After a fabulous four days at the hytta, we were locking up and getting ready to return home. The adults were inside, cleaning and packing, while I enjoyed my transitional status as an adult grandchild, opting to play the grandchild role and lazily gaze into the sea. I sat on the railing of the extensive porch, looking back to watch my grandmother's hands reach out from the darkness of the once again sleeping hut to pull the window shut and clasp it. My eyes drifted back to the fjord, and I followed the line of the green hills that stood brightly in front of the towering, snow-capped mountains.

I stood up and immediately slammed my head into the low porch roof, which slopes ever so conveniently to exactly my height. Clearly fate is against my being useful. I sat back down and proceeded to rub my head.

My stay had been, for lack of a less horribly overused word, fabulous. I had gone out on the boat, to the white sand beach, Sørvika, and my summer tan was well on it's way to a classic deep tone. I had consumed a metric ton of delicious fish, and had acquired no less than 87 bug bites.

Four days is the perfect amount of time to stay at the hytta. It's one of the most beautiful places I have ever visited, so a tarriance of shorter length feels like an absolute ruse. It is easy, however, to tire of the endless sun, which presents vexing obstructions in one's normal patterns of sleep, the formulaic cycle of sunbathing on the porch and applying sunscreen, and the bugs, which are never in short supply during this season. I was more than ready to return home.

I was the picturesque traveler; my flowing sundress complemented my rope espadrilles flawlessly, and my wood bangles made things trendy yet effortless. I had my canvas bag in one hand, my sunglasses in the other, and I was ready to hop in the car and go back home. I stop, and realize that I'm not going home, at least not for another four weeks.

I carelessly drop my bag on the porch and gaze, once again, into the sea.