Sometime in Scandinavia - Day Seven

They got up at 8:00 am and felt much relaxed from the exhaustion yesterday. Since they hadn't had a formal dinner last night, they rushed to the restaurant inside the hotel to eat and drink a lot of stuff at breakfast buffet, such as salmon, ham, cheese, coffee and juice. 

"I checked online why Tacoma became Alesund's sister city." He actually did it on his laptop after she had fell into sleep last night.

"What did you find?" she was interested in knowing the reason.

"I couldn't find much more information about it, it seemed the two cities didn't have many connections in recent years. In general, the purpose of establishing the relationship of sister cities is to promote culture and economic collaborations." He was a little bit disappointed with his findings, "In addition, as I had assumed, two cities most likely have many similarities."

"When did they become the sister cities?" She asked.

"1986, yes, I know why you asked it. It was not very long ago, there should have been more frequent events between them." He tried to figure it out, "I guess, there might be some reasons related to heritage as well, I heard many Washingtonians' ancestors were Scandinavians, so some Norwegians' descents in Tacoma might make that happen back in 30 years ago."

"Washingto...? What does it mean?" She apparently didn't catch the word.

"Oh, Washingtonian, it is referred to the residents in our State. I know it is very regional." He explained.

"Great, I started learning things about where you live." She seemed happy. Pausing for a second, she changed the subject: "What's our plan this morning?"

"I heard Alesund is the most important fishing harbor in Norway, so we probably want to walk around the harbor for half an hour." He told his plans, "A museum of Art Nouveu and Jugendstill is pretty famous we may want to visit. However, you may know about this art much better than I know. "

"Sounds great, I did hear a lot of praises of that museum. The design sounds very creative. Since I had never been here either, I don't have much clue." She seemed satisfied with the plan.

Instead of seeing a fishing boat, they witnessed a cruise ship docking at harbor. It was a pleasant surprise because a cruise ship was more romantic. 

Jugendstilsenteret was definitely a well designed museum, they knew as soon as they approached the building. They spent doubled time than they had planned inside it because all the pieces of artworks were so refined. Compared to those magnificent paintings and sculptures in Louvre, they offered a different aspect of appreciation. 

It was almost 11 am when they walked back to the hotel to check out and pull the car out of the parking lot. In the next 3 hours, they would be on the road to Atlantic Ocean Road. 

Driving on Atlantic Ocean Road was always one of his dreams of visiting Norway. He had heard many comments about this road. Most of them were complementary but few of them were precautious. However, during the summertime like this, it must be much more enjoyable than dangerous, especially with her, he was very confident. 

Honestly, she was very surprised when she learned his plan of driving through the entire peninsula including this part several months ago. She was even a little bit scared. However, after the fun time they had had in the last couple of days on road, she started loving this idea. 

"Do you remember what I said to you when you begged me to drive to Stockholm in that summer?" She asked.

"Are you crazy?" He definitely remembered.

"Yes, it was a crazy idea because it takes much longer time than taking train. Definitely, makes people be more exhausted." She pretended still unhappy. 

"You told me that." He concurred, "You said almost everyone either takes train or airplane, then borrow family members' or friends' cars in Stockholm if they need."

"Yes, it actually is still the case today." She pretended again as she was teaching him.

He kept silent without responding because he didn't know if she might even hate this road trip.

"I am kidding!" She felt sorry about her joke, "Actually, when we arrived in Jonkoping to drive out of freeway to Vattern, I had already started impressed by your plan."

"I thought you eventually liked that idea." He felt relieved. 

"Yes, as soon as we parked car and walked to the lake, I realized what I would miss if taking train in such a wonderful summer noon." She squinted as if the picturesque Vattern were just in front of their car. 

He smiled with a picture in his mind: She buried her head into his chest just like a little kitty while he was tenderly touching her long hair. Vattern was so blue and Sun was so bright. 

"Ok, we are on Atlantic Ocean Road." He reminded her. 

"Should we stop just like those people are doing?" She saw a few people standing in a vista point where they could view all the beautiful scenes from ocean to road.

"Perfect spot, we can view that bridge from there too. Is it like a symbol of this whole road?" He referred to Storeseisundet Bridge.

