Hello, Norway!

For those of you who have never used blogger before, it's part of Google and with that you get Google Analytics that allows you to look at who's reading your blog. For me, it pretty much tells me which blogs best(and worst) read. The problem with that is it doesn't give enough info into the reasons why(i.e. did I publish it at an inopportune time of day or was the title not interesting? or something else altogether). But it also allows me to see where around the world are people reading this blog.

So this is what my pageview by country data looks like:

Entry	Pageviews
United States	131995
Norway	22524
Estonia	14945
Germany	11587
Russia	7571
United Kingdom	4285
France	3721
Ukraine	3018
Canada	2658
Sweden	2360

Of course, US way out in the lead, but second place going to Norway? Really? Norway? Well in fairness, I did write a paragraph about Norseman as one of the world's hardest endurance events but I cannot imagine that my blog comes up high when googling that. Maybe just a bunch of dedicated readers of a mediocre runner? Or just interested in how many times I can get lost? Well, either way, Norway, I won't let you down. Here's my promise to you that I'll continue to run and get lost :)

And here's a little tribute to Norway:

While I've never been to Norway(or the Way Leading North), I have been to both Iceland and parts of Ireland including Dublin and Limerick were founded by Norwegians. Also did you know that, partly because of the Black Death, Norway was actually part of Denmark for almost 500 years, just ending that union in 1814? That didn't really end Norway's forced unions with other countries however, as Sweden soon took over the reigns until 1905! That's really amazing considering the long and really cool history that it had prior to the Denmark, and then Swedish, unions.

And I didn't know that Norway extends further north than Sweden so it actually borders both Finland and Russia. And it's good a fairly sustainable economy with plenty of natural resources(produces the most oil outside of the Middle East). AND it is perennially ranked as one of the highest nations in the Human Development Index looking at health and quality of life. All and all it seems like a good country to visit, or live. Plus it's beautiful:)

I have always wanted to go to Norway so if any of you readers out there can provide a home-stay maybe I'll re-enter the world of triathlon by attempting the Norseman :)

Until next time,

Danny