We’re pretty continually amazed by what our Davidson friends grow up to do, and our friends Katie and Laetitia are great examples of that. Katie is the Senior Veterinarian at the North Carolina Zoo in Greensboro. Within half an hour of our arrival, she was walking us through the process of performing a fish necropsy.
Here are some pictures of Katie that are more dramatic than those of a fish necropsy:
Laetitia is an NGO worker who travels the world teaching about and working for reproductive health. She’s spent a lot of time in Malawi, and has taken a post that will send her to more dramatic places like Yemen.
So, Trondheim was pretty easy for them. Katie and Laetitia try to take an annual trip together; we’re glad this year, they decided to come and see us.
Our first day will look pretty familiar to most of our visitors. We walked around the perimeter of the city, and ate at the herring buffet (Laetitia was, by far, the most enthusiastic of our visitors thus far about the herring buffet).
After the walk, I took them on an exploratory visit to the grocery store, where our visitors were shocked at the $7 bell peppers, and distressed at the cheese (Laeticia is French, and cheese quality is very important to her. It turns out fiber is also important to her, but this is not because she is French, but because we are old).
Normally with visitors, this is the end of the first day, because they are jet lagged and sleepy; these world-hopping friends were neither! So, we went to the ski jump and then had a cookout. Our chicken breasts were stalked by seagulls, where we discovered that Katie is the only person in the world who likes seagulls (this attitude is probably a prerequisite to be a vet).
They then had a good night’s sleep under the pelt. #thepelt
The next day, we tried a new hike, and I think it’s my favorite in Trondheim. It was a beautiful and sunny day, which gave us one of our first chances to sweat in months. Do I look good in these pictures? Friends, I do NOT.
- Katie and Laetitia did better
We also made sure to get Laetitia on some roller skis.
Norwegian locomotion, French fashion
Our main event, however, was a day in Ålesund, a beautiful town in Norway at the entrance to the Geirangerfjord.
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As you can see, Ålesund is the biggest of the small towns on a large number of islands; the mountains swooping into the fjords are beautiful.
The plane was small!
Our guidebook pushes Ålesund in large part because of the nice hotels; we splurged and stayed at the Brosundet Hotel, a decision that turned out to be excellent, because the weather was profoundly and dramatically bad. Our hotel had not only free breakfast, but also free dinner, which is a wonderful thing when you not only want to stay wherever you are, but also freeload while you’re doing it. We did spend some time walking around town, up a hill to a lookout point, etc.
Our day ended with an introduction to the french game of tarot.
Real Norwegians, of course, had no such indoor Plan B.
The next day, Katie and Laetitia headed off, and Allison and I spent one more day in Ålesund, mostly so I could spend the day with the CS department at the University there. For my CS and Navy readers: you gotta check out this simulator they showed us, where they test procedures and train workers to install underwater oil rigs.
Katie and Laetitia: thanks so much for visiting!
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