No. 27 Things to Do in Norway When You Should Be Sightseeing But Have Covid Instead

After nearly 24 hours of travel, my husband, son, and I landed in Narvik, Norway last month for a week’s exploration of the Lofoten Islands. It’s an especially picturesque archipelago in the north that we intended to hike. It was late enough when we arrived that the last driver at the taxi stand told us that she was off work and so were the other four taxis in town. Then she drove off. Right past our hotel.

We dragged our suitcases through the gravel alongside the road uphill for a mile. I was especially out of breath. Maybe I forgot to take the bricks out in case we needed a doorstop? It was definitely not because I was getting sick.

When confronted with an unpleasant reality, like illness, my lead strategy is denial. Overnight at the hotel, other symptoms surfaced. That scratchy throat? It’s just dry in here. Nose starting to run? Dry in here. Chills in the middle of the night? Nothing a little hydration won’t help.

En route to the Airbnb, I rested my head against the rental car window in the back seat to watch the rugged, stunning coastline. I woke four hours later flat on my back with belt buckles wedged between my vertebrae. I had missed all of it.

Denial was no longer a viable strategy. I was sick. And nothing knocked me out like that but Covid. Time to change strategies. I got angry—the last time I was in Norway, I didn't get to hike either. What was it about Norway?

I shuffled into the Airbnb feeling sorry for myself. We rented the bottom unit of a converted fisherman’s cabin, perched on the edge of a fjord. I laid in the living room for the rest of the day watching the clouds cling to the mountaintop, and the reflections ripple in the water.

How terrible for the boys, also, I was thinking, to miss their Norway experience nursing me back to health, when they waltzed into the living room with backpacks slung on their shoulders.

“Where are you going?” I asked, with no hint of desperation.

“We’re going on that really cool hike you said you wanted to do. See you in a couple of days. Try not to die.”

That might not be a direct quote.

"The one with the car ferry that's three hours away and ascends to the creepy NATO station and has an amazing view for miles?" I wailed.

They waved goodbye to my husk on the couch.

As I listened to the car drive away, with glee it seemed, I tried to console myself. It didn't matter. Seen one fjord, you've seen them all. It's just the Atlantic Ocean. Seen that a bazillion times.

The hours ticked by. When I wasn’t dozing or blowing my nose, I made a list of ways that a Covid patient could entertain themselves during a long, lonely, snot-slick day in Norway:

• Count the footfalls of the sweet blonde-haired toddlers who lived upstairs as they raced back and forth, back and forth to the beat of your pounding head.

• Use the stored energy of a three hour nap to turn to face the window.

• Watch the tide come in. And go out. And come in... Hey, there's a pattern here. I bet no one's ever noticed.

• Write a remorse-filled story about how your trip went wrong. Stories about middle-aged white women whose privilege isn't working properly are popular and fun!

• Turn on the Roomba for company. Marvel at how it WASHES the floor as it vacuums. Watch the Roomba climb the leg of the Scandinavian stick furniture and get stuck, humping like a dog.

• Play temperature roulette with the oven. All the food instructions are in Celcius and you don't know the conversion. There's a formula, but you didn't pay attention in that class in high school, so just guess. Say, double the Fahrenheit temperature you would use at home just for fun. That extra garlicky garlic bread isn't going to bake itself. If it burns, who cares. You can't taste it anyway!

• Watch TV. Oh wait! This Airbnb doesn’t have one, so you can “disconnect” on your vacation.

• Watch a show on your phone...except you erased them to make space for all the landscape photos that you’re not taking.

• Download a show to your phone. Oh wait! This Airbnb doesn't have WiFi. Or any kind of signal for that matter. Who's the idiot who bought all that marketing about "disconnecting" and having a "digital detox?"

• Make up a show by watching the harbor and giving all of the people you see a name and backstory—Real Housepeople of the Fjord. That guy on the motorized boogie board is named Sven. He enjoys a position at a tech firm in Oslo that embraces green energy. On the weekends, he fires up the forge at the local Viking museum and makes replica ninth century axes. His wife, Olga, has two PhDs and intends to sail around the world in a boat that she’s hand hewing in the stone hut next door to the forge. Give up on the show. These people are too reasonable for reality TV.

• Clip your fingernails. Wonder if you should save that for later when you're really desperate for an activity.

• Negotiate with your wallet. You'll just have to come to Norway again. It's not like it was expensive or time consuming to get here. Hardly an inconvenience.

• Sven is really getting good with that boogie board.

Observe the clouds roll up and over the knife edge of the mountain that plunges into the fjord. See how it softens and muffles and changes colors from underneath as the sun sets. It's different than yesterday. It’s different than an hour ago. And you might have missed it if you didn’t have Covid on the couch.

Decide there are worse ways to quarantine.

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