They parked the car and went over to join the crowds. 

Atlantic Ocean Road is described as Beautiful and Dangerous because the scenery is so breathtaking during a clear day but the road is so rough to drive through during a windy and raining day. Since the surfaces of the road are so close to the ocean, tides are frequently pushed onto the windshields. 

They were lucky because it was a very sunny day and Atlantic was relatively quiet that day. 

Just like at that moment by Vattern 20 years ago when her head was on his chest, he touched her long hair and whispered: "Do you remember what I promised you for the rest of the trip after our stop in Bergen?"

She raised her head to stare at his eyes: "Write a sonnet everyday for me? You already broke your promise yesterday."

"Let me write you one now and I will catch up" He reconfirmed. 

"What is in my eyes?
 Blue Angel above Atlantic.
 Whom is in your dreams?
 White Knight by Pacific.
 When will we cross the bridges?
 only until we experience fantastic.
 Where can they locate the destinies?
 Just till they appreciate terrific. 
 Ocean is so close to my hand,
 I definitely desire to catch mysterious Huldra,
 You are the ocean keeping me alive.
 Sky is so far above my head,
 I desperately wish to grasp powerful Freyja,
 You are the sky extending my life."

She was silent for quite a while, then pulled his left arm and said with mysterious smile: "Let's cross all these bridges on the road."

Patrick's Diary - 5/30/2015

Falling into sleep from time to time since yesterday morning after driving my dad to test blood at Virginia Mason for his annual physical check with doctor on next Tuesday, I just woke up ten minutes ago. No, I haven't had coffee since Friday afternoon. 

Getting up at 8:00 am, then driving my dad to lab, buying sandpaper at Lowe's for my mom who invented to use it to clean cook pans as she bragged, I came back to my bed to keep sleeping for another 2 hours before being called downstairs for lunch. Sleeping another hour, I drove to gym to workout my routine. In such a beautiful Saturday afternoon in summer, I didn't expect to see many people there, yes, most of them probably were enjoying the sunshine somewhere else. 

On my way home from gym, I enjoy driving under the blue sky. Wow, so many open houses were present in our area. 

Watching a movie on StarZ, I was moved a lot. It talked about Lost Boys who were brought to States. 

My son had been reading textbook from time to time as he planned. After dinner, he decided to stop doing it but would resume tomorrow. I had noticed a new release - San Andreas, which sounds pretty exciting, so planned to take my son to watch it at AMC. However, after dinner, I slept again until 2:30 on this Sunday morning. 

Original plan was to write diary for Saturday as I did at the beginning, but went back to bed again  after finishing the first paragraph. Now, it is already 7:20 am on Sunday, let me finish the diary.

Having been dreaming through all the night, I can remember the last piece of it: My first ever girl friend whom I met at the age of 15 in Beijing and I headed to a hotel in a city I can't identify. We were the classmates for one year in 10th grade (高一） in a high school at which I only went for that year, so we were at the same age, I still can remember her birthday: 4/3/1966. Anyway, in this dream, we seemed in 30s though the last time I saw her was 1987. When we arrived at lobby at the hotel, we picked up a puppy with a tag, though I didn't read the text on it, then went out. We kept walking on the street while talking constantly, though I can't remember the contents. As I said, I haven't seen this girl for almost 30 years and don't know where she is and rarely thought about her because I even can't recall her face clearly, it's interesting why she broke into my dream. She went to the same college as one of my ex went. My ex was 3 years senior but knew my first girlfriend because they were both student artists, one was pianist raised by a respected artistic family, another was a trained dancer since childhood and as I heard, was married to her dancing coach's son whose father was a famous director of drama, they had called each other "Big Bro & Little Sis" even before I met her. My ex shared a little bit her story at that college several years later but not much. 

I am so happy to be single now anyway. My son called his mom, who is my another ex every weekend as a routine she requested when she let him go. He called her again yesterday afternoon but didn't talk too much. However, I even didn't need to talk to her, though we can be considered good friends now. Life is so simple for me. I assume after my son makes a girlfriend and gets married after he graduates his college, my life will be perfect because I will travel all over the world by myself. Currently, I only travel to the places I know very well with my son. When I travel by myself, I will explore uncertainties because at my age, I can take any risks for my adventures. 

