It is 7:10am now. I, Itsuhara Shoto am completely ready for my trip to Norway.
I put on my big backpack ( which is my only bag) and set off towards the Narita Airport. I reached the Airport after a short car ride. I checked-in and started waiting for my flight's departure at 8:10am. After a while, the boarding started and I boarded my flight. The flight took off at sharp 8:10am and now, all that was left was to wait for 4 hours to get there.
Part-2
After a journey of 4 hours, I arrived at the Tromsø Airport, Norway. I collected my luggage and exited the airport. My taxi was waiting for me outside of the airport. Here, I am going to live in my family's winter home, which is around a 5-min ride from here. I boarded my taxi which is operated by A.I., verified myself and then it started. After some 30 secs or so, it exited the airport road and brought me to the roads of Tromsø. As my ride progressed, I began to regain many memories of my childhood and sunk in nostlagia. A rare, short smile came on my face.
After some minutes, I arrived at the Fjellheisen mountain range in Tromsø. As I had expected, it is covered in snow. The taxi dropped me at the closest distance it could get to my house and from here, it is about a 10-min walk. I put on my escalating snow shoes, which are a type of shoes which escalate themselves through snow and moves forward itself. The user can however control the speed and direction of the shoes. I began to move through a nostlagic path with a faint smile across my face. My home was supposed to be a good amount of distance away from the Tromsø city. I slowly entered the forest zone which was full of conifer trees, the whole zone illuminated by starlight and what else, other than the aurora borealis, that hovers wonderfully in the nightsky over Tromsø. After walking for a while, I caught sight of a lone, concrete house with big glass windows. That's what supposed to be my home.
I arrived before the front of the house and stared at it for a while. I took out my wireless key and opened the front door of my house. As I entered the house, I felt a very strong surge of emotions inside me. I entered the house and looked around. Everything I put my eyes on brought back memories. I felt myself tearing up. I drop fell on the floor from my eyes. I knelt down and cried there for sometime.
Part-3
I put my luggage in the bedroom and went to look around the house. The house was neat and clean because my parents had assigned an old servant of ours to clean the house once a month. The house is a two-storey and we have big windows in the hall and the bedroom wholly covered by glass walls. The overall furniture wasn't much as we only came here to spend time in winter, I explored the rest of my house, my heart filled with warmth and memories.
Suddenly, a rumbling sound came from my stomach.
I am hungry, but sadly, I have no ingredients to cook. I decided to go to shopping to the city down below. I hurriedly got ready cause it was around 9:15pm now here in Norway. I descended the mountain and began to wait for my taxi. I really wanted to go by the cable car but it is currently under some repairs. Buses were not available when I checked before so my only option was to go by taxi. I booked by taxi when I was descending the mountain. The taxi arrived just after 2-3 mins of waiting and took me to back to Tromsø city.
I arrived at the city square in about 5 mins. 'Elegant' was the first word that came to my mind after seeing the square. The whole area had been decorated for christmas and winter. Many street shops selling different kind of item were set up and a large santa was erected in the middle. The whole place was swarming with people. People of every age can be seen here. After a while, I gasped back to my senses and began to look for a grocery store. I shopped all that I wanted and prepared to head back home, even though I wanted to stay here a little longer.
Part-4
Now's the time to cook!
I decided to cook a Norwegian delicacy- Lapskaus for my dinner. Lapskaus is one of the most popular dinner delicacies in Norway and my mother often made that during winter. So, Lapskaus is basically what you can call a Norwegian style stew with potatoes and meat ( usually with beef) and this time I decided to cook it with chicken. With modern techniques, it cooks in about 20 mins or so.
I started with slicing the chicken meat into its stew version with a slicer( certain machine to slice vegetables, fruits and meat) while the chicken broth was boiling in the pan. After slicing the chicken, I began to cut the other ingredients, i.e the potatoes, carrots, onions along with dry mushrooms. After slicing, I added the veggies to the broth and cooked it for 3-4 minutes before adding the main ingredient to it. I added salt and pepper after it and let it cook for some time. Now I just had to wait for the induction's' beep' sound.
Out came the 'beep' after 10 mins. Bingo! The Itsuhara Shoto special Lapskaus stew is ready!
I helped myself with some stew and sat on the dining. I took a bite of the stew and put it in my mouth.
"Mmmm!''. It is just simply delicious. It is definitly not the best bu the delicate and seasoned flavour made it enjoyable...