Run, the Logistics are coming!!!

Rather than go to Italy, Nick and I are heading to pay our respects to a glacier in Northern Norway. "Jostedal" located within the Jotunheimen National Park. Apparently, "we will get to Italy". I am happy with flora, fauna, cliffs, mountains, valleys, and sheets of ice myself. So, this trip should be great.

Today I made a visit to the Bergen Cultural History Museum. Admition for students is free. There were a few interesting exhibits. The Stone Age, The Viking Age, and Church Art. At first I thought that the Stone Age exhibit was the Viking exhibit, and I was slightly disappointed with the amount of artifacts there were (mostly flint and slate blades with some carved stone club-ends. A few arrow heads mounted on traditionally constructed arrows). It seemed that the country from which most Vikings originated should boast a more formidable display of the latest Viking hardware and accessories. I soon realized, however, that the display items I was looking at were of the Stone Age- hailing from around 12,000 years prior to me instead of a mere Viking 1,000. The Viking exhibit was very interesting. Big plunderers, Sea-farers, traders, hunters, metal-workers. The Viking women worked looms and made fabics....that would take me a long time to figure out!

I somehow forgot that Leif Ericsson was the first European to reach the shores of the North American Coast. Why didn't we ever get out of school on his birthday? 

The Christian art exhibit was dark and troubling. Much of the art was very impressive, though. Almost all churches in Norway up until the 16th century were wrought out of wood. Imagine a somewhat smallish cathedral complete with celtic carvings on every square inch of its surface and constructed entirely with massive slabs of wood. Hopefully, I will see some "staves" as they are called and which still stand in certain places this weekend. The rest of the Christian art was slightly depressing. Saints getting martyred. The frowns and sickly pale complexions of Clerics and Bishops captured eternally by paintings and "antiquities". How was this religious culture enlivening? Was life so bad back in the 900's AD that people could be convinced about the post- mortem rewards for following orders and fearing "judgement" by a bunch of tip-toeing sour-pusses with a foreign text? Not completely, we know how much some Christians cared for others' well-being- in the "after-life". So much, it was worth killing for at times. 

Anyway, do we really need a middle man for being good? A reward other than the faith we give to ourselves when we make the world a little better for somebody or something else? Do we need to fear the consequences of being bad to do the opposite? That would be depressing....

Jesus was a good person. Why do good things always go bad? 

Aaaaah, the logistical need for rain pants is coming. It is supposed to rain all weekend, and we have major trails to make. The Salvation Army is closing in 30 minutes. Got to Runnnnnn!