Turning 25 in Norway

First, I have to thank all of my wonderful friends and family who sent cards, e-mails, texts, and birthday wishes across the world to reach me here in Tromsø on my 25th birthday. I had a fantastic day and would say that this was definitely one for the books.

My birthday celebrations started a few days early, when my first visitor from the U.S. arrived in Tromsø!

Rob arrived on Wednesday afternoon. Besides being thrilled to have him in Norway, I was also thrilled to have the 50lbs worth of goodies and treats he brought me from the U.S.  Sherpa of the year, Rob brought an entire checked bag full of treats from my parents and his parents, and various things I had asked him to get me from American grocery stores. The arrival of Trader Joe’s snacks, Rook coffee, and instant mac & cheese has really stocked up my larder supply. After a relaxing Thursday spent mostly allowing him to recover from his jetlag, Friday morning we set off just before sunrise at 8am for a mini-Norway roadtrip in a car we rented for the day. Our roadtrip took us around the outside of the beautiful island next to Tromsø, Kvaløya (literally “Whale Island”), to Sommerøy, another island known for its white sandy beaches and aquamarine waters.

Not long into our journey on Kvaløya, we encountered a road block:

It was my first reindeer sighting, and both Rob and I were unprepared for how completely majestic the reindeer are. They all have huge, gorgeous antlers and thick, furry coats. They were also incredibly relaxed, moseying across the road and not too bothered by us or our car. We pulled over on the side of the road to watch them and take pictures, and the Norwegians who drove by us were clearly used to seeing them all the time because they barely gave the reindeer a second glance.

So majestic.

Reindeer selfie! (Reindeer are in the top left of the picture).

After our reindeer sighting, we stopped for waffles at a small cafe/glass-blowing shop that technically wasn’t open yet, but fired up the waffle iron for us anyway. The cafe was part of a big house that the owners presumably lived in. When we asked the owner if they saw reindeer there often, he said yes but that they eat his flowers. I asked him, “So you don’t really like them then, I guess?” and he told me, “Well…I like to eat them.” And when we asked his wife if they see a lot of whales in the fjord that is literally their backyard, she told us that in November, which is feeding season, the whales are so loud that they keep her up at night. So I guess even the most amazing animals can be a nuisance if you have to live with them all the time (just ask Dad how much he loves the squirrels that hang out on our bird feeder at home).

We didn’t have the best weather for our roadtrip – it was rainy and cloudy – but it was still a very pretty drive, and I loved being behind the wheel of a car again.

Rob gesturing to some mountains and looking super bundled up.

The white beaches and blue water in Sommarøy. The water there was so blue that it looked like we were in the Caribbean…minus the snow-capped mountains all around.

Rob in Sommarøy – the picture on the right is after I said “Can you try not to look so cold?”

Some sheep we saw

The open road

Rob and some more mountains

Friday night, after our roadtrip, Rob and I were invited to my friend Cyril’s house for a murder mystery pot luck. We weren’t really sure what to expect from this dinner, but we knew there would be a lot of killing involved. All 14 of us attending had received our secret missions earlier in the week – Cyril wouldn’t even give me Rob’s to give to him, and insisted on sending it to Rob directly for fear that I would cheat and look at Rob’s mission. The rules of the game stated that everyone had a secret mission and had to kill another person in the group using a special method. Once you killed someone else, you inherited their mission. The person who survived until the end and who killed the most people was the winner.

My first mission was to kill Lauren by making a phone or watch ring while she was alone in a room – a mission that seemed totally impossible to me. How could I get someone alone in a room at a murder mystery party? When we first arrived at Cyril’s everyone was very on edge, but as we ate dinner everyone loosened up and that’s when the killing really began. I finally managed to complete my mission when I volunteered to give Lauren a tour of the house, set an alarm on my phone, lured her into a bedroom, and ran out of the room and shut the door on her. She was none too pleased with me but let it slide because it was my birthday. I then inherited her mission, which was to kill Eva by getting her to say “cactus” while holding onto a plush penguin toy. I eventually did that by getting her to hold the toy and then taking a sip of her beer and telling her it tasted like cactus juice. “You don’t have cactus juice in Austria?” “No, but we have cactus ice cream!” I’ve never had cactus juice in my life, and poor Eva told me later that she felt bad that I looked so disappointed when I asked if they had cactus juice in Austria that she was just trying to make me feel better, so I did feel a bit guilty killing her.

Then I inherited her mission, which was to kill Rob by getting him to open or close a door for me three times. Rob had already killed Denise by taking advantage of her Canadian kindness and getting her to serve him a drink and cake on a green plate. Rob’s next mission was to get 5 items of Julia’s – her cup, plate, spoon, phone, and one of her shoes. Since he didn’t know which were here shoes, he made the fatal mistake of enlisting my help. I told him I would go into the other room and tell him which one was Julia’s shoe (I had no idea). He opened the door to the other room, closed it, I randomly picked out one of the shoes and told him it was Julia’s, and then when he opened the door again for us to go back to the party…I told him he was dead. I felt slightly bad because, I mean, he did come all the way to Norway to visit me for my birthday, but you gotta do what you gotta do.

Eventually I was killed by Hattie, who got me to say “crumple,” “innovator,” and “deglutition,” and the worst part was I didn’t even realize she had killed me until I saw her get Julia’s phone, which was the mission I had inherited from Rob. But I was the third place winner and overall pleased with my performance. At the end, everyone went around to say who they killed and/or how they were killed, and some of the tasks were hilarious, like when Julia had to get Milan to tell her the pythagorean theorem, but then Jan interrupted and explained it to her instead.

Overall, it was an incredibly fun and exciting way to spend my birthday evening – and of course, my sweet friends made me a cake, sang, and generally made me feel very special. It was such a blast for Rob to meet all of my friends in Norway (and vice versa) in such a memorable way.

Rob and me at the murder mystery party!

Rob and me with Hattie, the winner of the evening, and Cyril, our host and murder mastermind!

Murder mystery group pictures! We all had to wear one silly “mystery item” as part of the evening, so this picture is all of us with our mystery items.

On Saturday, Rob and I went into Sentrum so he could see a bit of town, walked around a bit, and got breakfast. Then we went up the Fjellheisen (cable car), without which no visit to Tromsø would be complete.

Tromsø harbor.

View from the Fjellheisen – now with some snow!

Rob & Tromsø

Fjellheisen selfie

  
View from the Fjellheisen as the lights in the city are starting to come on.

Overall, Rob’s official TripAdvisor reviews of Tromsø and hotel Kari were very positive. I would call this a very successful visit, and a fantastic 25th birthday!

Rob sleeping on the bus

25 Oct This entry was published on October 25, 2014 at 10:43 pm. It’s filed under Birthday, Fjellheisen, Murder Mystery, Potluck, Sommarøy and tagged birthday, Fjellheisen, kvaløya, murder mystery, potluck, Reindeer, sommarøy. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.