Month: March 2024

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Last Stop ’til the Russian Border!

When I first looked at the itinerary for this cruise, I was smitten with the idea of visiting lots of small Norwegian towns along the coastline. I envisioned quaint villages of some sort; I honestly had no idea what coastal Norwegian towns looked like. That provided me with some additional anticipation because I always look forward to experiencing things wherein I was previously clueless. Come to think of it, I look forward to a lot of things nowadays.

NordvaÌŠgen is a perfect example of what I wanted to see. It’s just a small fishing village with a fish processing plant and population of under 500 people. Our ship’s capacity is 640 passengers, which means that any time the ship docks, the population of the town more than doubles. I took notes in case I ever need to orchestrate an invasion of a town from a cruise ship. If all the old people pulled their weight I think we could win… that is as long as we all get potty breaks during the battle.

Tim and I wandered the streets separately gathering photos; the gals really didn’t want to brave the cold so it was up to their manly, burly, and heroic men to shoulder the sightseeing load. As you can see, it was obviously cold enough for the snow to pile up, which meant that it was quiet and beautiful. I love when you’re walking along and can only hear the crunch of your boots on the snow, and your labored breathing, and a weird sound from your chest that makes you wonder if you’re starting to have a heart attack.

The residents are obviously very used to the cold; there were as many people wandering around as I might’ve imagined in the summer as well. Note that these photos were taken around noon; the sun is something to be feared in these northern areas.

I saw a number of these clever transports, called a sparkstoetting or kick sled; you just walk behind it and slide your groceries, or dead body, or whatever you need to transport, along the snow. Plus they make great kindling in case of a snowdrift emergency.

Scandinavians are famous for leaving their babies outside, even in the bitter cold. They believe that fresh air and nature play a crucial role in a child’s health and development, and even healthy sleep patterns. I heard somewhere that the tradition may have started due to some ugly babies, whereby the parents hoped they’d get stolen thinking they had a bit too much troll blood in them. But most Norwegians don’t want to even broach that topic, at least based on the very rude expressions I received after I asked why Norwegians hate ugly babies. They do claim the whole thing even makes people more independent, which is why they believe so many leave home earlier than in other countries (yeah, nothing about it being due to being bad parents, which people who try and get their ugly babies stolen most certainly are). Based on the data that shows Scandinavians are generally happier and healthier than pretty much anyone else in the world, I’m not gonna argue with them about any of their customs, even if they have to raise the ugly kids too. I’m glad my parents did… otherwise I wouldn’t have had any brothers or sisters.

The style of their housing reminded me a bit of American housing, especially in the Pacific Northwest. There’s not really a specific style I can cite, especially since I wouldn’t know the building terms anyway because I forgot everything I learned in the architectural school I never went to, but they do use a lot of wood, probably on account of the trees, which is known to be a good source of wood. They also defy the European stereotype of having lots of ancient, charming buildings, mostly because everything got bombed during the war, plus the more ancient you get that far north, the more everything was made out of snow and didn’t last. Exploding igloos sure looked cool though.

I have to say that I have a hard time imagining very many towns in the world with less than 500 people in them looking as good as NordvaÌŠgen. The snow of course helped, but it’s just a sweet little town that wasn’t designed for tourism, but instead just to keep their population warm, safe, and comfortable.

I’m pretty sure at least half the vehicles we saw were either snow plows or tractors that moved piles of snow from one place to another. In July, the average high in NordvaÌŠgen is 56°F (13°C), and otherwise hovers around freezing during the winter months. I had a hard time finding data about how much snowfall NordvaÌŠgen gets –I suppose because the town is so small– but suffice it to say there was plenty while we were there. Snow wonder they get plowed!

As I wandered in the subzero cold, I marveled at this business that had its main door propped open like it was the middle of summer. I guess they need that natural air conditioning to get the temperatures close to freezing, where these hardy Norwegians are most comfortable.

I wanted to warn them that the cold was dangerous and if you exposed yourself to it long enough you might end up frozen solid like this poor chap, but I figured they must know what they are doing. Or maybe this is just how they bury people: they prop them up until spring comes then it’s a race to see which thaws first, the ground or the dead body. Anyway, this was obviously one of the ugly unstolen babies.