Patrick's Diary - 5/29/2015

It was really a morning in summer, I realized as soon as driving my van out of the garage. Sunny, warm without wind. Lynnwood High where my son had fun of four years hadn't started its new day, so North Road was still very quiet. This is why I always avoid to drive out of our neighborhood around 7:00 am. 

Friday is typically slower than the first four days but I did have several meetings. Leaving office at 3:20 pm, I assumed I could arrive at my son's dorm around 4:00 pm but I was wrong. Even not seeing any accident, I was stuck in the tunnel and on the bridge on I-90 West. However, I used the hassle as an opportunity to appreciate breathtaking view on Lake Washington and Skyline of Downtown Seattle. 

I followed a Darigold truck for quite a while until traffic became loose. The truck reminded me that I work on a consulting assignment at Darigold for five months in 2006 when they still used the name of West Farm. Since then, I have been almost always buying their products. 

Picking up my son at his dorm, I heard his complaint about intensive studies of the three heavyweight courses he was taking in this quarter. First of all, he did share the good news that he got A on ECON201 quiz, then, he said that every night he had to study very hard. When he called me yesterday to confirm to come back home this weekend, his point was to relax for one more weekend and would have to prepare for Final Exams starting from next Monday. However, he brought all books back home today and planned to read chapters in Philosophy textbook tomorrow. He did catch all concepts of Calculus very well but would have to practice more to be proficient in exam. Studying difficult courses in college is always challenging but when a student goes through it, the life will become much easier in the following 40 years. Let's see if my son can be kept in the game. Most of the kids like arguing that they are not interested in difficult courses but the true reason is that they try to avoid the challenges and difficulties. I told my son not to define his interests based on easiness. 

However, if he really wants to give up, I won't blame him. He will learn it when he grows into 30s when he finds that he has to re-establish foundation, especially, shakeup his personalities and behaviors. My experience is no matter what are your interests, you have to pursue them rigorously. 

My son is a smart kid, at least, he knows that he needs to wrap up this quarter successfully. This is good enough for now. He actually had selected the classes for Autumn Quarter, even I told him that he could change them if he wanted, he said that he would still want to take them. Hopefully, he can take the pressures to prevail. 

Finishing my routine at gym, I felt much better than last night. I had been going to gym seven days in row and will keep doing it until we take off to Scandinavia. 

By the way, I checked out that tank capacity for Volvo XC60 was 18.5 Gallons, which can be converted to 71.7 liters. So, one full tank gas may cover 700 Kilometers. As I had projected on Wednesday night, total driving kilometers are 4000, I plan to fill up gas every 500 kilos. In this regard, I will need to pump gas 8 times. 

Checking out all gas stations along the routes we will drive by, I located 8 cities as following:

Oslo; Halmstad; Bremen; Tilburg; Hamburg; Copenhagen; Norrkoping; Stockholm. 

Last time I stopped by the gas station in Scandinavia was near Linkoping in 96. I don't know if that gas station is still there. I recalled it was a Shell or its affiliate in Sweden but wasn't able to find any shell on Google. One Statoil Tomby seemed located in the same area on map. 

Go to bed now...

Patrick's Diary - 5/28/2015

Only sleeping 4 hours, I got up to leave home for work. According to Spirit channel, summer kicked off today. Yep, it was already very sunny at 6:30 am when I was on the ramp waiting for being allowed to get onto I-405 South. Employment has been booming, so many people went to work. However, employment in Seattle hasn't been a big issue in the last several years as far as I observed. 

Coming back home pretty early, I slept for a while before dinner. I wasn't sure if I kept an inappropriate position while sleeping, I felt pretty dizzy after waking up. The bad position might cause somewhat blood circulation issue. 

After dinner, I was on my way to Safeway to have my mom's medications refilled. Passing by my rental property, I was triggered to plan to check on Zillow to find out if there was more appreciation this month. 

Still feeling a bit dizzy, I sat in my van to wait for the refill instead of walking around inside the Safeway. This gave me a chance to sense summer having arrived.

