9/30/2005
Vacation Part III...
The last part of the trip was, by far, the best. We caught a train back to Oslo. 6 comfortable hours sitting in the dinning car (much more room) where we got to see the mountain top route as opposed to the ground level (bus, boat) one we saw originally.
We get in late, catch another fast food dinner and crash in a new hotel. Next day we go to the airport to fly into the Arctic Circle. Our destination was the Lofoten Islands. Ranked by I forget who or what as the 2nd most beautiful islands in the world. I can only imagine what the winner looked like! The islands are at 68 degrees north. The southernmost point of Alaska is at 54.
We take a regular flight and connect to a prop plane the size of a bus with wings. That takes us for an hour and descends into a landscape that had me ready to jump out of the plane and get the touring started. Here's a shot from the plane.
We stayed in a traditional (and centuries old) fisherman cabin in a small island fishing village that's been converted to a bed and breakfast. The bedroom was a recess in the wall just big enough for the bed and a living room/kichenette about half the size of a dorm room. This was our headquarters for 4 glorious days of exploring the islands in our rental car.
This is the view from our hotel's dock.
The village (Henningsvar) main street.
Biggest misadventure here was trying to find the world's only permanent ice exhibit, a bar where everything (the bar, glasses, furniture and art) is made of ice. We went to a nice restaurant back at the main island on our anniversary and then proceeded to follow the very vague directions we received to the ice bar. No luck and we got seriously lost. Then the rain, the extremely cold rain mind you, began to fall. We got so lost we ended up lost after we gave up and were just trying to get back to the damn car! The one highlight was seeing a couple arctic foxes (more like their silhouettes) in the alleys.
Next night we found the freaking place. It was so empty (off season) that we met the owner and ended up getting a private tour. The sculptures are made by artists from around the world who come once a year to check on and maintain their creations. They love it because their other work always melts away so this is the only place they get to see how ice sculptures age. They also took us into the adjoining warehouse filled with whale meat. It was 30 below (celsius) in there. Despite multiple layers of clothing my body was ready drag itself out against my will if we'd stayed more than a minute.
One day was spent touring the whole archipelago by car. It was super cool day. We saw the world's largest viking building ever discovered (a chieftan's hall right out of Edoras), rolled up our pants and ran into the impossbly cold water at a beach, spent a few hours hiking up a fairy tale mountain above a tiny fishing village and arrived at the end of day at a village named after the last letter in the Norweigan alphabet. It was getting dark and cold but we walked out to the final point on the island where nothing but seabirds watch over the rocks that looked like a mountain fell over it's side into the sea. With the grey misty sky, the vanishing visibility and the cry of the birds, it really felt like you'd reached the end of the world. Nothing but a painfully long, dark drive down narrow as hell roads in pitch black awaited us now but it was worth it. The other activity we did while up there was kayaking the icy waters where killer whales hang out in the summer. Three fun hours, four tired arms. Especially since the calm wind and waves decided to get all biotchy on us for the retun leg. Still, it was an unbelievable view and a most unusual workout.
The biggest sidetrack of all happened when we tried to leave the islands. Our flight got cancelled due to bad weather so they raced us (all 8 passengers) to the only other airport (more like airfield) around. A very fast, very bumpy bus ride, followed by edge of your seat "Will we make the connection? If we don't, we'll miss our transatlantic flight tomorrow morning," fun followed by a late night train to crash in Oslo where we had no hotel reservations for one more night, wondering if the wakeup call could possibly be enough to get Lauki out of bed and to the airport in time wackiness. Oh yeah, and there was some "Bomb scare, no traffic being allowed out of the airport" thrown in for good measure.
All par for the course. Still, in case you couldn't tell (and I'm sure you can), we had an absolutely amazing time. Comic Book Guy voice, "Best Trip Ever"
Picture overload:
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9/26/2005
Back to the tale- After buying some extremely last minute tickets the night before, we headed off on the famed Norway in a Nutshell tour. What a day. A train, a bus and a boat took us through a Tolkein landscape that just got better and better as the day progressed.
It was a rock stupid adventure as bad weather the previous day forced several emergency changes in the itinerary. We were shoved into a bus full of Japanese tourists whom we had a great ride with for the middle leg. Lauki sat squished at the front of the bus (awesome view), with me in the jump seat of the stair well. At one point we were put on a ship and told, "There will be no bus for you to take at the next town. Thank You." Uh... ok? Rather than get stranded in that town, we had to run for a different ship that ended up taking us along the biggest fjord in the world. The pictures do not get across how mammoth the landscape was. It looked like a river 100 foot giants would live by. We hung out on the deck of the boat with a Japanese couple and a family from Minnesota. We were the only ones who toughed out the cold, very windy deck for the entire 6 hour ride.
At the end of it we were in Bergen with (drum roll) no hotel reservations. The first place I tried said, "There are no vacancies in Bergen."