Screenshot

I was delighted to see this Danger Warning I received on my phone while I wandered about the town. It made me feel really good that even though I was a tourist from another country, if there was a big problem, like a landslide, a Russian invasion, or a herd of ugly babies wreaking havoc, I’d be made aware of it. The text was even in English! This is but one example as to the benefits received when a country invests in its infrastructure and really tries to look out for its citizenry. On the other hand, maybe they were just warning me that I had a bill from Vodafone; not having a working cell phone nowadays could certainly be called a threat to life and health.

Even in a town this small, they have a store that specializes in everything a man might want. I mean, what guy doesn’t want to walk into a store filled with nothing but man shjit? In English, moil means “hard work,” because real men don’t like nothin’ that didn’t take some effort. Hard work and man shijit: it’s what makes Norwegian men feel like Thor.

After that, we finally made it to Kirkenes (one of the cruise personnel told me it’s pronounced “Sheerkenes,” more or less), which is the Norwegian town closest to the Russian border. It was here, in Kirkenes, that I met up with my two CIA handlers, code-named Jim and Joe, who were assigned to assist in the Poo-Poo-Putin operation I’d been planning ever since I was invited on the cruise. BTW, if something should ever happen to me, Tim and Susan had no idea about the plan. They made a perfect cover story.

Not only are they a cute and loving couple, but I was able to use Susan’s coat as a landmark during an especially sensitive part of the operation. I was four miles out (6.4 km or 14,305 cubits) and was running out of hope until I saw a smudge of sunshine shimmering across the tundra. I will say that the coat isn’t great in the city… we were never sure if people were going to accelerate through the yellow light or come to a screeching halt thinking it’s about to turn red. Insurance rate increases followed Susan everywhere she walked.

The bus stopped along the way to let us enjoy these spectacular views. I think some of the scenery might be Russian, but it’s so hard to tell nowadays because once they stopped with the Communism all the red went away and so now it’s really hard to tell where Norway stops and Russia starts. I yelled “Putin sucks!” real loud just to see if I could see a flash from a weapon across the way. I wasn’t worried: everyone knows Russians are bad shots.

When I travel to another country, I’m always interested in two things: their housing and their grocery stores. I think it has something to do with my curiosity as to how people in other countries really live. I thought it was interesting that just minutes from the Russian border a town in the far north of Norway has houses that could be plopped down in the middle of a Portland, Oregon or Seattle, Washington neighborhood, and no one would think a thing of it, other than wondering why a pair of witch’s shoes were poking out from beneath the foundation.

This is actually a symbolic Russian/Norwegian border in the middle of a Kirkenes neighborhood. If I remember what our tour guide said, they use some buildings nearby as a place for meetings or negotiations or some such. Obviously the red post is for the Russian commies, and the yellow one symbolizes the sacred Norwegian yellow snow.

Speaking of yellow, this is a secondary school… I don’t know why I kept taking pictures of schools other than maybe they just stand out. It’s clear that Norway puts a lot of resources into education as well as the health and safety of its children, despite the cowardly paint job.

I finally made it to the undercover meeting place that was set up for Jim, Joe, and myself. Andersgrotta is perfect because it’s a WWII bunker and was named after one of my ancestors. “Grotta” means “cave” in Norwegian, so I have to think the Andersons around here go all the way back to the stone age.

Near Andersgrotta is a monument to Soviet soldiers. In this part of Norway, Norwegians tend to still be grateful that the Russians fought against the occupying Germans in WWII. The Norwegians actually had a great time of it all by setting up a bunch of grandstands where they drank aquavit and ate reindeer on a stick while watching the Soviets and Germans duke it out.

So here we are, smack dab in the middle of a typical Norwegian neighborhood, and amidst all that normalcy is a huge bomb shelter from World War II. The Nazis had bases in Kirkenes for their Kriegsmarine and the Luftwaffe, and it also served as a primary hub for supplies, so it was bombed mercilessly. Only 13 houses in Kirkenes survived the war, and one of those had a really ugly paint job. One bonus is that Kirkenes is one of the cleanest towns in the world, because they bombed the shit right out of all of it. Today, when you include the neighboring villages, the urban area of Kirkenes has about 8,000 people. During the war, as many as 70–100,000 Germans were billeted in the Kirkenes area at any given time. I’m guessing any Norwegian hookers alive back then made a fortune, even if they were ugly.

