Column: The Guardian Mountain

Twelve years ago to the day, I boarded a flight from the Oslo-Gardenmoen airport in south Norway. I was heading for Tromsø, some 1100 kilometers (roughly 700 miles) north, where I was to start a new year of study and a new chapter in my life. This plane ride was but the last leg of a much longer trip which started all the way in the southern French town of Beziers, where I lived, before leading to Paris, my birth place, and then Oslo, all through a combination of high speed trains, overnight bus rides, and ferries. When I arrived in Tromsø, it was a typical Arctic autumn day, where massive gray clouds had only cold winds to compete with for the domination of the skies. As I left the airport, I grabbed unto my two massive suitcases, and headed for the other side of the island, where the campus was located.