This weekend my best friend Steffi came to visit us, so we got to try out how it is to have guests in Vardø.
It was also the pomor festival, a big gathering event in Vardø that we felt had more to do with drinking and parties than the pomor history of Vardø 😛
Steffi arrived on Thursday, and we grabbed them (but not by the pussy) in Vadsø, where we went around Vadsøya and off course after we had to show them the birds at Ekkerøy.
Since moving here, under the influence of my lovely spouse, I have almost become a bird expert myself; I can for example tell you that kittiwakes are very loud, sounding either like they’re whining or making moaning sex sounds, and also they have black feet.
Anyway Ekkerøy was a fun start and our dogs were almost not barking at Steffi.
Because yeah, our little Olive (“le chien noir” as my niece calls her) is a petit demon. We’ve had quite some challenges with her. As adorable as she is with us, this tiny fur ball is a barky barky dog to everyone else.
I have been watching the norwegian show “fra bølle til bestevenn” this spring, (a show about how to train your dog) and got some new inspiration and learned several things that were showing some promises back in Oslo, though we had not yet had the occasion to know how it would be here.
We expected Olive to bark non-stop, and she did bark, but the training we have started worked and we could easily redirect her and guide her into how to handle her big feelings.
In the end during the whole weekend she didn’t bark that much, and the few times she did, we could fairly easily train with her. So big success there! all the thanks to “fra bølle til bestevenn” 😀 😀
Anyway, where was I. Right Steffi just arrived and it was great. As we drove back from Vadsø to Vardø, I almost didn’t fall asleep in the car (can’t help it, I’m like a baby, cars make me fall asleep) and we saw rocks that were actually eagles and chatted about life and everything.
When we arrived in Vardø we showed Steffi around, and they were totally super impressed over everything Vardø has to offer. Even if I might be exaggerating a bit here, the town is kind of half dead, the view from our house is really quite something.
And Steffi did like us, and spent most of their time looking at the view and looking at the bird island Hornøya.
I was really excited about having guests for the first time, I had done my best to make the room downstairs as cozy as possible. And that wasn’t easy; it used to be a home cinema or something, and whomever decorated it had very different taste in wallpaper than us, to say it mildly.
Thursday evening we drank raspberry wine gifted by Clément on our “secret spot” and appreciated the ocean, the bird life, saw more eagles and some seals even.
Friday we had our obligatory trip to Hornøya. Which is the bird island you can see from our living room. It’s a very important breeding place for many sea birds, like lomvis, puffins, razorbills, shags, kittiwakes, cormorants, gannets +++
Most tourists come only for the puffins, and like everyone else spend several hours taking the same picture of the same boring bird.
I personally think the shags are the coolest, the razorbills the cutest, and the lomvi the absolute loudest and funniest.
This was a really nice day though, and we got to talk a lot about everything and nothing while Sarah either took a lot of amazing pictures (do check their website, they really take incredible pictures) or taught cool facts about the birdies.
Did you know for example that when two lomvi mate, the lomvi surrounding them will cheer them up? and quite loudly so.
The island is loud.
After the birds, we went to the Indian restaurant of Vardø, which I kid you not is called “Spice up your life” ❤️
Just like at ABC thai, they can custom everything, so any dish could be made gluten free or vegan, in other words absolutely perfect.
Me and Steffi ordered a glass of wine, because we had to celebrate them being here! and we got a really big glass, which I got rather drunk from. I am apparently a lightweight. It was a really big glass though, probably half a bottle in that.
On Saturday me and Steffi took the scenic road to Hamningberg, which I highly recommend to anyone traveling up here. it is a thin road that twist and turns a lot in between the rock following the coastline. it is quite magical.
In Hamningberg we did a little hike and enjoy the Vardø summer (if it is over 10 degrees, then it IS summer)
When we got back in the evening it was time to have dinner and get dressed. We had ticket to the Pomor festival and I wanted to look fabulous. So I put on my pink gala dress and got pretty shit faced. I mean we were celebrating Steffi, and it was their birthday on top of it all. So we went all in.
Thankfully there are no pictures of all that, so you can just imagine me being super fabulous at a party, and not at all being foolish.
The next day we had a late birthday brunch, and chilled before it was sadly time to say goodbye.
Before they left, we had to take one last look at the weird “barnas festival” installation on the harbour.
I had a blast having guest, soon it will be Clément and Ida, and I hope many more will come to us in the future. Vardø is really weird but it’s also whimsical and fantastic.
Thanks for reading! if you want to contact me, you either know how or you don’t know me 😉
Mathilde in Vardø 