Recently, I just paid attention to the diagnosis machine installed at pharmacy and tested on it every time I went there. Since I didn't feel very well, I wanted to check my blood pressure for precaution. The result wasn't too bad but fair wasn't a very satisfactory one. I generally could get a result of excellence.

After finishing my routine, I felt a little bit better. It is 10:31 pm, I may go to bed early today.

Oh, let me check my rental property's value on Zillow before turning the laptop off...

Not bad, it appreciated another 6,854 in the last 30 days. Real Estate in Seattle may be one of the hottest ones nationwide.

Bingo! My earlier assumption was proven: according to Zestimate, my primary residential house in which I am sitting has gained another 14K in the last 30 days, such a surprise!

It is a happy ending of the day after checking on Zillow!

Patrick's Diary - 5/27/2015

After workout at LA Fitness, I just arrived at home a minute ago. Looking out of the window in my study room, I can sense a late spring harmonious night outside, which triggered me to recall a Chinese idiom I often used in my teenager's compositions and diaries - "夜深人静“. Translated into English, it can be "Sky in Darkness & Folks in Dreams". I was just thinking this could be an interesting debate in Comparative Literature: The closest translation of this idiom may be "Dark Night & Silent People", but my take is Night already implies Darkness and People can be silent without sleeping. This is probably why literature is not rocket science, there are a lot of flexibilities in it.

It was a relative longer day for me, I left work for home almost two hours later than usual. Naturally, I was caught in traffic, which had me taking one hour and a half to arrive at home. Actually, I had to get out of the freeway at North Park Business Park to go through local drive because congestion seemed very severe at Canyon Park Business Park where I was supposed to get out to go home. However, under the sunny sky, driving on local roads made me be very enjoyable. 

Having a quick dinner, I had slept until 9:30 pm. Getting out to drive to gym, I was totally sweaty at the end. 

I pulled some information of driving cost online for our trip to Scandinavia. Let me summaries it before going to bed.

First of all, I pulled the map to figure out the total kilometers I will drive through, it ended up with 3,695.1 on Freeway, added a couple of hundreds on local roads, I would make it 4,000.

Then, I found MPG for Volvo XC60: 24 in City and 31 on Freeway, given 1 mile equals 1.61 Kilo and 1 gallon equals 3.785 liters, I converted the efficiency to KPL: 

In City:              24*1.61 = 38.64; so 38.64/3.785 = 10.21

On Freeway:     31*1.61 = 49.91; so 49.91/3.785 = 13.19

With KPL, I figured out how many liters of gas I would need:

3,695.1/13.19 + 304.9/10.21 = 310.1 Liters

Finally, I pulled the price of gas per liter for these five countries:

Total driving cost can be calculated now:

1.6*73.57+1.7*145.67+1.79*49.69+1.9*24.11+2.09*17.01=$535.76

Ok, I wouldn't have energy to double check my logic and computation but will do tomorrow night. 

Almost 1 o'clock in the morning on Thursday now, though I slept for 2 hours before going to gym, need to go to bed. Anyway it was a long day for me yesterday, which means it probably will be a short one today, cheers!

Patrick's Diary - 5/26/2015

I got up at 5:30 am, took shower, pressed shirt, then drove on the road. Though it was just several minutes passed 6 o'clock, I-405 Southbound was definitely not open.

Coming back from long weekend, everyone was pretty busy including me. However, I got out of the office on time and was able to be on road again before rush hours would come. No matter what, it is always congested between Kirkland and S-Curve in North on I-405 because the lanes are reduced by one when approaching the route to Monroe. 

I slept a lot yesterday, but was still a little bit headache earlier today. I wasn't sure if I caught very minor cold or not. Anyway, after arriving at home, I took a nap. 

Right before my dad would call me downstairs for dinner, I turned onto CNN to watch Anderson Cooper's 360. I was saddened by the tragedy happening to this family in Texas. Mother and her two lovely children were swallowed in flooding. 

Keeping my routine at gym, I ran on treadmill for half an hour, biked for 20 minutes and lift weights 150 times. At work, I received an e-mail today to invite us to participate our annual "On Move" challenge. The event in this year seemed more innovative. 

