Up until a century ago, the Svolværgeita or Goat’s Horns rock tower had never been conquered, but these days not only has it become one of the most popular climbing pinnacles in Norway, but thrill-seeking mountaineers defy death by jumping between its granite horns.

Goat’s Horns peak was first climbed in 1910 by Carl Rubenson, Alf B. Bryn, and Ferdinand Schjelderup, a fantastic trio who managed to conquer two other virgin summits (Trakta and Stetind) on the very same trip. Climbers can go up Svolværgeita on the original route of its first climbers, just to see how good these three pioneers were in their time. There are several routes up the Goat’s Horns, but once at the top, many members of the mountaineering community follow the decades-old traditions of jumping from Storhorn (big horn) to the Lillehorn (little horn), over a 1.5 meter gap. It’s considered the perfect mountain climbing stunt, because it’s possible to pull off, but hard enough to get your heart pumping. Jumping 1.5 meters across may not seem like a very difficult task, but one wrong move and you’ll have to rely on the safety harnesses to save you from a 150-meter fall to the foot of Goat’s Horns pillar.

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Basse Andersen has become somewhat of a national celebrity in his home country of Norway after his coworkers started uploading videos of him freaking out over various pranks. He’s even been given the title of “most easily scared guy in the world”.

Basse was just an average Norwegian working at a company called Oestereng & Benestad, in the town of Arendal, until his colleagues figured out he was incredibly easy to scare, and had the funniest of reactions. They started pulling pranks on him constantly, and at one point even started filming his reactions and uploading the videos to YouTube. Before long, he was famous, and one his most famous video even won a Best Startling Video Award. But, believe it or not, Andersen actually enjoys being the but of the joke, and laughs just as hard as his coworkers whenever they manage to scare him. “I like humorous things and people who can think up some pranks,” he says Recently, a news crew from the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation paid Basse a visit at his workplace to confirm his reputation of “most easily scared guy in the world”. They made a short YouTube documentary framed like a funny news report:

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“This is completely insane… we don’t even play the lottery that often,” 29-year-old Hege Jeanette Oksnes said after her family won their third national lottery jackpot in the last six years. The most bizarre thing is it always happened after she gave birth to a child.

Just last week, Tord, Hege Jeanette’s 19-year-old brother won 12.2 million crowns (S$2.6 million) in the national Norwegian lottery, adding to the Oksnes family’s growing wealth. Previously, Jeanette herself won 8,2 million crowns ($1,4 million), and her father 12 million crowns ($2,1 million), playing in the same lottery. Three members of the same family winning the lottery in the last six years doesn’t happen very often, but after connecting the dots, the Oksnes have apparently identified what makes them so incredibly lucky. The first two times they won the lottery it happened just hours after Jeanette gave birth, and the third time stroke of luck occurred three months after she had her third child. The young mother told AFP she has three brothers who have yet to win the lottery and they asked her to have at least 10 other children. But after three children, Jeanette thinks it may be time to call it quits. “My husband thinks we have enough money now,” she says.

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Norway is famous for its liberal prison system, but not even the most optimistic criminal would ever hope to end up in a place like Bastoy Island. It’s quite simply paradise on Earth for serious offenders looking for some time off from crime.

Located about an hour away from Oslo, Bastoy Prison, if you can even call this place a prison, is located on a scenic island accessible by ferry. The unique philosophy governing this place can be observed from the moment you set foot on the boat, which is manned almost exclusively by inmates. Instead of just trying to make a run for it as soon as they reach the mainland, these hardened criminals greet visitors and help dock the boat. But once you get to the island and see the kind of freedom and resort-like leisure prisoners enjoy at Bastoy, it becomes clear why they wouldn’t want to go anywhere.

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A princess talking to angels – sounds like a chapter right out of a fairy-tale, doesn’t it? Turns out it isn’t. Real-life Norwegian Princess Martha Louise can not only converse with the unearthly beings, but also teach you how to do it. Last Thursday saw the release of her second book on the subject, with co-author Elisabeth Nordeng. The book called ‘The Secrets of Angels,’ is a sequel to the 2009 ‘Discover Your Guardian Angel.’

According to the two women, angels are real and they do exist just for us. In fact, the angels supposedly want to be in touch with us and help us, all we need to understand is how they operate and how they get in touch. Princess Martha Louise says that she realized her innate abilities to contact angels and read people’s inner feelings as a child. She is also trained in physical therapy and has always been interested in alternative forms of treatment.

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Norway, like all Scandinavian countries, has always taken pride in trying to live in harmony with nature, instead of conquering it, and its old turf roofs are a perfect example.

Houses with their roofs looking like small meadows may seem a little strange in these modern times, but until the late 19th century, turf roofs were the most common type of roofs in rural Norway. Nowadays, inhabited turf-roof houses are very rare, as the Norwegians have turned most of them into museum exhibits.

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Located on 75 acres of pine forest, Norway’s Halende Prison is unlike any of the American prisons, smelling of sweat and urine. Here, inmates are respected and probably live a better live than they did on the outside.

Norway’s second largest prison cost 1.5 billion kroner ($252 million) and took 10 years to complete, but the result is truly impressive. The 252 inmates at Halende will be living in 12-square-meter rooms, equipped with LCD TVs, modern furniture, and 2-square-meter showers. Instead of the awful smell of most prisons, the only odors at Halende will be those coming from the modern kitchen, where prisoners take cooking classes.

The prison’s cultural center features a recording studio, library,winter garden, manufacturing workshops, fancy classrooms, state f the art gymnasium, as well as a laboratory. Halende cells and facilities are decorated with genuine paintings that cost a total of $1 million.  There is even a separate, two-bedroom house, where inmates can spend time with their families, during overnight visits.

Are Hoidal, the prison’s governor, said the Norwegian prison system focuses on human rights and respect, so he doesn’t see any of this as unusual. Well, people must live a great life in Norway, because if that thing was built where I’m from, criminals would literally line up to rob or stab you, for a chance to live there. Seriously, that thing looks a lot better than any hospital or college dorm I’ve ever seen.

via Time, photos via drugoi

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