Glacier: [gley-sher] –n. A huge mass of ice slowly flowing over a land mass, formed from compacted snow

There comes a time in everyone's life where they are presented with an opportunity they would have never considered taking before. Maybe it's never crossed their mind, or they have never had a desire. But once the opportunity is tangible, either all previous stipulations disappear or they're left wondering why they've never thought about it before. In the past few years this, in a nutshell, describes my life.

I've started creating a list of all the things I never knew I wanted to do but have done anyway... since moving to Europe. One of the coolest (not only literally) items on that list occurred in Norway. Not having definitive plans of where we would stay, we had an extra floating day to decide (on a whim) to do with as we pleased. And we decided to stay in Balestrand. In doing so we stumbled upon what turned out to be the highlight of our trip... which would never have happened if all had gone as planned from day one.

Looking over the route of our trip, we noticed that there was a boat that goes right up to a glacier. Upon further research, we found out that the trip only leaves in the morning from Balestrand, and we had arrived at 6pm. It was then we decided to stay one extra day. When checking in we asked to stay a second day, and mentioned the the boat trip. The owner of the hotel took it a step further when she spoke of a 12 hour trip to not only go near the glacier, but to walk upon it. Kim and I both looked at each other and without saying a word both agreed that the idea was golden.

The day was spectacular. We had a 4 hour bus ride up to the glacier, which in any other circumstance would have felt extreme, but didn't bother us for the prospects of what lied ahead. The excitement only surmounted when we put on our gear, which included crampons (spikes for our shoes), an ice pick, body harness, gloves and rope. And thankfully the weather was perfect, because we had nothing more than sweatshirts to keep us warm, due to not knowing glacier walking would be a part of our plans.

The whole experience was incredible. We hiked up one side of the glacier, had lunch on the top while overlooking the phenomenal views, and hiked down the other. All in all we had spent 3.5 hours hiking, although it didn't even feel half that long. It's something I'll remember for a lifetime, and never stop to wonder why I had never thought of it before.