norway 2026

while in norway we do norwegian things. anything with water, cold water. fishing. swimming. hiking. eating. fish. spending long days. the sun comes up at before 5 and goes down around 11.

we managed to have one longer conversation with a real viking, i mean a real norwegian. we met on top of the kungskleivo, a short hiking trail up the hill behind bekkjarvik, built by nepalese workers from large granit blocks. we sat next to each other on the sunny side of a little cabin, that we visited in the past days for half a dozen times. we started the conversation around the weather and the landscape, but then quickly moved on to speak about the society in norway vs germany, austria and other places, politics, economics. aparently the sovereign wealth fund in norway contains an average of one million euros per inhabitant. norway does a lot to distribute wealth, to make sure nobody gets left behind. social transfers are large enough to live a modest life on, but there are also significant incentives for people to earn income through employed work or entrepreneurship. and it shows. the number of electric vehicles on the streets, the nice but modest houses, often with wooden facades, the infrastructure, et cetera. we then spoke about europe as a whole. that the continent will have to come together to a greater extent than now to sustain it’s position as a beacon for freedom and opportunities.

the even more interesting part of the conversation was about individual freedom and how to live a life that contains meaning, purpose and impact. how life is always connected to society, how nobody lives in isolation, how everybody carries responsibility for the freedom of everybody else.

nobody is free if not all are free.

all in all, i can say, we like norway despite the fact we don’t know any norwegians other than loose aquaintances from the camino.