Hello and welcome to my first-ever C&J hosting! Coming to you from lovely Kristiansand, Norway, where summer has officially been cancelled, ice cream and beer sales are down, and the rain just doesn't want to stop. On the other hand, the tourists are even easier to spot-they are the ones in the brand new Norwegian kofte sweaters, shivering over their $20 lattes.
I thought I'd start us off with a few little tidbits about this lovely, boreal land. Norway shares a border with Russia, Finland, and Sweden, and has 1,647 miles of coastline (15,626 if you include the fjords).
Norway is a constitutional monarchy. The current government is a somewhat shaky and often tumultous coalition of the Labor, Center, and Socialist Left parties, often called the "Red-Green" alliance, which for some reason always puts me in mind of duct tape, which is what is probably holding the alliance together on many days. Just last year, Norway celebrated 100 years as an independent nation, having essentially bluffed their way out of a union with Sweden.
Thus, with one mighty swing of Thor's Hammer, we begin. Are you ready now? On three: One! Two! SWOOOOOOOSH!
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