In early June 2014, freshly out of school, I packed my stuff and went to Norway – to work „in a hotel some place in the mountains“. I didn’t know a lot more than that when I arrived at the train station in Otta and was picked up by my new employer. Sure, I could have researched the place a lot better than I did, but I had my attention focused on school till the very end, I guess. Anyways, when we arrived at the hotel about an hour later, after driving up some curvy roads through narrow valleys, and even further up, I got pleasantly surprised: The building itself was really old – parts of it were from 1898 and it still had the “farm-feel” to it, although it was a luxurious and modern hotel.
And the location of this place, my new home for the summer, was fantastic! Surrounded by mountains of various shapes and hights and close to a river with a nice beach it was simply perfect! Already on the first day I went to explore the nearest mountain, marveling at an incredibly beautiful forest with it’s small creeks, light moss and humid bog – and got terribly lost… But that day I learned a lot; I ruined my new shoes and walked the last kilometers barefoot, but I never got lost again afterwards. And I went on countless more tours: At the end of the following four months I had been on all the mountains visible from the hotel plus quite a few more, among those Norway’s highest (Galdhøpiggen, 2469m) and second highest (way more beautiful Glittertinden, 2465m), as well as the famous Besseggen. And it never got boring, if anything, I grew to love the area even more with every tour! 
By staying in the mountain from early June to mid October I got to experience all the seasons up here: When I got there, the snow had just melted away around the hotel, but there were many white patches a little higher up, and the mountain tops were still covered in snow, thus looking even more majestically. Then, gradually, summer came, and temperatures rose above 25°C for a week or so – (almost too hot when you have grown used to sub 15°…) With this “heat wave“, we got a series of summer thunderstorms, cooling down the air and preparing for a colorful autumn with lots of good weather. 
The leaves were slowly turning from green to yellow to brown, while the forest provided a feast of cow- and blueberries. Then, at the end of September, winter arrived. A harsh blizzard showed us a different, rougher side of the mountains – not less beautiful though, as I discovered after it had settled down a little. Fluffy snow flakes silently fell out of the skies, covering the so familiar landscape and transforming it into something magical.
The trip back to Germany wrapped the seasons up for me one more time, in reversed order: Driving down the narrow, curvy road to the train station we exited winter and plunged into a colorful sea of autumn leaves. There was, yet again, a warming sun shining on drying grass, it smelled hay, and the birds were singing their lovely tunes. In Germany, strolling through the city, it was so warm, it almost felt like a late summer…
