New Mystery...Yankee Doodle Trondheim?

When we arrived in Trondheim, one week ago today, we found the town nearly empty by the time we made it to our hotel at 8 PM. In the time it took us to do one loop walking around Central Trondheim (which believe me is not big) I clearly heard more people speaking English with an American accent than the entire time we spent in Stockholm, a considerably larger city. These folks didn't have the look of travelers or tourists, like us. They were either businessmen in suits or they had the distinctive look of military types. So, this raised the question for me...what were all these Americans doing in Trondheim?

I think it's safe to say that there isn't a lot about Trondheim that one could consider exceptional. It's a nice, small city, probably the size of Santa Monica or so if I were to guess. It's pretty, but not exceptionally so. There isn't anything distinctive about it, culturally speaking. And there didn't appear to be any significant industry there either, at least that I could see.

In some ways, it reminded me of my brief stay in Alice Springs, Australia almost 10 years ago. During my one night in town I met a whole crew of Navy guys in the pub as far away as one can possibly get from water in Australia. It turned out they were all IT specialists working at an intelligence sharing facility that the Aussies operate in the middle of the desert. So, I got to wondering if something similar might be going on in Trondheim.

The next day we wandered into a cafe that proved to be about the most affordable place in town to get something decent to eat and it turned out that the guy working behind the counter was from San Diego. He had come as a student to study at the university there and decided to stay. I mentioned to him that I had noticed a lot of Americans in town and asked why that is. He confirmed my observations, remarking that there was an expat group that met socially on a monthly basis. Then he said that people just come to Trondheim and decide they like the lifestyle and decide to stay. I guess I can understand that on some level but it didn't quite satisfy my suspicion. The mystery of Trondheim reminds in my mind. Maybe someone who knows better than I can help me resolve it one of these days.