Mighty Viking Heritage

Danny is part Norwegian.  He's always found this cool, and sometimes brags about being a Viking.

The Norway Pavilion in Epcot certainly solidified our thoughts that all Norwegians are probably proud of their Viking heritage.  I mean, not every race could be called "The Conquerors of the Seas!"  That i a fairly epic title, and probably, definitely deserved.

 

The above Viking is Erik the Red.  Well, really it's a wax dummy of Erik the Red.  In any case, he's the guy that discovered Greenland.  He named it Greenland despite its terrible, freezing tundra terrain so that people would settle it. Kind of like Iceland was thus named so that people wouldn't settle it, but vice versa.  His son Leif Eriksson was later the first European known to have set foot in the Americas, in 1000AD.  No, it wasn't Columbus.  It was the Vikings.

I don't know who this above Viking is supposed to be... but I do know that he looks really badass and strongly resembles Gimli from The Lord of the Rings movies.  Which makes him even cooler.

The other motif we found to be very popular in the Norway section was trolls. I had remembered this from going to Disney World as a kid, and the Scandinavian troll connection was strengthened in my mind when I went to Stockholm, Sweden last February.  There were trolls everywhere, there were even stores full of nothing but trolls.  It was nifty.  Rest assured, I did not leave Sweden without purchasing a small Viking troll statue.  It is on my bookshelf to this day, next to a William Shakespeare action figure Danny bought for me.  Anyway, there was a giant troll statue in the gift shop, who tried to get a little frisky with me.

Danny was impressed with his choice in women.

A bro handshake was necessary.

Disney World, Florida, USA