Tromsø, Norway, January 2013

I went to Norway with a group of Finnish people for Tromsø Movie Festival ( http://tiff.no/en) !

Tromsø, the longest bridge ever..

So, we left Oulu around 3 am ( yaaay) in a winter night ( double yaaaay) and the bus drove all night to Tromsø, UP NORTH ( yes, you can do ' more north' than Finland !)

I have a lot to tell about this trip, most of it concerning the problems you can encounter when you decide to go to one of the colder/darker/foreigner country you can find, basically by yourself and with no map or wifi. 

- We were all sleeping in cabins rented for the occasion, and we had to walk through a series of residential houses, and cross ' the longest bridge ever' ( 1km..) to get to town. I guess everyday something went wrong. The first day, I got completely lost through the houses, unable to find the cabins, going through streets that all looked the same while the weather was awful ( -20°C, how funny). I finally got to find my way back, but then I had to go back at night for a movie, which made me cross that damned bridge at 2am, when it was windy as hell and freaking cold. The next day, expecting the same kind of weather, I took my warmest boots to get to town at 8am, and 'unfortunetly', that day was a bit warmer, which basically meant that the snow was melting and more than slippery. I fell, twice, on my butt., and by the time I got to the movies, my feet were drowned into iced water... A wonderful way to start my day ! After all these little misadventures, I found where and how to take the bus... which cost me around 4euros to get off two stops later.. Which brings me to my second point about this trip..

- Don't know if you've ever been to Norway, or even Sweden, but if you have, then you know you need to be rich to eat, drink or take the bus. I wasn't rich, and I ate every single meal I could not cook at the cabin in Burger King, which cost me about 11 euros for the smallest menu you can get ( oh yeah, again). And because I NEED tea, and cannot do without, I spent a little fortune as well ( 4,50euros for hot water and some herbs... ouch). Norway made me poor, end of story.

- Well, I need to admit that the festival was nice, they have big and great theatre/concert/cinema rooms they used to project movies, and I got to see movies from different nationalities, as well as an old Hitchcock movie ! Here was my full program ( well, almost, I cut the movies I saw on the last day because I did not enjoy them much)..

Thu 17:30 Nåde - Mercy -Matthias Glasner [ http://www.tiff.no/en/program/2013/mercy]

Thu 20:45 Oh Boy - Jan Ole Gerster [http://www.tiff.no/en/program/2013/oh-boy ]

Fri 9:00 In the House - François Ozon [http://www.tiff.no/en/program/2013/house ]

Fri 13:30 War Witch - Kim Nguyen [http://www.tiff.no/en/node/1541 ]

Fri 16:45 MED HJERT ET I HALSEN ( North by Northwest) - Hitchcock

Fri 23:00 No - Pablo Larrain [http://www.tiff.no/en/program/2013/no ]

- Well, the most undeniable thing about Norway is the scenery.. I had never in my life seen such amazing landscapes.. I do not think my camera was able to capture all the beauty of the landscapes I had all around me that week.. But I tried.

This is all the light you can get at 10:30am in Winter times. 

The cabins ( and all the light you can get at 12:00am..)

City center

THE bridge

4pm. Yes baby.