So down we went into the labyrinth. Being surrounded on all sides by solid rock was a bit eerie but at the same time I felt very safe, especially in case one of the Russian missiles intended for Ukraine accidentally ended up in Norway at that moment. After the war, the Norwegians built another shelter designed to withstand a nuclear blast, and in fact in the 1960s Kirkenes endured the repercussions from a Russian nuclear test near enough to the border to blow out most of the windows in the town. I have no idea if Russia sent over a window guy afterwards, but they sure should have!

Our tour guide provided all sorts of interesting details about the place, but one of the reasons I don’t do a lot of guided tours is because while I’m entertained and find it interesting at the time, the next day I can barely remember to put my pants on much less remember whatever a tour guide said. Besides, I was rather preoccupied with my impending meeting with Jim and Joe.

I can’t go into a lot of detail because it’s highly classified, but my instructions were to find the rock signed by a Norwegian king and then follow the nearby sign until I see the “frozen water reaching the sky.” Jim and Joe were always so dramatic.

Not only dramatic, but sometimes I question their intelligence. You tell me, do I go left or right?

Fortunately, with a bit of luck and choice words for Jim and Joe, I did find the frozen water thing, but only after dodging a huge rolling rock and hopping over stepping stones amidst a pit full of snakes. I finally met up with my Russian invasion crew where we finalized our top secret plans for my infiltration and to knock out Putin. The plan was to ––––Remaining text redacted by order of the CIA––––

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Why Walt Disney should have hired Adolf Hitler

Our cruise ship made a stop in Svolvær, which I assumed would be very crowded because they don’t even have the room to put a space between the “a” and the “e” in their town name, but I didn’t get much of a chance to prove that because a very interesting museum was only a short distance from the ship, and once I entered those doors I was sucked into history like I’d entered a time machine.

On this nondescript street sits an entrance you can easily miss. There’s just a little sign with the word “museum” built into it to give you a clue. I only knew of this place’s existence from the ship’s crew, who offered it up as an idea in a town where the cruise line didn’t otherwise offer any excursions. None of my fellow sailors had the same level of interest I had in the museum, so I meandered over there on my own.

As soon I walked through the door I could see that it wasn’t just another run-of-the-mill museum. Artifacts were piled everywhere, looking more like the inside of a storage shed than a museum presentation. The owner/operator sat quietly behind his desk, reading a book. I realized I was the only customer in the place, so I glanced around quickly to make sure I hadn’t inadvertently walked into some sort of secret Nazi recruitment nest. The owner didn’t say much, but he took my money and waved casually at the collection, inviting me to simply wander around.

I promptly discovered that this was easily the most extensive collection of World War II memorabilia, especially the Nazi kind, that I’d ever encountered. The stockpile is mostly the result of one man’s obsession, and included uniforms galore, as well as bombs, weapons, medals, magazines, Nazi Christmas ornaments, photos, and other miscellany, all chock-a-block in a space that at first seemed small, but actually had numerous rooms in which to explore.

When I came across this drawing of Dopey, I wondered if it was from some sort of propaganda poster poking fun at Hitler. So I asked the taciturn owner/operator about it, and he immediately brightened up and came over to explain.

According to him, these are originals drawn by Hitler. He admitted that the Disney characters couldn’t be verified 100%, but with the “AH” initials on them plus the fact that Adolf apparently had his own copy of Disney’s Snow White, made him feel fairly certain that these were drawn by the Fuhrer. I’m familiar with some of Hitler’s other art, and the house watercolor certainly evokes the other work I’ve seen. Oh, how much less misery might the world have experienced if Hitler had somehow just become an artist instead of a mass murderer? Walt Disney, where were you when we needed you?

Here’s a close up of the initials and the signature. I didn’t want to peer in too closely at them fearing that the stink of evil might somehow permeate my skin. Actually, the truth is that apparently Adolf was, for example, pretty playful around kids. I mean, no person sits stewing in an evil broth 24/7 no matter how disgusting they are. This particular epitome of evil could draw, he liked cartoons, and could even be charming when he wasn’t planning genocide. None of that, of course, in any way makes up for his murderous ways, I’m just saying no one is completely nefarious all of the time. For example, it’s hard to look all tough and evil when you’re eating Fruity Pebbles breakfast cereal, or sitting on the toilet.

