Negotiating the narrow, twisting roads in Norway is no easy task, and the Jotunheimen tour was fortunate to have a top-notch bus driver. A native of Sweden, Anders quickly became an important member of our group, providing us with safe transportation from place to place and entertaining us with his understated humor both during the drive and at dinner. At Voss, we discovered that he had an affection for our group as well when he told us that "he didn't always eat dinner with the groups he was driving." It was also at Voss that we saw the other side of Anders when he met us at the train in his shorts and cool European tank top after spending the afternoon at the lake there. To be honest, we almost didn't recognize him at first since most of our attention was directed toward that tank top! Later, he went for a walk around the lake with us and took a dip in the cold lake with Tina and Kara.Since our group was small, we were surprised to have such a large bus for our travels. However, it took two or three days of our trip before we discovered that our bus was even larger than we thought. Stretching 14 meters in length, our bus was a full two meters longer than the average bus in Norway. A few days later, we learned our bus had a name that was fitting for its size, namely "Älgen (The Moose)." While the official name of our study tour was "Jotunheimen," from that moment on "The Moose" became its unofficial name and "The Moose Rules" its slogan.
On the narrow Norwegian roads, The Moose really did rule since smaller vehicles had to wait at a turn-out for our bus to pass. On occasion, we met tourists who didn't quite understand the rules of the road and tried to pass our bus in a narrow spot. In this photo, you see a car and a trailer that just barely made it past The Moose without taking some of our yellow paint with them.
