MIDNIGHT SUN at the Norway Russia border - We saw BELUGA whales! // Europe Trip 

Oh wow, your photos are stunning! We loved seeing them

Luckily we had some nicer days too (as you can see in the newest video (posted yesterday). For now we are continuing to Southern Norway but very very slowly. And then, at least for a little bit, we need to go back home. But we don't know exactly what we will do after that. Yes, we are Dutch. Norwegian in general is either very legible or complete utter nonsense to us :) Sometimes we can read it and at least understand it, otherwise Google Translate is our friend.

I love your timestamped reactions! To me Norwegian feels a bit like Dutch, English and German combined. I think that sometimes makes pronunciation harder because something might read (almost) Dutch but might be completely differently pronounced. On top of that, always talking English adds a bit of pronunciation fun in the mix too. I remember that somewhere in France I had the most horrific pronunciation of a word because I englishafied it while talking. Even though I know the pronunciation very well. All this to say that it is a continuous work in progress :)

@@ourcamperstories Yep I definitely know that feeling. I catch myself thinking in English and forgetting words in Norwegian, Icelandic and the tiny bit of German I'm *supposed* to know... And occasionally I do mix languages up (although not nearly as much as mum does). And yes, you're absolutely right. We have a lot of influence from the Hanseatic league here and there's whole Norwegian sentences that's made exclusively with Low German/Dutch loan words. Of course modified by Norwegian grammar etc. That's partially why we have so many words starting with "be". You don't find words starting with "be" in Swedish, Icelandic, Faeroese etc from what I remember.

Ohhh that is so interesting! Yes it is true I am learning a lot of words with 'be' right now. And 'kj' which is harder for me :) And I think the mixup is one of the things that makes it so much harder for non-native English people to vlog in English. You have atleast 2 languages in your head at any time, your native language and English, but a lot of time you also mix in the language of where you are at and any other language you know. Sometimes I hear myself utter an English sentence that makes me cringe, and it is just because my mind is going a million words a minute at that time and apparently grammar wasn't too high on my minds list :D

@@ourcamperstories Yeah, it helps switching the language you're *thinking* when you want to use it. You'll still occasionally mix things up, but it helps a lot with the consistency. Speaking of Hanseatic influences. Try to go to Bergen. It was illegal for foreign (German) merchants to travel further north then Bergen back in the day as our king wanted to make Bergen a merchant city. So it got a whole lot of privileges. People who wanted to sell their fish to foreigners had to take their fish south to Bergen. And likewise any other trade had to go to either Bergen or northeast to the Pomors who lived in what's today Russia. So a lot of Hanseatic traders settled there. Indeed the Hanseatic league has had quite a bit of influence on us. Norway was late with getting a professional army because, quite frankly our kings where poor by European standards and couldn't afford them. So we had a system where villages along the coast and navigable rivers had to provide a ship with armed men crewing them to the king in case of war. And that lasted till the Hanseatic league defeated us in a sea battle. The Hanseatic league is also a big part of why the Nordic countries where merged into the Kalmar union, leading to Norway being stuck in various unequal unions for over 500 years. Basically the plan was that the Kalmar union in theory would be strong enough to resist the Hanseatic league.

@@Luredreier We've been to Bergen (it's somewhere in the vlogs too) but we've had no clue about this history! That is so interesting! (And a bit weird that merchants couldn't travel further north)