Even better, it was raining cats and dogs as record rainfall swamped the city. As often, but not always, Lauki's luck held out and we got a room at a bay front hotel. Then the next day was bright and sunny.
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9/22/2005
First, a quick summary. 10 planes in 10 days. Not to mention two trains, a boat, a few buses, a rental car and two pairs of tired feet. That's what it took to see the East, West and North of the country.
Norway has the most amazing scenery I have ever seen. Nothing else (Andes, Alps, Canadian and American Rockies, Mediterranean or Caribbean) matches it. Something about the land up there just screams storybook more than reality. The pictures can't do it justice. Their were mountains with their roots in the ocean floor and their tops inside the clouds, lichen covered boulders, countless waterfalls, berries of all colors, mushrooms the size of your head and some of the worlds oldest rocks getting battered by crystal clear ocean water.
It was everything we hoped it would be, a lot of fun, a little adventurous and like a second honeymoon.
We set off at an ungodly morning hour to begin the 17 hours of airplanes and airports. I fell asleep during Kingdom of Heaven and am not entirely sure jet lag was the only reason. Stunning visuals but it couldn't hold my interest. Almost 5 hours at the Newark airport was as fun as it sounds. Laura took the opportunity to start the shopping early but made some great choices that came in handy later.
Oslo: We finally arrived in Oslo at about 10:00
AM. At this point we had two nights of hotel reservations for Oslo and plane tickets to islands in the Arctic. That was about it as far as set plans. I insisted we go out into the city to fight through jet lag right off the bat. Oslo is a cute, modest European capital (Half a million people) with a gorgeous harbor, bad weather, cute neighborhoods and a few stunning attractions. We walked Karl Johans Gate (the main drag) and ended up walking off the map to Vigeland Park, a park littered with art by Norway's most famous sculptor.
Next day was the must see stuff. On a bright, clear day we took the ferry to the penninsula that held the Viking Ship Museum (oh yes) and the open air folk museum littered with historic buildings you could walk into and around. The best was the 13th century stave church. The ships were the best part of the day though. I could have stayed in there all day in geek heaven.
During these days we also walked around the old fortress overlooking the harbor (see 1st picture above) and through parks around the royal palace. Our biggest misadventure at this phase was walking to that sculpture park. We ended up walking miles of residential neighborhoods and almost dying of hunger. We finally bought a pizza at a delivery type place that apparently had a 'You cannot sit in here' policy we didn't know about. With no other recourse, we sat down on a bench and enjoyed our pizza out of the box while locals passed us and gave us the 'Hello backpackers' look. It took so long that by the time we took the bus home that day (Day One) Laura was asleep and dreaming about two seconds after sitting down.
Our last day in Oslo was Willy Wonka Day. We'd met some Mormons on the bus who told us about the chocolate factory in town. Now the chocolate is great in Norway. I ate 2-3 extra large bars a day and lost weight. Needless to say we couldn't resist so set out on Day three to find it. After much walking through Oslo's ugliest neighborhood we got there. Turns out it's more of a working factory than tourist stop. In fact, they had no system of any kind for taking in tourists. The look on the security guard's face when Laura started speaking English was priceless. They had no idea what we were doing there. It was like two people from Japan trying to talk their way into a Mrs. Baird factory or something. Sadly, we were turned away at the gate. Luckily the Edward Munch Museum was somewhat nearby so we marched off and arrived an hour before they closed. How such a well managed country managed to let The Scream be stolen twice is beyond me. I hope they recover it but the employees weren't optimsitic. Here's my favorite variation of TS we saw there.
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9/09/2005
Here we go. Lauki getting ready for a trip is always rock stupidity incarnate. We leave early tomorrow morning and haven't packed a thing. No problem though, since I don't have appropriate clothing to pack anyway (cold and intermittently raining up there), I'm in no hurry.
Our major accomplishment last night was resisting the urge to buy an 80 hour playback digital recorder at the mall. Imagine the movies you could load that up with! That would certainly have made the 17 hours of travel easier to handle but good sense prevailed.
Things I need to do today after work:
-Drop some stuff off at our safety deposit box
-Mow the lawn
-Finish paying bills
-Pack
-Go to a wake (coworker I didn't work with long but who was a very nice person)
-Call my family
No problemo.
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9/01/2005
Given the horrific images we're seeing on the news right now (thoughts and prayers for everyone affected), I couldn't help but be reminded of the eerie way art can sometimes hold Hamlet's mirror up to the times. This happened two days ago when I went into Starbucks to pick up the new, and of course controversial, Dylan CD they're exclusively offering.
Anyway, the 1st track on the CD is A Hard Rain’s A Gonna Fall. So at all Starbucks across the nation, this song was playing over their loudspeakers as people sipped their coffee and read the paper. Select lyrics:
Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a white ladder all covered with water…
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children…
And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world…
Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
And the executioner's face is always well hidden...
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin'
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.
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