Crabs, chilly water and cold hard fun! Bryggefest 2017 - Short Film | Adventure Every Day

A Crabby Affair

I knew this would be a great event as soon as I arrived, for we received a royal welcome from Charlotte's mom and stepfather complete with a bin of 18 (!) crabs fished directly from the dock earlier in the day and steamed right before our arrival. Look at those things!

Now I'm not sure exactly, but if I had to guess where these rank on the list of challenging things to eat, it would be pretty far up there. They aren't exactly small crabs, but do you know what you have to do to extract the meat out of them? It requires a bit of precision cracking, breaking, yanking and picking. Oh, and removal of the slimy goo that is the new shell growing underneath the old one.

My crab extraction skills are lacking to be sure, but I'm a stubborn one! In fact, I think Charlotte's mom commented that she'd never seen an American spend so much time fishing out crab meat. I crushed, clawed and scratched my way around these guys seemingly for hours until I finally had accumulated enough meat for a small crabby patty baguette:

And my oh my, was it tasty! Well worth the hard work I'd say, though no matter how meticulously I had sifted through the meat, I still managed to end up with crunchy bits of shell in almost every bite. Now I understand why those giant king crabs that have their own TV shows are so prized!

---

Party On!

After a night spent in a supposedly haunted room without issue, it was time for Bryggefest! Warm weather, warm food right off the grill, and warm water to take a dip in - what could be better?

Oh wait, did I say warm water? What I meant was fy fæn this water is friggin freezing!!! Note to self - do not have more than one beer before taking a plunge here. I swear my body was in such a shock that I physically could not force a sound to come out of my mouth for over 30 seconds. Seriously. If my muscles had locked up (which they almost did!) I would've really struggled to indicate that I was in trouble.

I feel like that's pretty weak, so call me names if you will, but that's the sad truth. How crazy Norwegians go swimming in February I do not know. No thank you!

It really wasn't so bad after a couple minutes though. And good thing, because we hadn't even begun to play the jump-into-the-water-while-catching-a-ball game, my all-time favorite swimming game. Never gets old! But do we still have skills? We'll have to go to the video replay to find out:

By the way, the interruption in the middle of the film was an interesting sight. A boat full of modern day Viking men rowed into the vicinity, singing a powerful chant apparently to a lucky lady in the house on the corner. Not entirely sure what that was all about, but that's what happens in the icy waters of Kolbjørnsvik on a given evening!

---

Final note - As with all of my posts this week, the earnings will be used to make a donation to A Million Voices, an organization Charlotte started 10 years ago, to help them continue to operate and make a difference in children’s lives in Manila, Philippines. Thanks for all the support so far!

---

Been to any good summer parties lately? Tell me about it in the comments below.

Join me tomorrow for an "overnight" look at the (almost!) midnight sun!

---

Adventure Every Day is a travel & exploration channel started in 2016. In addition to the Steemit blog, I post short films of my adventures to the Adventure Every Day YouTube channel.