The Beauty Beyond the Barf Bags
The next day, I continued North. I took the 8 hour train to a small port town just for the night. Finally, I took a ferry to the Lofoton Islands.
The ferry was very small and the waters were very rough. I sat inside the cabin and, as soon as we hit the open seas, the sky and the ocean took turns appearing in the windows. The entire cabin emptied in a matter of seconds. I thought that perhaps the boat was going to sink. I was confused about this mass exodus. Then a man came around the boat passing out little white bags lined in silver aluminum foil to every passenger. Very soon, a horrid stench began to fill the boat. I had to go outside and get some fresh air.
Some killer whales jumped along the right side of the boat. Most of the passengers were too sick to look though. It looked as though the plague had struck our boat in full force. People were sprawled across the deck of the boat, folded over the railings and pressing the small white bags to their faces everywhere they went. I laughed and staggered around like a horrible drunk as the boat tossed and turned. I met a group of young men from France and Belgium who had also refrained from getting sick. We talked about our plans for the Lofoton Islands and I discovered that they had a car. So, they drove me to my hostel, stopping along the way to take photos of amazing craggy mountains and peer under boulders to try to find some puffins.
Another Mass Exodus
My hostel was absolutely ready to explode with people. About 10 of us were walking around looking for some guy named Roar. I was the first to find him, so I was able to get the last bed in the fishing house. The kitchen was crawling with anxious backpackers looking for a way to escape the dreadful downpour. Travel books, maps and brochures covered every table. There were so many strategies and plans flying around that it looked as though there was about to be another World War.
Like everyone else, I stood in the pouring rain with my pack on and then got on the first bus to leave there the very next day.
Where’s My Grandmother?
I took the bus to the last town of the main island whose name also happens to be the last letter of the Norwegian alphabet (Å). There were, surprisingly, two hostels in this tiny town. The one that I decided on was also a museum. I primarily stayed there just because I was so curious as to just how something could be a museum and a hostel at the same time. I was imagining sleeping on the floor with informative plaques around me and tourists walking around my bags in the morning.
However, I was very pleasantly surprised when they told me that my room was in the red building marked “Bakery”. I opened the door and a feeling of warmth, comfort and intense hunger overwhelmed me. My room was a bit of a loft directly above the old bakery which smelled exactly like the amazing cinnamon rolls that my grandmother is famous for.
To make matters even better, there was a little door about a foot off the floor within the room. I was terribly curious. I had always dreamt of having a room with a secret closet when I was a child. This was just that. I found old treasures of the bakery and dusty furniture. Things of little value unless you are a dreaming child at heart like myself. Surprisingly, the other two women in the room were not even the least bit interested in what was behind the small curious door. I was disappointed in them. They had already lost their sense of childish adventure.