Excitement, anticipation, and nervousness... all feelings we felt on our final journey home from work in London. Were we mad to give up perfectly good, well paid jobs in the middle of a recession? Did we know what we were getting ourselves into, travelling through the hostile Central American lands? Would our 10 week Spanish course be enough to help us navigate tricky border controls and corrupt policeman? Well, ready or not, we were about to find out!
　
Our first week of being free from work was not as relaxing as one might have hoped. Packing up 10 years of London life into 6 medium sized boxes was quite a harrowing experience to say the least. After a whole week of sorting, chucking, and packing our worldly belongings into a fully laden Volkswagen T25 we were almost ready to go. After saying our final goodbyes with the flatmates, we set off on the long journey back to Norway.
　
Roadtrip before the Roadtrip
　
Our journey started at 1.30pm on Sunday 7th December 2008. Ollie navigated the 'Velle' out of busy London traffic for the final time, and we set our course to Harwich in Essex where we were booked onto the 18 hour ferry to Esberg in Denmark. After a fairly event less 3 1/2 hour drive we made it to the ferry terminal and lined up to board the ship. As we pulled up to the customs officials, we were keeping our fingers crossed that they would not want to search the van. It was stuffed to the brim and in complete mayhem. A new and overly keen official made moves for us to open up and let him in but thankfully his supervisor took one look at the chaos in the back and told us to move on. Whew!
　
Safely loaded, we located our cabin and enjoyed the services provided on the ferry and got as much sleep as possible before the next leg of the journey. We arrived in Esbjerg right on schedule and then had a painless 4 hour drive to Hirshalls, at the top of Denmark, where we were to catch our final ferry. On arriving at Hirtshalls, we had a few hours to spare, so we had a look around the small village and enjoyed a Danish supper at a local restaurant. Our final 3 hour ferry ride to Kristiansand in Norway went without a hitch. We arrived at midnight on Monday in two minds whether to book into a hotel for the night or drive the remaining 2 1/2 hours through snow and ice to Alfhild's cosy little house in Helleland, where the basement would surely be ready and waiting for us. We decided to keep going and arrived at 3am Tuesday morning.
　
God Jul fra Norge
　
We settled into our usual Norway routine in the following weeks... We explored a lot of the beautiful walking tracks around the area, suited up in our thickest wetsuits, gloves, hood and booties for surf sessions in the ice cold North Sea, brushed up our Spanish with a do-it-yourself language course, and prepared for the Norwegian Christmas festivities. Christmas is generally a quiet affair, where we sit down with Alfhild, Asbjorn and Ingunn (Ollie's family) to a warming meal of pinnekjøtt (lamb), potatoes, steamed vegetables, sauerkraut and tyttæbår. Xmas is celebrated on the evening of the 24th in Norway, so after dinner, presents are handed out and wine drank.

After Christmas we drove to Oslo. To break up the journey we stayed the night at Solveig and Solfrid Elise's gorgeous little farmhouse, nestled between snowy hills. We spent the evening catching up on the gossip and enjoying a freshly cooked meal of home-made lasagne. The next day we tried our hand at ice-skating on a nearby frozen lake on antique racing ice-skates which were quite difficult to handle compared to the normal ones. Ollie made it look easy, so Shay thought 'whatever Ollie can do, I can do'... sadly that was not so... and she had to hold Ollie with a death grip in fear of falling over.
　
New Year with the Roberts
　
We spent the next few days in Oslo with Kevin and Karoline in their awesome new house, complete with the Lindbom's own special floor. In Oslo it was a balmy -15 below so we had to rug up in our warmest to enjoy the awesome park next door. For New Year we were invited to a friend, Nina's, flat. She had stupidly agreed to cook a full Norwegian festive feast for about 20 people. Poor Nina was still in her pyjamas when the guests arrived but pulled off the most amazing feast which was enjoyed by all! Well done Nina!
　
The after party was moved from Nina's back to the Kev and Karolines. Here we all drank copious amounts of alcohol, annoyed the neighbours to the wee hours with hideous karaoke and saw the New Year in with the explosion of fireworks all around which seemed to last for hours.
　
Our time in Norway was nearly at an end. We packed our backpacks for the real adventure which was finally upon us. But first we had a couple of days in London to organise malaria tablets, doctors appointments and finances before the first leg of our Round-the-World ticket bound for San Francisco.