It was a bright half moon night and temperature was comfortable. While on my way home after workout, I rolled the window on driver's side down to have breeze blowing onto my left cheek to cool me down. 

"What is going on in front?" I was surprised by blue & red lights flashed on top of several police cars at the intersection on my way home. When approaching, I saw at least there were four police cars there. My initial thought was this might be a crime scene. Later on, I figured it was just a possible serious accident because I glanced a damaged car being loaded onto a truck to be transported while I was driving through the intersection. 

It is 11:18 pm now. I probably should go to bed...

Patrick's Diary - 5/25/2015

I took the opportunity of long weekend to sleep all the morning until lunch.

Before dropping my son back to his dorm, we went to Guitar Center to pick up the guitar first. 

Only 3 weeks are left to the end of Spring Quarter, my son probably will have to focus on final exams starting from today. He didn't bring the guitar to his dorm because he already forgets how to play it. However, he planned to practice it when he comes back home during the weekends. Taking the guitar home, I probably should practice it first. I need to buy an instruction from Amazon if I really want to do it. The last time I was trying to play guitar was 30 years ago, though I had still sung a lot until 10 years ago. 

Before going to gym to workout, I did want to have a cup of coffee after three days. Getting out of Bothell Exit on 405 South, I turned right instead of left to search in the plaza at left hand side. I couldn't remember if there was a coffee shop there but assumed there must be one because this was the coffee capital, one of the nicknames of Seattle, in addition to Soccer City USA, Rain Capital, etc. I knew I was right when seeing a big Starbucks store next to QFC. 

Parking my caravan, I walked into the store. The barista greeted me with smile. There were several customers sitting at the tables, but I was the only one to ordering at the counter. 

"Can I have Venti Latte?"I thought I said it clearly.

"What size do you want?" the guy asked me.

I was puzzled but still patiently responded to him while his fingers passed through the different sizes of the cups: "Oh, the largest one."

He did smile and explained: "We have different sizes of cups, that's why I am asking." He sounded implying this might be my first time of ordering coffee at Starbucks. 

I wasn't sure if he didn't catch my accent correctly or not, anyway, this happened the first time in the history of my ordering venti latte at Starbucks, though majority of time I ordered Grande Latte.  

Yesterday I wrote in my diary that I thought about to stop over at Tully's, which was the most convenient option for me after workout. I have almost always bought coffee at Starbucks because they have so many stores. However, next time, I probably should try Tully's to test out.  Because rarely buying at Tully's, I even forget how they classify the sizes. Anyway, only Italians may judge the correct pronunciation of Venti.

Usually in the afternoon before dinner, gym are crowded but not today. There were only several people there including me. I did extra again: 1 hour on treadmill, 20 minutes on bike, 150 times of weightlifting. 

Even before heading out of home, I had told my parents that I would eat dinner outside. After workout, I drove to Taco Bell to eat tacos. Eventually, I ordered Quesdilla. 

As I shared that I have been living in this area for 15 years but I have rarely consumed in this side of the bridge over the I-405. I may need to come over more often to experience. 

Stopping at 7-11 to pump the gas, I just noticed price has bumped up to $3.1 per gallon. I recall a couple of months ago, it dropped under 2 bucks. 

It is still too early to call the day off...oh...I was reconnected with a very good friend with whom I did a lot of businesses when I was young. He lives in Southern California now where his daughter goes to high school. I told him that I would fly over to visit him in September. 

Ok, tomorrow will be a busy day...

Patrick's Diary - 5/24/2015

I tweeted this morning: I have struggled between physical and virtual lives in the last couple of hours. It was a true statement. After posting Day Six of Sometime in Scandinavia at 2:30 am, I went to bed but never fell into sleep thoroughly. The scenes on my mind interchangeably from real world to virtual world. The former was pretty clear-cut: I was lying on bed wondering what was going on; The latter was more complex: scenes changed every time when my mind was transformed from real to virtual world. One scene I can recall was: I tried to hide from people in a car, hid in an abandoned building, then ran to a parking lot to my caravan but couldn't find it. Eventually I climbed onto driver seat of an almost destroyed school bus to flee. Another scene was my dad raising both of his arms to chant for something at age of 50s while a BMW X5 was driven by in the background. I had no idea what they were all about. Anyway, after tweeting my feeling, I eventually fell into sleep until 7:00 am when I turned on TV to watch Championship Sunday of BPL.

