The day I ran into her and the baby in the coffee shop I was having breakfast, before going into the office right around the corner from Spoons.

I entered the office that morning, numb, stunned, pissed off at God, or life, or whatever, and I opened my laptop at my desk to a new Bing picture of the day.

There are sharp mountains covered in snow that go straight down and right into the sea, an aqua blue clear sea, with little red fishing cabins dotting the shores, and little wooden fishing boats moored in the water with thick hemp ropes. There are little yellow flowers in the grasses surrounding the crescent shaped harbor and more mountains, pointy mountains covered in white caps.

I click on the picture.

“Where is this?”

Lofoten Islands in the Arctic Circle of Norway.

I click on a few other links connected to the picture of the day.

I’m sitting in Baltimore Harbor.

“How do I get there from here?”

Baltimore airport to Oslo Norway airport, another plane to Bodø Norway, a ferry ride to Å, then a car ride to Reine— the place in the picture with the fishing boats and the red cabins. Two plane tickets, a ferry ticket, a car rental, and a fishing cabin— rorbu rental— is what I can figure out.

Pushing back from my desk, entranced by the idea of getting myself to that place, I think of my ex-lover from college who is Norwegian and as far as I know moved back to Norway after college. I remembered he had gotten married to his girlfriend in college and they moved to Norway together, it has been about thirteen years since we last saw each other.

I write him.

“Hello Espen, I’m thinking of going to Lofoten. What can you tell me about getting there?”

Two weeks later I book a plane ticket to Oslo.

Espen has since divorced and we have decided to make this trip together.

We both agree, we will travel just as friends.

I tell him I really just want to see the midnight sun, be alone in the silence of nature, and to write.

He also wants to go on a vacation to Lofoten but he thinks it is a trip best taken when you can share the expenses of travel and renting rorbu with someone else. He puts together a detailed itinerary of where we will go, and how we will go from one island to the next, and makes reservations for our accommodations at all the different towns we will visit.

He’s been in banking for years now, but I only remember him as a long haired yellow blonde soccer player who wore white sunglasses that reminded me of Kurt Cobain. I had a crush on him from day one of college orientation, and for four years we fell in and out of bed with each other but we were never a couple. I also don’t remember us fighting, so I’m hoping we can just take it easy with each other and go on this trip together but remain friendly. Truth is, I am probably putting this whole trip on my credit card, so better to split the expenses with someone.

I don’t even own a pair of hiking boots, or anything called a fleece.

I haven’t been backpacking since college and since then I’m more of a jeans with stilettos and too many martinis kind of adventurer.

We are traveling at the end of July when there is twenty four hours of sun, and how cold can it be in the Arctic Circle in July with constant sun? Temperatures are in celsius and I don’t really pay attention to what that means, even when I do the conversion into Fahrenheit.

When Espen tells me to make sure I pack long underwear, wool socks, and a wool hat, I think he’s being funny and I buy cute little summer weight woolen anklets with pink and purple polka dots at the local outdoor shop, along with a hot pink fleece and water resistant hiking pants that zip off into shorts to show off the polka dots, of course.

I grew up cross country skiing but it's also been ten or more years since I’ve done that, I don’t have any appropriate gear for the mountains and the closest I have come to a hike recently was to walk to the top of Federal Hill in my neighborhood for a cigarette on the park bench.

My boss’s wife loans me her professional grade wind breaker that, happily, goes with my newly purchased but never worn hiking pants.

In the weeks before getting on that plane to Oslo, I become obsessed with moving to Norway.

I’m out drinking with my girlfriends and I say “I’m moving to Norway. I’m moving to Norway.” Over and over again.

One night Erika stops me and says, “Why don’t you go to Norway first and then come back and tell me whether or not you’re moving to Norway.”

It doesn’t occur to me that I’m just going on a vacation there, I repeat it like a mantra in my head.

“I’m moving to Norway.”

“I’m moving to Norway.”