Dave's Travel Journals
Home of the Giants
Lillehammer: June 18, 2002
By Dave Fox
There are two things wrong with Scandinavia: the herring and the people.
In theory, I have no problem with herring. Some of my best friends are herring. I just don't want pickled fish intermingling with my American tastebuds.
As far as the people go, Scandinavians are actually quite nice, but they are too tall. The average Scandinavian male, in my estimation, is about eight feet nine inches, which, for those of you who think in metric, is approximately 2.9 kilometers tall. I, being a compact five feet, three-and-a-half inches, spend much of my time here dodging giants whose eyesight is too poor to see down at my level.
This isn't usually a problem. I get my exercise this way. But last week in Stockholm, I encountered an obstacle.
I've traveled in dozens of foreign places and have encountered many a strange toilet, but a too-tall-to-reach urinal was a new one. The stall was occupied, leaving me no choice but to stand precariously on my tiptoes and pray no one else would walk in and snicker as I tried to keep my balance.
In Oslo, I encountered a different problem. The only way I could see through the peep hole in my hotel room door was to stand on a chair. Peep holes are supposed to protect feeble people like me from burly intruders. Anyone tall enough to see through this particular peep hole doesn't need to worry about who's outside.
I'm on the home stretch of my first tour of the season, typing this on the bus as we make our way into the Norwegian mountains. Jotunheim is the name of the region we'll sleep in tonight. Translated, it means "Home of the Giants."
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