It was final day of BPL in this season, four matches were televised simultaneously on four different NBC channels: NBC, NBCSP, CNBC and MSNBC. Sunderland and Newcastle escaped relegation but Hull City dropped to Championship next season. I was sorry for Bruce who played for Manchester United 20 years ago but it wasn't able to help him today.

My mom cooked us for lunch, the dishes smelled good, looked fresh and tasted great. However, she used different flavors to marinate chickens than she had used in the past. This change wasn't accepted by my son entirely. It might take him more time to accommodate. 

During weekdays, I generally didn't need as much sleep as this weekend because I drank 4 or 5 cups of coffee each day. I hadn't had coffee since Friday afternoon, this might cause me to take naps a lot. After sleeping another 2 hours after lunch, I went to gym to workout.

Today, I spent much more time at gym to run on treadmill for 1 hour, bike for 20 minutes and lift weights 150 times. When I left, it was already 5:30 pm. Tomorrow, they will close at 8:00 pm. Anyway, I will go there after dropping my son back to his dorm in the afternoon.

On my way home, I thought about to grab a cup of latte at Tully's inside Fred Meyer but didn't do it to save 5 bucks and minimize caffeine addiction. 

I had noticed on HBO yesterday that Dawn of Planet of Apes was played but I missed the most of the entire movie. I did find that it would be replayed tonight and planned to watch it. Though I actually had forgot it, fortunately, when I went down to living room to wait for dinner my dad was actually cooking, I turned on TV in time to catch the movie. 

Ok, I am almost done with Sunday, the question is: Do I want to start writing Day Seven of Sometime in Scandinavia now and even finish it by midnight?

Patrick's Diary - 5/23/2015

Wrapping up Day Six of Sometime in Scandinavia until 2:30 this morning, I didn't write the diary for yesterday. It was Saturday of Memorial Long Weekend, we did have some family activities.

First of all, I drove my parents and my son to go shopping groceries. Since my son lives in dorm on campus and he is the primary consumer of meals at home, we scale back buying groceries once every 3 weeks now. 

It was drizzling when we left our house but rain stopped a little bit later. As usual, we dropped my parents at Ranch 99 Chinese Supermarket, then drove to Costco Wholesale in Aurora Village, which was the first Costco store I started shopping when I moved to US and lived in Edmonds in 1998. This one didn't have big packs of cat litter in stock, so we had to drive to another Costco Business Center in Lynnwood to buy it. However, I also picked up a pack of soup I had forgot to buy earlier as well.

Coming back to Ranch 99, I found my parents had done with shopping and were waiting for me to pay at the counter. They bought a lot of stuff, which would serve us another three weeks. By the way, my mom is a very skillful cook. She can present all three Chinese cooking arts in her makes: Color, Flavor and Taste.

Eating an authentic Chinese lunch at one of the Szechwan Restaurants is always on our agenda when we are shopping groceries on Saturday. Today, we went back to  Szechwan Garden in Lynnwood, which is always on our list. At school, my son didn't have much chance to eat heavy Chinese foods, so he wanted Gigantic Chinese Meatball (狮子头). Unfortunately, chef didn't prepare for it. It was not very easy to cook and if no one ordered, all materials would be wasted. This had a very high probability  of happening because customers rarely ordered it. My son was disappointed but we still had a very delicious lunch. All the waiters and waitresses were very warm, some of them had known us very well. 

During the lunch, we exchanged and debated many topics on Politics and Religions, which are highly sensitive people always avoid publicly in US but Chinese are never afraid of discussing them publicly. In a Chinese restaurant, surrounded by all Chinese customers, we didn't care that much. 

My son forgot to bring his laptop home when I picked him up on Friday, so I drove him to his dorm to take it. He wanted to play games on laptop at home. My dad also went with us, he loved to keep the conversations we had had earlier. 

