Dear HMS readers,

Yesterday I left, my now former residence, in Utrecht to begin a two-month backpacking journey with my pal Jessica. This morning I woke up on a night train in Copenhagen. The remaining planned are: Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich, Padua, Bologna, Milan, Athens, Skoura, Soverato, Supino, Rome and London. Some are stop-overs for flights, some are reunions with family and new and old  friends. Either way, internet access will be reserved for life-threatening emergencies and frivolous Facebook-ing. I will try my hardest to keep you updated on the road but if you find the number of words and pictures sparse in the new few months now you know why.

The weather in Copenhagen is almost exactly like the Netherlands so far. Cloudy, rain off and on again during the day and then blue skies and sunshine in the evening. Jessica and I have negotiated a deal with a local bicycle dealership and rented bicycles for the duration of our trip. The Danes, apparently, are the only people in Europe who bike more than the Dutch. We will give you a difinitive statement about this at the end of our trip. So far it seems that  the bike lanes are more generous and the people beautiful.

Watch out, we are coming to a European city near you.

posted by vicky at 9:23 pm under Denmark
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Nationalistic sports events always reminds me of my favourite bit of “Brave New World.”During the orgy, which was the fashion of the time, Bernard chants along in lip service. He wants to be lost and completely devoted the moment but finds himself on the outside, pretending to be as entranced as everyone else. This is how I’ve always felt about sports. Other than the fact that I don’t follow any, when big events arise (i.e. global football tournaments) I’m always at a loss for who to cheer for.

I don’t want to cheer for China and I’m not even sure Canada has a team, much less qualify. While everyone else in Toronto is driving up and down Bloor Street waving their ancestral flags, I look on in bemusement. Last World Cup I debated supporting either England or Sweden. Sure, colonial ties to England is reason enough (though not a good one) to root for them but they have a strong enough foothold in Toronto that they’re never underdogs. And Sweden is just my random Scandophile choice, just to keep things random.

But not this time friends, this time I’ve finally I have a team to cheer for. The choice is obvious, my country of residence: The Netherlands. Today was the first game for the Dutch and I went at it in full-force. I had no intention of dressing in orange, cheering for the Dutch or even watching the game until I biked around town the day of the game. Everywhere there were orange-clad people going about their daily business. It wasn’t like Queen’s Day where they were outlandishly costumed (at least not until near game time) but a lot of people were riding their bikes, buying their groceries and walking around town in casual orange gear.

As far as I have seen the Dutch are pretty reserved. Three goals against Italy later, they were more rowdy than on Queen’s Day. As someone unable to comprehend Dutch, I am now capable of doing the “Van Der Sar” chant to cheer on the goalie. The Dutch were, uncharacteristically, outgoing and making contact with people they didn’t know. They were smiling and hi-fiving all around Havana, the latin-themed dance club we watched the game at. It was all casually happy until we left the club for the streets and witnessed, what I believe, is just the beginning of the chaos to come.

Hundreds of people flooded into Neude, the town square. They clogged the streets and danced in the middle, blocking traffic. Any vehicle with the misfortune of passing by parted the sea of people, only to have their windows banged on and be screamed at them. Of course, these were mostly buses and taxis as the average Dutch person has more sense than to try to drive through the main street after a football victory, unless they are hooligans too. The rabbit statue, a town landmark, was adorned in a Dutch football scarf and subject to being climbed over by overzealous celebrators. Ahem.

I’m a notorious bandwagon jumper when it comes to sports; I won’t deny it. I only watch during during finals. But watching Canada’s favourite sport and trying to root for the Leafs is a lost cause. So I’m going to jump onto the bandwagon of another sport completely. At this moment I am in Europe, during the UEFA Cup and cheering on a winning team, even if it is their first game. And for better or worse, I understand a little better what being lost in a shouty moment is all about.

posted by vicky at 11:41 pm under Europe, Netherlands
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The experience of going to and being in Bergen, the second biggest Norwegian city and gateway to the western fjords, made me yearn for the past–my childhood and the kind I’ve only known in movies and books. The six-hour train ride from Oslo to Bergen was more amazing than enthusiastic endorsements from anyone I talked to about it. The journey, which has been voted one of the best in the world, is one through a snow-capped mountain-scape dotted with snowboarders being pulled along by kites and crosses paths with running streams and then through mountains with covered in lush green.

It was like being in a real-life intersection of Michel Gondry music videos. If you took the musical train ride in Chemical Brothers’ “Star Guitar” and implanted the scenery in Bjork’s “Jóga,” this is what it would look it. Those are two lofty works to hold something up to but really, that comparison is just a starting point to describe the visual experience that is the train ride. It’s been a long time since I just sat gaping at something new. It was nice to know I’m still capable of doing that. In the age of discount flight, we forget or have never experienced the joy of train travel. For the first time I thought I would have loved to lived in the golden days of the steam engine. The idea of picking up rectangular luggage, covered in locations stickers, off the train and being waited for at central station has never been so appealing to me. The dining carriage, the hat box, the view to keep me company: those were the days.

While I already knew about Norway’s long, dark winters, I got my first real glimpse into the short, intense summers. Bergen is one of the rainiest places in the world; it rains three out of four days there. By some crazy stroke of luck, it was sunny both days I was there. On my last night in Bergen, I climbed a mountain, or at least third of one. We were slow to get a move on and didn’t leave until about 11 p.m. to start walking to Lovstakken Mountain. It was still light out when we left, but by the time we abandoned the mission in the thick brush of the forest about an hour later, the sky was a dark, rich blue. According to my fellow climbers, in some places north of the Arctic circle, this blue would be the closest to daylight some places would get above the Arctic Circle in the winter. Standing partway on Lovstakken, looking onto more outlying mountains, the world has never looked so round and I’ve never felt so on top of the world (literally.)

After disembarking from the mountain, we made a detour to the nearby fjord. The king’s summer residence, a modest home that you can walk right up to, is next to the fjord. My fellow climbers and I lay on a dock in the fjord waters and stared up at the big dipper, the only constellation our collective educations enabled us to identify. I’ve never considered myself a nature person but Bergen has helped me turn a corner. I found myself making mental plans for a future camping trip on a Bergen mountain top. Hiking, canoing, biking–suddenly nature has a new appeal to me, one that perhaps it never did before. Maybe I was never interested in doing these things and these activities incidentally went along with being a kid. Despite all the rugged and varied terrain in Canada, somehow it took going to Norway to discover it.

posted by vicky at 10:34 am under Europe, Norway
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