From Norway to nowhere

I've been falling into the trap of waiting until there's a good solid internet connection to write about what's been going on. That's not going to happen very soon, so what I'm doing now is writing something on my computer when I can and uploading it when the ship is in contact with a satellite for a few moments. 'Cause most of the satellites - why am I surprised? - are positioned to make communications easy for the largest number of people. And there sure aren't many people where we've been going.

So where have we been? I left off, I think, just before we got to Oslo. Which we did, a week ago Saturday (the 19th, I think). That's where Ron and I left the ship to go across Norway by train, boat, bus and train again, taking a couple of days to do it. We followed the Norway in a Nutshell tour that the Norwegian travel people make easy to arrange over the internet so we could see a little more of what Norway might be like.

The biggest surprise came on the first train leg. We set out from Oslo and travelled through nice green countryside, a bit like the East Kootenays of BC - trees, rounded mountains, some lakes and fast-flowing rivers, farms wherever possible. Nice. Pretty. Finally we came to a large, busy ski resort full of German and Polish tour buses, and then disappeared into a tunnel. When we came out we were on the surface of the moon. Rocks. Lichen. Struggling grasses and a few bent bushes. Lakes with rivers rushing to the Oslo side of the country still, but definitely a different climatic zone. And it was foggy and rainy, not the lovely mostly-sunny day we'd left behind. And it stayed like that for the next couple of days.

We spent the first night in an isolated former sanatorium reachable only by train (a tiny train that clung to the cliff face). The next day we took this train through spiral tunnels and switchbacks to a fjord-side town to catch a car ferry to another little town a couple of hours away. That's when we saw the Norway you see on post cards. Our pictures (to be uploaded to Flickr when there's a bit more internet) aren't post card quality thanks to the rain. Am I ever glad I got my coat waterproofed before we left, because I couldn't stand to spend any more time than necessary inside. By the end of the trip we got to feeling about waterfalls the way we feel about Roman amphitheatres - "Another waterfall? Yawn" - but it took a while. There must have been 39 gazillion of them in every possible arrangement.

We landed in a small town that seems to exist now mostly to look after the tourists like us who miss the bus for the next stage of the tour, but that was okay. Time to get a little lunch and to walk around the perimeter of the Viking fair they were holding that weekend. It was kind of like the Indian Village at the Calgary Stampede, complete with tents and campfires and people dressed up to look like their ancestors. They seemed to be having lots of fun, but we felt a little nervous as we walked along beside the archery pitch - not everyone had a Viking's skills with the bow. Fortunatly the organizers had figured out how far a novice can shoot and had cordoned off the appropriate area outside.

Finally we were in a bus climbing up an incredibly steep one-lane two-way road past a couple of superb waterfalls to a modern hotel overlooking the valley. I think one of my pictures there is postcard quality - I'll stick it in here when I can. The view was incredible. The hotel was expensive, not terribly friendly or well run (except for the young wait staff from Finland, Poland, Spain, Australia, everywhere but Norway), and boring for those of us not suited to trekking over hill and dale (I know, we should - but it hurts!). Back on the bus in the morning to another lovely little town with a gem of a 13th-century church and people parasailing on the lake, then onto the train for the trip to Bergen.

Bergen was lovely, sunny and warm (weather the ship had been experiencing all the time we were away) with a fantastic view from the top of the funicular. It had a good wool shop, too.

Impressions of Norway? Expensive! Everything is at least twice what I felt comfortable paying (except the wool I got on half-price sale in Oslo). Very pretty. Not hugely friendly, and you'd better remember your Turkish ways when trying to board trains or buses. I think that it's one of the few places we've seen enough of on our travels. We don't feel we need to spend more time there, but it was good having seen what we did. And Ron was finally able to realize there his goal of having three different kinds of pickled herring for breakfast.

Next stop, after a couple of days at sea: Iceland. First Akureyri, on the north coast at the end of Iceland's longest fjord. Sharper eyes than mine saw whales and puffins. I enjoyed the scenery and the bright sunny day. We took a bus tour to Myvatn (which our travel companions had figured out means "lake of midges" and had brought bug spray for) and the lava fields around it. It was everything we'd hoped for. We stepped over one of the many cracks where the European and North American tectonic plates are separating; didn't get splashed by boiling mud; and went to Hell and back (an extinct crater near a large geothermal power plant is called Hell - and the water in it freezes over in the winter, too. Our American friends were delighted: if Barack Obama becomes the next U.S president a black man will be inaugurated when Hell is frozen over).

The next day we moved along to the sort of claw that sticks out on the northwest coast of Iceland - a bunch of spectacular fjords - and spent an afternoon walking around the tiny town of Isafjordur. Nice place on the sunny day we enjoyed, but I can imagine how dismal it must be in the winter.

Got one small hint of how things have changed since Viking days. I walked into a lovely little craft store where the young lady behind the cash was knitting. I asked her where I could find wool, and she gestured vaguely along the main street. I wandered all over town and couldn't find the place, so I came back (bought a nice knitted hat for a shockingly small amount of money) and showed her the rather good map we'd been given on the boat. She couldn't read it! Had no idea how to make sense of it. What would her ancestors have thought?

Anyway, we liked Iceland. We're back again in a couple of days, stopping in Reykjavik, and I'm looking forward to it. So far it's a place we'd like to come back to. Maybe spend a couple of weeks near Akureyri exploring and getting to know the people a bit. So our list of places we'd like to go back to continues to get longer.

And now we are really in the middle of nowhere, on our second day at sea heading to Greenland. We finally had a glimpse yesterday of the North Atlantic my father experienced on corvette duty during WW II - near-gale winds and 2-3 meter waves. The biggest surprise so far has been the many birds - kitttiwakes and fulmars - following our boat even way out here. People say they've seen whales, but I've had to settle for the birds. Oh well.