My son took a guitar class at Lynnwood High School three years ago, so we bought a guitar at Guitar Center in Lynnwood then. Unfortunately, one of strings was broken and he never got it changed. Now, he started exploring his talents on arts. In addition to taking Drama class in Autumn Quarter, he would like to keep practicing guitar. The technician at store looked like an artist himself. He showed his hospitality very well to us and promised to fix it on Monday. 

Shortening my routine at gym, I mistakenly scheduled to come back home to watch Sounders' match at 4:00 pm. It wouldn't start until 7:00 pm. However, I suddenly felt very sleepy, so took naps from time to time in the following two hours.

Right before the match started, I preheated the oven and then put Lasagna and Salmon bought at Costco into it. We had big lunch, so wouldn't have appetites to eat much Chinese foods for dinner.

It was a boring match, I had to say. Sounders didn't score at home.

Maybe because the match wasn't exciting, I had fell into sleep right after the match on couch in living room until almost midnight when my dad came downstairs to ask me for something he bought but left in the trunk.

Oh, just recalled, it wasn't because of the match but a big bottle of Tsingtao beer. 

As I shared at the beginning, Before going to bed, I wrapped up Day Six and posted it on my blog. 

Sometime in Scandinavia - Day Six

They came back to the hotel from Mount Floyen at almost 10 pm and fell into sleep very quickly the night before. In the morning on the sixth day of their trip, they got up at 7, had a brief breakfast, then decided to visit two more places before getting onto the road to Alesund.

In each town in Scandinavia, visitors generally can go three places: Museum, University and Cathedral. Yesterday, they had visited museum, so they walked out of hotel to head to Cathedral.

Because of its geographic location, Bergen experiences plentiful rainfall in all seasons. However, it wasn't raining this day, though it was a bit cloudy, they could walk without worrying about to get wet. 

"Do you know Bergen is actually Goteborg's sister city?" She just remembered that she never mentioned to him. 

"Oh, I read it online before I came back to Scandinavia to visit this time, but forgot to ask you as well. When I lived in Goteborg for that short period of time, we seemed never talking about it."Paused for a minute, "Actually, do you know it is also Seattle's sister city as well?"

"Oh, I almost forget that you are from Seattle, as I said, in my memory, you are always from Beijing. Yes, I recall after I learned that you are residing in Seattle, I briefly learned about the city and glanced at that piece of information. Of course, if you didn't mentioned, I wouldn't be able to recall it." She responded.

"There are always reasons two cities to become sisters, I guess, Goteborg and Bergen are second largest city in their respective countries." He made the comments, "There are a lot of similarities between Seattle and Bergen, such as rain."

"And we are both having fun in this sister's house."She joked.

They took several photos for each other and a joint one in front of the Cathedral helped by another visitor. After spending 20 minutes, they walked back to hotel. Their plan was to check out and drive the car around University of Bergen, then on the road up to north. 

University of Bergen is a pretty good school, Goteborg University has a lot of exchanges with them." She briefed him.

"Yes, I heard about it before too." He agreed, "University of Washington has an exchange program with them as well."

"I notice you might try to care about my feeling, so have tried not to talk about your adoptive hometown too much. However, you just can't help to connect things to Seattle anyway."She teased him, "It is ok, though I have never been that city, I heard a lot of good things about it. It sounds very beautiful and I may go there to stay a couple of days, especially you are there."

"You noticed?" He asked, "Right, I know you don't really like I talk like an American too much. Of course, you should come over. It is beautiful, and if you don't mind, I want to say more about it to you. Anyhow, it is the city I know the most now."

They didn't spend too much time on the campus because it didn't relate to them directly anyway, though it was a really beautiful school. At 10:00 am, they were getting onto RV555 to head to Alesund.

"Have you made up your mind which route are we going to follow?"She looked at him asking.

Holding the wheel and starting appreciating the breathtaking views outside the window, he suddenly came back to reality: "Not really, however, up to Forde, we probably only have one option - taking E39. It seems taking 3 to 4 hours to get there, then we can decide if we go through National Road to enjoy spectacular views of Fjord or have to stick on E39 to save a couple of hours."

"I guess we probably have to stick on E-39, otherwise we might arrive in Alesund at midnight." She estimated.

While chatting and appreciating, they reached the point where they had to take the first ferry on this route. They were pretty lucky not to wait too long. However, the whole process took them 50 minutes to complete: Car on ferry from Ytre Oppedal to Lavik. 

