Hammerfest, Norway

 

In Hammerfest it is excruciatingly cold. It is the northern most town in Europe and is a place of very dark and brutal winters because the sun sinks into the Artic Ocean and does not rise again for 10 weeks.. It snows immensely and some nights I wear 3 or 4 pairs of socks, afraid of getting frostbite. There is little to do or see in Hammerfest. I spend most of the day walking around the little city. It is like a remote and forbidden place. There is one important monument, the Meridianstotten. It is an obelisk in the middle of a graveyard of warehouses. It was a memorial to celebrate the completion of the first scientific measurement of the earth's circumference in 1840. The people are nice, although they don't talk much. The best event occured on my last day in Hammerfest. I was witness to the spectacle of the Northern Lights. They were stunning. It seems as if they were right above my head. The colors are ever changing and the smoky haze drifts speedily across the sky and sometimes slowly lofting its way across the night sky.
(P.S. There was a hilarious part in the book where the author describes his interview with the mayor and the mayor invites the author over to his house and says he has a sixteen-year-old daughter and the author makes a comment about being happily married and the mayor replies so his daughter can practice her English.)

Norwegian Folk Music

Norwegian Contemporary Pop