Norway

  Fetsund, Norway
Wednesday, May 30, 2007

We arrived in the Airport outside of Oslo incredibly hungry, not really having eaten much for breakfast and having no lunch in flight.  We got our bags, exchanged some currency and beelined for a food vendor.  We knew the airport food would be expensive, but we were hungry and unsure of how long it would be till we were able to eat.  We had a peek at the menus, which were offering various forms of burgers or hot dogs, Norwegian style.  We then had a look at the prices... bloody hell.  The Norwegian Kroner translates to about 4 Krone's to $1 NZ.  After a quick conversion in our head, the cheapest burger available cost approximately $30 NZ.  The cheapest hot dog... $8 NZ.  We sucked it up and got a hot dog.

We found the train that would take us to a meeting place we had arranged with the work placement we had set up for Norway.  Again, sucking up the incredibly expensive fair ($20 NZ with student fare!) for a 15min ride, we found our way to our stop and eventually ran into our ride.  He turned out to be another one of the volunteers at the farm we would be staying at.  There were about 10 of us in total, all from different countries.  A Greek guy, an English guy, a couple of German girls, a French Canadian, a Dutch couple, and a Norwegian girl who was there for schooling reasons, plus the owners and their little girl.

Norwegian Farm Life

We got the grand tour of the farm and met everyone, gathering the general lay of the land.  The landscape around the farm is spectacularly beautiful.  It sits on a hill above a nature reserve lake and is surrounded by quiet farms and rolling green hills and forest.  Gabrielle and I immediately tried to integrate ourselves as being useful by trying to clean up the kitchen.  Due to it being a Sunday, everyone was scattered around and relaxing, slowly coming in for a late 9pm dinner.

We started our work the next day, not entirely sure of what we were doing.  Gabrielle ended up spending the entire day inside doing various cooking cleaning jobs.  I spent the morning outside moving stones with the owner and another of the volunteers before moving inside in the afternoon due to rainy weather (I was keen for more rock moving, they were not).

Turned out that they are 8 hour work days, everyone helps cook the food for lunch and dinner, and clean up after meals as well.  There is also a brief bit of work expected on one of the mornings on the weekend.  Food is all provided and occasionally one of the owners will cook us a meal, much of it comes from vegetables from the farm.  The work load is a bit of a shock to us, as our last hostel stay job was only 2 hours a day (bed for the night, no food provided).  Gabrielle and I ended up doing an hour and a bit overtime making vast quantities of pesto using this bitter tasting weed from the gardens that is supposed to be edible.  Due to a 'waste not' policy that seemed to be in place, we had to use further vast quantities of garlic, cheese, and sunflower seeds to make it palatable.  By this time, Gabrielle was going a bit stir crazy from being inside all day so we made a dash for a little outside air. 

The Love Shack

Day two we scored a job in the greenhouse moving and stringing up tomato plants.  It was mostly just the two of us so we kind of pottered around.  We tried listening to some Norwegian radio, but it turned out to be mostly Norwegian talking and less Norwegian music, or music of any other kind.  The Norwegian music that was played was... interesting.  Somewhere between classical, folk, and cat in washing machine.

We finished that job with great jubilation and suddenly had nothing to do.  We trekked inside, into a horde of volunteers who had all taken up inside jobs to escape further bad weather, and trekked outside with a task to restructure the vegetable garden.

Work in Progress

So far, that is what has filled our days.  Mostly it involves running, or skiing, a wheelbarrow up and down muddy slopes, slick with pouring rain, full of compost or stones.  Shifting big piles of clay dirt from one area to another.  Terracing the garden and cutting logs and stakes that we put around the terraces to keep the garden from crumbling.

The days are very long and work time is said to be 'flexible' but mostly that seems to flex upwards, not down.  Hours aren't exactly kept track of, but it is noticed if you cut out early.  Unfortunately this means that we haven't had much time to explore the area at all, which is too bad because it looks so beautiful.  Oslo is a 30min car ride away and the only small town near by is 7km away.  We did do one, brief, late night bike ride up and down the streets that are near the farm, followed by a row boat trip out onto the lake. 

Boating in the Evening Sun

The bad weather since we arrived hasn't helped, but we are doing our best to stay optimistic.  We are hoping to get into Oslo this weekend and have some fun and see some of Norway.  Hopefully a train trip around the Fjords to follow that!

In the mean time, more heavy labour.

All our best from Norway

Dan and Gabrielle