuna in the can, feel free to skip this post. I'll get back to you with something better. On a scale of down comforter to off-the-grid rugged , where are you?

Odds are, when someone here in the States finds out I'm Norwegian, the first thing they'll tell me is how they've heard it's so beautiful. Mm-hmm. This is true. The next thing is how they want to go there someday. Well … start saving . Obstacle number one to Fjørdgasm: Money. Norway is famously expensive. Norway's so expensive even Swedes joke about it, and Sweden is not exactly a bargain, either. But, hey, the good news is more expensive destinations exist . So hurra for that and heia Norge : The Land of the Midnight Sun is only fourth on the list of most expensive places to visit . Bermuda, Switzerland, and the Bahamas are more expensive. So there's that. In any event, we're going . One way or another we were going to pull this off, so here's a crash course on how to make a Norwegian vacation, if not affordable, at least not sell-both-kidneys-and-your-left-eye, absolute-ruin, sackcloth-and-ashes pricy. Rule number one: No hotels. US $100 buy

Getting old did not come as a surprise. I mean, why should it? It’s not as if the passage of time had proceeded secretly to be revealed — ta-da! — on my fiftieth birthday. Even if it had, when my dad passed away just a couple of months earlier, after months of close calls and increasing, painfully visible frailty, there could have been no more urgent reminder that I’m not here indefinitely and I’ve used up a significant chunk of my allotted time already. So here I am, old. (Older, fifty being the new forty, you know). But I was prepared and I had planned. I had planned to a degree completely out of character for someone mostly inclined to wing it. I literally pored over maps, for months. I coordinated calendars, driving distances, logistics, and acquisitions. I agonized over destinations and sights, which to include, which to skip. I am planning the Last Big Trip , dammit, the trip I’d wanted to take for years but somehow could never afford or find the time for. Tomorrow, Lilie,