"Just around the corner..."

Before this trip, I had no idea just how many international companies were located [and often times started] right here in Norway.  Someone has told us along the way - that so many companies are global due to the low population.  You have such a small & limited consumer base here in Norway that to be successful & grow you have to expand internationally.

The city of Horten is home to our corporate site visits yesterday - GE Healthcare & Kongsberg. Both of these companies are leaders in their respective industries.  The Horten location for GE Healthcare is working to develop cardiac ultrasounds.  You may have seen the "Take a Look" commercial.  It's super interesting stuff!

At Kongsberg Maritime, they are producing high-tech AUV [Autonomous Underwater Vehicles] used for a wide variety of purposes.  While at Kongsburg, we also had the chance to meet the wife of one of our hosts who is American and happens to be from Sioux Falls, SD [close to home :)] so it was fun to hear her perspective on living in Norway.

Then we changed into hiking gear [our Norwegian friends much more prepared & shall we say "serious" than we were] and went on an 6-8 kilometer hike in the beautiful Norwegian hills. I can say with a fair amount of certainty that all 5 of us were a bit nervous when we saw the hiking packs, water bottles & other hiking gear.  We thought we were going for a nice stroll in the woods.  This is where the inspiration came for the title of this particular blog entry.  Let's just say that Norway has many steep inclines that we aren't quite used to.  I think that we all held our own but were told several times that our destinations was "Just around the corner" or "Just past this next hill."  We soon caught on that this was not in fact the case and were then told that they use these phrases on their kids when they want to pacify them :)  Once we reached the cabin we had a great dinner - grilling in the mountains is the way to go! [I didn't want to haul my camera but Mary Kay did so hopefully there will be some later on.]

Then for some quality time with my host family.  They have been so incredibly considerate and just fun to be around.  I will be sad to say goodbye tomorrow.  They played me some traditional Norwegian music while we sat around drinking tea and chatting about the many differences between Norway & the United States.  I will leave you with this funny song that they played for me last night.