Excitedly we all ate breakfast and got onboard the coach. One thing that concerned me was my tendency to get motion sickness really easily–smells of perfumes, food, and other things don’t help either. So I made it my mission to be one of the first ones on every day. Mission Accomplished. Third row!
We made our way to Voss for our morning activity. Our Guide Kira let us know that between Bergen and Voss there are 39 tunnels we would be passing through. WOW! I rejoiced inwardly, because I HATE mountain switchbacks–remember my fear of heights and motion sickness. There was excitement on the coach about our first activity. I had never white water rafted before, and had no expectations.
We arrived at the outfitters, and they informed us that we would need to change into wet suits, but could wear our bathing suit underneath. WHAT! WAIT! Wet suit…. were they kidding me! I am not a size 10 by any means, and I could see the apprehension on many other people in our group as well. Instead of saying anything, I just freaked out silently, and told myself, “Angela, suck it up and be a big girl!” I walked up to the counter. The man looked at me and then went and grabbed my size (at least I hoped it was my size). I took it and walked into the changing room. I felt like I just received a prison uniform–just get in line, hand it to me, refuse eye contact.
In the changing room all the other women were present, and we all had the same look on our face–there were no partitions–just one big open room with a bathroom! Yes… pee BEFORE the suit is on. That was a great idea. Then I realized I was just left with getting the suit on. It dawned on me Kira had a camera, and I decided I’d better move fast. This idea dawned on some of my fellow ladies, so we began to strip to get into our swim suits and into the wet suit. All our apprehension over nakedness was soon gone.
 |
This is one of our tour guides Kira (Who had no problem putting on the suit) |
As I tryed to squish myself into the suit, I made a pact with several ladies. If we needed help, we would help each other–no woman left UNSUITED! So we began. We hopped, we pulled, we grunted, we laid down, all in an effort to get the suit to a point where we could zip it up. Once it was about 95% on we realized the thing that helped the most was to have one person on each arm pit holding the suit while you jumped up and down “jiggling” yourself into it to ensure a proper fit. Finally I was in my suit. By then I knew all the ladies very well, and more intimately than I would have thought possible. I looked down and now there were wet suit shoes to get into. Darn. How was I gonna bend over in this. I decided I was gonna carry my shoes, and allow my Prince Charming, John, to put them on me, and avoid the whole bending down process all together.
We made our way to where we were to put the rafts in, and got started. Our raft was Awesome Raft! Our group got together for many activities throughout the week, and we began to name ourselves “Team Awesome”. There was Mike and Colleen from California, and Cody and Alisa from Utah, John and myself.
 |
Hitting the first rapids |
I think our rafting guide was having fun with us, because we seemed to hit the rapids just right so we were way more wet than the other groups. Then he showed us how they do a Norwegian “Rodeo”. Essentially, a person stands up on the front of the raft, one side paddles quickly forward, while the other backward, making the raft go in circles. The person on the end tries to stay standing. It was super fun! However, I did not stand at the front of the raft, but instead helped others get wet.
 |
A fellow Adventurer getting ready to “rodeo” |
After we peeled ourselves out of our suits, I thought mine made a noise similar to something loosing suction as I took it off, we had lunch, and then back on the Coach as we continued toward Flam.
So much happened today, I need to split this up into multiple segments.
 |
This is just a darn pretty picture of the beautiful scenery |