The Very Best of A-ha

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Although I love to travel I am pretty agnostic about where I go.  I have a  'bucket list' but it is modest and mostly reflects the places I can't justify the high cost of visiting on my own dollar.  Northern Scandinavia is a case in point; but I now have an opportunity to tick it off my list at somebody else's expense.  

 

I am sitting in Oslo Airport waiting for a connecting flight to Bodø to meet an international group of cyclists in order to support them on a 1 week charity ride up to Tromsø, through the region known as Lofoten.  The ride is entirely within the Arctic Circle and, judging by Google Street View, the scenery should be off the scale.

 

Sadly I won't be cycling but I will have plenty of opportunity to admire the view from the comfort of my rental van.  There are 22 riders, from the UK, Ireland, Canada and Norway, plus myself and four non-cycling WAGS and we will be doing a relatively modest 50 miles per day.  Our Norwegian hosts are anxious to show off their country and have arranged a variety of off-bike activities along the way…..almost like a proper holiday.  Annoyingly, the only month in which we are virtually guaranteed NOT to see the Northern Lights is August! 

 

Anyone who knows anything about me and Norway will probably be thinking "Jeez, how on earth is he going to afford to get pissed?".  It is a serious concern and I don't have an answer; probably I will have to drink a bit less than usual, favour off-licences over bars and maybe skip a few non-essentials such as food.

 

Given my self-imposed obligation to use song titles for all blog entries there is really only one way to go for this trip, so I will be leading you through A-ha's back-catalogue along the way. Fortunately most of their hits lend themselves well to being used as blog titles.  Unfortunately the trip lasts 10 days and there are only 7 A-ha songs people have ever heard of.

 

 

 

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