I’ll admit that it was a little unnerving to be surrounded by all of those swastikas as well as other artifacts and imagery from such an unfathomably heinous time. But I’m a strong believer in making sure we remember history. As I write this, an increasing number of radical right wing groups are making inroads into more and more countries’ politics. I think some of this happens partly because as WWII fades into history, too many forget how easy it was to convince, for instance, a comparatively well-educated populace in Germany that an ethnic group which made up less than one percent of their populace was not only responsible for their losing WW I, but that the price the group would have to pay for being the target of such misplaced and preposterous blame would be the killing of as many of them as possible, even those from other countries. Why are people so easily manipulated to support and believe this kind of thing? It’s mystifying. It’s madness.

Today, many people can’t even see the hypocrisy of merging extreme right wing nationalism and religious themes like Christmas. In the United States, the same kind of cult of personality that led to Hitler has reared its ugly head as the world looks on in astonishment. I mean, c’mon, the calculus is simple: if hate and disdain is an important part of any ideology, or politician, or your usual source of information, run away! Hatred never leads to anything good, and stopping hate starts with each of us. In fact, I’d love to make this deal with anyone: if you happen to be following or supporting a politician that, for example, refers to any group of other human beings, much less your fellow citizens, as, let’s say, “vermin,” you will agree to support someone else. Deal? Deal. Because remember, the only thing anyone does with vermin is exterminate them.

Okay, sorry, I had to vent. It’s scary out there, especially with things like Putin’s invasion of Ukraine looking an awful lot like what Germany did to start World War II. We need museums like this to remind us what happens when hate takes center stage. I mean, c’mon, 75 million people died due to World War II. That’s like executing every man, woman, or child currently living in the UK, or France (in fact, any country in the world other than the top 20 or so in population), with room left over for an additional six million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and whoever else was different than them. Madness!

After I saw the extent of the collection I approached the proprietor again with some questions. Once he learned that I had a reasonable amount of knowledge about that era, he began to regale me with stories, including one I found a little hard to believe.

According to him, Hitler most likely escaped from Germany by using a combination of body doubles and pre-arranged underground transportation that eventually landed him in Argentina. When I asked him about the fact that Hitler was seriously ill near the end of the war, he claimed that it was all an act, and that he firmly believed Hitler had lived on for quite a few years after 1945.

I listened to the narrative with a major dollop of skepticism. It flies in the face of pretty much every public piece of information out there, all of which point to Hitler’s suicide. But my host had a whole big book that explained in detail how it all might have been pulled off. Obviously, no one can be 100% certain either way, but my new friend was pretty certain about it all, and of course I didn’t feel like arguing with someone who probably knows more about the Nazis than anyone I’ve ever met.

Anyway, as I told him, none of it matters anymore because obviously Hitler is dead now, so whatever time he had after the end of World War II or beyond is now irrelevant. But people from every political spectrum seem to love conspiracy theories. I’m not sure why, since the track record for truth in conspiracy theories is pretty damn dismal. From vaccines carrying tracking devices to stolen elections to flat earthers to holocaust deniers to Hillary sex trafficking children out of the basement of a pizza parlor that had no basement, some people apparently just can’t stop believing in weird shit.

Speaking of which, this photo will probably start a rumor than I’m a skinhead, but I was actually trying to display my disapproval for the image behind me. Somehow it didn’t come out quite as intended.

I’m sorry this entry wasn’t filled with my usual frivolity, but I guess I get a little grumpy when I see humanity continuing to go down roads that lead to such guaranteed misery. We have the proof people, so just stop it! Achtung! Achtung! Avoid those land mines!

Whew! What a downer! But I can still finish this entry up by drawing from my inventory of photos taken from the ship. I know, I know, once you’ve seen one fjord, you buy a Chjevy (there’s my token dad joke at least, courtesy of my oldest son), but at least nature reminds us that no matter how mean and insane some people can get, there’s always beauty somewhere, even in a drawing of a fairy tale character by Adolf Hitler.

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We Lost Our Marbles in Norway

I don’t know about you, but I never gave a lot of thought as to the source of marble. I suppose I figured there were simply marble quarries here and there and that was that. So when I saw “Visit a Marble Mine” on the cruise excursion list, I was all over that like a shooter lining up a dead duck (you would only understand that if you played marbles as a kid). I played marbles a little bit way back when, but my parents made me stop after a slight misunderstanding about how one obtains more cat’s eyes. Anyway, it turns out that only 5% of the world’s marble is actually mined from mines, so that means there’s a 95% chance you didn’t know about marble mines. I think that’s the way the new math works.

