On the bus to Norway

Ten of us from the Luleå Hembygdsgille(Folk music/dance/costume society) gathered early this morning and the bus departed at 06:00. Because we are so few this year we have only a small bus--large enough for those of us who want them to have a pair od seats to ourselves, but not big enough to have a toilet on board. Therefore we had a short stop around 08:00, and a longer stop in Kiruna. Everyone but me choose to eat there. The hotel restaurant wasn't open yet, but the Thai Arctic Grill was, and they all ate things like burgers and fries, over cooked fried spring rolls, and other things that simply didn't look like food to me. It was pretty much all monochrome pale brown fried food colour (even the hamburger buns had that shade, though they looked too soft to have been fried). Only the bus driver, whose plate was covered in a mound of meat that looked sufficient to satisfy a small wolf pack had something a bit darker than the fried startch that filled most of the plates. All in all I was relived that I had my own food in the bus, and happily worked on my embroidery project while they ate, then returned to the bus, had a short nap, and woke up to the pretty view of the cute little Swedish mountains that are the prelude to the more spectacular Norwegian mountains. With this lovely view out my window I just ate my lunch of home made egg noodles with fresh (grocery store) broccoli, silverbeet and kale and fireweed stems from our garden, red lentils, roasted cashews, and a bit of butter and curry ilke spices that the lentils had been cooked with. Then I ate a kiwifruit for desert. My bowl was a pretty mix of green and orange that looked and tasted so very much better than what the resturant had. I am so pleased that I am smart enough to bring along food from home.

Later when I get hungry again I have pasties. I have breadrolls baked around yummy home made spegetti sauce. I have lots more fruit, and cheese, and nuts and seeds, and home baked oat cakes made with real butter. Travel food doesn't have to taste horrid.