To that note, we left off last at the start of the week. It was so nice after walking more than 50km over the weekend to simply sit at our dining room table and work for the day. Everything went smoothly, including setting up a new router for our AirBnB host on the evening before; a few plugs and clicks, and we were rocking our lightning fast internet once again. As we were feeling quite in need of a relaxing evening, we spent it walking around the city, and then preparing a nice healthy meal.

Eric McDermott

Tuesday brought more of the same work-wise, but after our recovery, we were feeling ready to indulge in activity a bit more. We decided that actually a bit of sport would be nice, and headed back to our friendly volleyball fields from the week before.

There, we seemed intent on draining every bit of energy we saved from the day before, and in a groove, played about 10 matches until it became dark. During that time, we met a host of people from Oslo. Almost all of them came to know about Drive Your Life, diconium, and what we are doing there. A few of them studied at UC Berkeley and had a deep inner love of California (which I suppose I share!). Another makes amazing cupcakes and donates the proceeds to charity! Check her out! (www.instagram.com/hjertebaker/) It was quite a nice evening.

Eric McDermott

Wednesday was a scheduled event from diconium: We would spend the early evening at a floating sauna! What a nice experience. We shared our sauna with a family of 4 from Czechia. They had built-out a van during the COVID lockdowns and had driven into Norway to spend their holidays. With only a few days left, they were soaking in the last breaths of Oslo.

We asked if they had any experiences that they particularly found enjoyable, and coincidentally enough, they mentioned a national park that was on our list to visit the upcoming weekend, Jotunheimen! Even the exact hike we had planned. This was great confirmation and gave us something to look forward to even more.

Besides the chit-chat, we were also given a riddle by the sauna master. Try it yourself (without using the internet!)… If letters like “A, O, B, P, R” are closed letters, and letters like “C, V, E, U, I” are open letters; name 6 countries whose name is composed of only open letters (using all upper-case letters). We were able to get 5! Good luck!

Before leaving (and often in between) we of course had to jump from the roof into the Norwegian Sea.

Eric McDermott