Weather vs. Clothing

Earlier today I was putting on a t-shirt I found in the back of my closet. I hadn't worn it for a year because I didn't bring it with me when I moved to Bergen to go to Uni. I put it on and it smelled familiar. I realized I hadn't washed it since I was in France a bit over a year ago, I hadn't worn it and so I hadn't washed it. It smelled like my room in Saint-Rémy. It smelled of the washing machine liquid thing I used to wash my clothes in. It smelled like my bed. Like my room when I was drying my clothes. Like home away from home in a way.

I spent nine months in France as an au pair. I lived in a small town called Saint-Rémy-lès-Chevreuse, just outside of Paris, from October 2003 till the end of June 2004. I stayed with a British family, watched two kids, a boy and a girl who were 3 and 4, spoke English, learnt French and spent every weekend walking the streets of Paris.

To return to the subject; I was wearing the t-shirt. The reason I was wearing this t-shirt was that my parents, sister and I was going up to a seter and up through this mountain pass (btw, that picture is from the seter we went yesterday). It's not exactly a pass, I think, but it's the best English word or expression I found. It's not a mountain but it's high up there.

It was cloudy and grey as we started, some raindrops hit as we started walking. Before we reached the seter, Otterdalssetra, it was pouring down. We still had over an hour of walking before we got to the pass, Otterdalsskaret. This was the first time ever on a trip, and there has been a few, when our parents seriously suggested turning around. But we ain't quitters so we kept going.

It kept raining as we made our way up the hills, the wind was picking up and the fog coming in from the lake. It was thick as porridge but we were able to stay out of it until we reached the top. We didn't spend more than two minutes up there before we started on the way back. Making your way down a steep, slippery mountain side with the rain pouring and the wind howling, now that's something you should try. Once. And only once.

It did stop raining when we were down the worst part. We started warming up as we kept walking but we were still completely soaked. It's been raining a lot this summer; we were jumping across small rivers that used to be two feet wide but now some were 6, others more like 10. Wouldn't wanna fall in there... It was... an interesting trip. But from now on I'm not going out walking the mountains when it looks like the sky's about to fall down.

Then again, as the old, Norwegian proverb goes:

There's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.

Oh bite me...