This Is The End

Realtime note: Although I’m already nearly two months into my next trip through SouthEast Asia, to keep things chronological I’ll wrap up just one or two final posts from Europe and the US before opening up the next (huge) can of worms. I know, it’s taken me forever to get started this time. Sorry about that. As usual I’ve had a lot on my plate, but hopefully I can get all caught up before things start picking up once again 🙂

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This is it. My big European adventure has finally come to a close.

Like my first stop in Oslo, these last two days served primarily as a cool-down period. Initially we’d hoped to fit in a visit to Peder’s summer home in Lillesand, on Norway’s southern coast – but time was just too short. That’s alright. After the intense exertion of cycling from Oslo to Copenhagen with one of Europe’s biggest parties stuck right in the middle, I badly needed the break.

So other than two late nights out – a brief weekend to sample the Oslo nightlife I’d heard so much about – the conclusion of EuroTrip 2010 was really quite calm. We spent a lazy afternoon at the beach, took a jog into the mountains for a dip in an (icy-cold) pond, and a stroll through central downtown Oslo.

Perhaps the most noteworthy event during these last couple days was the final evening, which we spent in a park watching the World Cup on a massive jumbotron. The moment the clock ran out and Spain had won it seemed like half the city exploded with joy. And the other half…well, they walked home pretty quietly.

When they say Europe takes its soccer seriously they really aren’t kidding.

And then the trip was over. On the morning of July 12th, still a bit tired and fatigued from the past three months of morning-till-morning action, I got out of bed bright and early, picked up my stuff, and headed for the airport (with one quick stop along the way – a job interview for some future remote programming work, thanks to Peder of course).

EuroTrip had at long last come to a close.