After getting onto the land, they didn't waste even a second. In this part on E39, the view became more mountainous. They had experienced so much water in the last two days, so didn't mind to enjoy glancing the green trees all over the hillsides. During the next one hour's drive, they sometimes kept silent, sometimes exchanged the impressions. She occasionally closed her eyes to enjoy the songs on radio, though the signals were broken from time to time, while he was keeping his eyes on road where the turns were pretty sharp. 

Going through the narrow but flat roads and a dozen tunnels, they arrived in Forde at 2:00 pm, a little bit late than planned but not too much. 

They actually were very hungry up to this moment, so got out of E-39, stopped over a restaurant named Pikant. This restaurant was located by a river and they sat down at a table outside. Even it was in the afternoon, they could hear someone was singing inside the bar. The waitress told her that at night, even professional singers often performed here. 

After translating the waitress's words to him, She joked:"Do we want to stay here over night, then you can come over to sing and make money to pay for the hotel?" 

He figured what she implied and responded: "Yes, I recalled in a bar close to Sergels Torg, oh, maybe closer to the bridge to Gamla Stan, on that Saturday night, a pop singer performed very well, we were both impressed by him very much. I bragged to you that I was a pretty good singer too and could become a pro if I had kept trained. You said the same to me. Right?"

She smiled, "Yes, you remembered?!" She paused, then kept saying: "Last year, I passed by there when I was on a business trip in Stockholm, I just noticed that bar was replaced by a new lifestyle cafe serving healthy foods and drinks. So, we won't be able to go to the same one this time. Anyway, there were still several others around there we can go."

"That was a hilarious night. We drank a combination of wine, beers and cocktails but sill pretty sober. Do you remember a woman got drunk and seemed looking for a date all over the bar there?" He reminded her.

"Oh, ya, she was quite drunk, though was beautiful and dressed up, no man seemed interested in her. Probably everyone was scared of." She did remember.

Getting back to the car, they realized it was the time to make decision: "Though driving through National Road is exciting, we probably won't have enough time left." He tried not to disappoint her but had to warn.

"Don't worry, I am fine." She understood,"As long as we can be together, it is much better than appreciating any views." She wasn't that type of woman always talking sweetly but did show her profound affection to him sometimes she couldn't hide. 

He was silent for a second, then kissed her for a million years...

They spent the following four hours on E-39 by either the lakes or the rivers connected to North Sea. After taking another ferry, they could tell Alesund was just kilometers away.

When they got the key to their room from the front desk at the hotel at waterfront, it was almost 9:00 pm. Restaurant had been closed, so they had to walk to a small cafe to grab coffee and dessert as a brief dinner. 

Coming back to the room, they were already exhausted. "Looks like it is a beautiful town, let's spend sometime here tomorrow morning." Though, she still wished they could do it tonight.

"Sure, let's do it tomorrow morning."He concurred, "Ok, I haven't talked about my adoptive hometown for the rest of the day after we had briefly chatted in the morning back in Bergen."

"What do you mean about this?" She didn't get him this time.

"Alesund is a sister city of Tacoma, another city in our State, south of Seattle."He learned it on Wikipedia because no one mentioned this to him even he worked on a consulting assignment in Tacoma several years ago. 

"As you said to me this morning, Bergen is similar to Seattle in several counts, so they are natural to be sister cities, is there any similarity between this town and the town you referred to?" She apparently didn't catch the name of Tacoma in the first place but was very interested in it.

He could feel she started caring about where he lived, "I don't really know, never have a chance to study it. But I will do some researches of Tacoma the first thing in the morning before we visit the places here."

"Ok, you should take me to Tacoma when I go seeing you." She started planning her trip.

"Of course." He definitely was willing to do it.

She fell into sleep in the next 10 minutes, he was almost done for the day as well. Though he planned to write a sonnet for her at the end of every day for the rest of the trip after climbing onto the top of Mount Floyen, he wasn't able to do it this night. 

Ok, let me write her another one while driving through Atlantic Ocean Road tomorrow. He soliloquized, then his mind was fully covered by all of beautiful dreams...