DAY 25

(May 18)
Episode 4

This morning I drew eihwaz; the yew, yggdrasil, the spine, the vertical axis.  I will keep my eyes open to see how it applies today.

Today we are filming a full day of “reality”.  It’s a very common thing in TV production; sometimes the day is too short to get everything needed, or the lighting isn’t right or something, or we will just have several interviews to make sure that the editors have enough material to choose from in post-production.  It is all reality though, because regardless of the timing our answers and statements to the questions are sincere and genuine.

We had a final opportunity to say goodbye to Dana today.  Sometimes when people are eliminated they are whisked away and we never see them again, other times, like in Dana’s case it takes time to make travel arrangements etc. I’m glad because I was able to tell him a proper goodbye.  Tara is having a difficult time with his leaving.  She confides in me a bit and I have tried to bolster her spirits.

Tonight we went to an Italian place for dinner and had an amazing calzone…the waiter was a very unpleasant fellow, which diminished the experience for some of my friends…but I was too focused on the calzone to really notice.

DAY 26

(May 19)
Day off

Today we were taken to our new home base headquarters; a swanky hotel in the middle of Oslo.  It isn’t the Grand hotel, but it’s pretty cool.  I drew eihwaz again this morning, I will do some studying to see why that energy is so prevalent.

 

(The lobby of our new hotel)

 

Today is all about relaxing, the last four days have been pretty intense; always on the go, always with something to do.  I spent much of my time in the room on my back, perfecting my impersonation of a potato.  Tomorrow we are traveling to our next adventure, we have no idea where, or how we are traveling.

DAY 27

(May 20)
Travel day

Woke up, had frokost.  Drew sowilo; the sun, success.  Always a good way to start the day.  We were told we are not flying, instead we have a seven hour bus ride ahead of us, still don’t know in what direction.

(The official Alt for Norge bus)

 

 

(Norway is beautiful)

 

In actuality, the bus ride was about nine hours, nine hours north.  It was the most beautiful drive I have ever been on.  It is now 19:50 in the evening and we have arrived in the charming little village of Stranda.  Looking out my hotel window I can see a beautiful teal colored fjord with mountains looming up behind it…what a surreal life this is. 

I had brought three bottles of mead with me from America, I had shared two of them with my fellow contestants at the picnic scene…but one bottle had been missing since then.  Thankfully they had found it before we got on the bus, so now I took it outside and used it to pour a libation, an offering to the landevette of this land and introduce myself to them in the way I had become accustomed to whenever we go to a new place.

Dinner is in ten minutes.  I have absolutely no idea what they are going to do with us here, I suspect it may be farm related, or have something to do with the beautiful fjord that dominates this landscape.  It doesn’t really matter to me, either of those options would be ok with me.  However, based on my guesses from past episodes, I am probably wrong on both counts.  Tomorrow we begin episode 5…exciting!