Résumé

Summer is almost over. A few more days, and I'll be back at my University, having been gone since Norway.

Each place I have been to has had a different degree of Man taking over Nature. In the small town in Norway where we started, the houses were nestled into the valley and the mountains. The river was allowed to flow freely into the fjord, and the little streams flowing down the mountain carried fresh, cool water you could drink. Some houses had grass growing on their roofs.

On the other hand, Oslo is a forest of turn of the (last) century buildings, built of stone with beautiful moldings. The Oslo woods, just outside the city, must have covered all of its land at some point, but the trees in the city have been specially planted. People are everywhere, speaking all different languages, wearing so many styles of clothing, going so many places.

I was in New York just a few days ago. It is such a mass of humanity, and of pavement, cement, glass and steel. Which is why it is such a shock to see Central Park. In comparison it looks wild and untouched with tall grasses and rocks sticking out. This even though it has sidewalks with ice cream carts and who knows what grew there way way back in the day, anyway? As a counterpart to the Norwegian rivers, we have the Hudson whose natural inhabitants are plastic buckets and tires. And the fresh streams are replaces by tap water.

New York, by the way, is an amazing city. There are so many people that restaurants, for instance, all have to be unusual and delicious. A mediocre place wouldn't last with so much competition. Everything is different, and there is just so much of it that you could spend years finding something new every day.

This summer, I managed to visit big cities and small ones, cities growing amongst farmland, and towns surrounded by woodland. I've visited people living in inhospitable places with few tourists and lots of dust, and people living in beautiful places with many many visitors.

It's been a summer to see family and close friends. And it's also been a very productive summer, in terms of work. Lots of low-intensity travel, where I can just settle into coffee shops, and measure the progress of my work by the level of coffee in my glass.

I will be off soon, after a last hello to some friends. And summer will be over.