We were in the foyer when Tom came up to me and said: “do you want to come to a poetry reading”. This was totally unexpected  because I was concentrating on the final kilometre goal. I get very excited when I hear the word poetry though.

Uncertainly he looked at me, partly I suppose because my medication hadn’t taken hold. More certainly he said: “Would you like to read a poem”. “Yes, I’d love to”. We arrived at no. 316 but it was already packed. There were 15 young people on the queen size bed; 4 young couples on the couch; 6 around the couch; 30 mixed men and women sat on the floor and in the bathroom and in the hallway. There were 5 poets and me. I heard them through an interpreter. The five, mostly young, read their poems. They were good but hard to understand with the translator. Then Tom introduced me as the man from Australia who thinks he is a poet and we will find out in a minute or two”. and lucky we were that the midnight suns were in alignment.

Walking included crossing the fjord and exploring the one kilometre walk across the town’s river then kilometres into the other side of town. Then it was our promised return to our waterfall mountain and close to a ‘type of source’ reaching into the “mountain top mosquito ridden swamp” that prevented us from more sightings.

A waterfall and Grieg’s music take us out on a really gratifying walk.

And one last thing. Wikipedia says that:
“Grieg’s use of Norwegian folk music in his own compositions brought the music of Norway to fame as well as helping to develop a national identity, (which appeared to be quite rare as they gave only two other examples (one being Denmark). Add to this that they are symbolically led by Royal Families.

I therefore ask the question: What does all of this mean to a country that seems to have come up with a seemingly well functioning government.

And thank you all for coming with us and as usual we enjoyed your kind words and great company.

See you next week

Sincerely
Will