The excursion began with a bus ride into the Norwegian countryside. The excursion was supposed to take us on the Atlantic Road, apparently one of the most beautiful roadways in the world, but we wouldn’t have known either way because it was almost always nighttime where we were. The bus stopped to take us on a scenic walk but it was, y’know, dark, so we didn’t see a lot, but what we could and did see was beautiful and peaceful. The monument you see above has a headline that translates to: “In memory of those who died at sea.” I believe that underneath it says, “I died a gruesome, painful, and lonely death in an icy cold ocean and all I got was this lousy monument.”

And no, we didn’t see this scene from the expedition brochure.

But we did see the tunnel leading into the Bergtatt Marble Mine from the bus. While “visiting a marble mine” hadn’t made it onto my bucket list (had I even thought of it, it still would have only qualified for my canister list, which, as everyone knows, is a less important container than a bucket), it was still strangely interesting, and almost disconcerting, to be driving into the side of a mountain, especially without the usual accompaniment of “Hi ho! Hi ho! It’s off to work we go!” I mean, I tried, but all the other tourists just looked at me like I had lost my marbles and Carolyn kept whacking me telling to shut up.

Once we disembarked, they suited us up in hard hats and life vests. Life vests you ask? Well, this particular marble mine has a river running through it, so the mine tour is provided via watercraft. So we got to be sailors and miners in one fell swoop! (Fell swoop is a weird phrase. Stare at it and repeat it: Fell swoop. Fell swoop. Weird. Although it wouldn’t be a bad name for a rock band. “And heeeeeere’s Fell Swooooooooop!” The crowd goes wild!)

The watercraft looked more like crates than boats, but I assumed they were sea-worthy -er, mine-worthy -er, river-in-a-mine-worthy. Anyway, these caves were created by the water and mining and they are still mining in other parts of the mountain, but this section was turned into a tourist attraction and a concert venue as well as being a great place to hide a dead body.

So off we sailed into the depths of the mountain, feeling rather like the dwarfs in Lord of the Rings, except taller, and less swarthy, and mostly not fictitious, and glad that we weren’t instead feeling anything like one of the dwarfs in Snow White, mostly because the Lord of the Rings dwarfs could kick their butts, which would give a whole new meaning to the name “Bashful.”

Gimli and Glóin.

While the rafts sailed through the mountain, peaceful music wafted over us from deep within the caves. I think the song was “Sweet Child of Mine,” albeit with violins and no singing and with a completely different set of notes and no guns or roses anywhere. But it has “mine” in the title so they should have. I actually thought about the “It’s a Small World” boat ride from Disneyland as we meandered through the still water, although I was extremely grateful that they didn’t play that particular song. It’s the mother of all earworms.

Apparently the marble –”It’s a small world after all!”– from this particular mine is a lot denser than the marble they usually use for statues so it normally takes too long to create a statue from this particular marble, -“It’s a small world after all!”- so when they do of course they use it to make a woman with her boob hanging out. Psssht, men… am I right?

The ceiling was occasionally low enough –”It’s a small world after all!”– to bonk your head if you weren’t careful, ergo the hard hats. So these are close-ups as to what marble looks like before it’s mined as well as what my head looks like post-bonk. “It’s a small world after all!”

They showed off some marble creations which they could make because they weren’t going to sell them so it didn’t matter if it took forever to make, but get this: most of the marble mined here is actually used to make glossy paper. –”It’s a small world after all!”– Who would’ve thunk? Like the origins of marble, I hadn’t given a lot of thought as to how glossy paper is made (my friend Mark Meyer would know though, since he’s a paper maven). So when I heard that, I was astonished. Amazed. Astounded. “It’s a small world after all!” Dumbfounded. Verklempt. And ready to blow my brains out if I hear “It’s a small world after all!” in my head one more time. I’m just sayin’, if this is my last blog entry you’ll know why.

At the end of the tour, we were served some marble soup (I think) and a viewing of a promotional and educational nature from Bergtatt Opplevelser, the mining company. That hall is also where they have some concerts. I was a little baffled as to how well a concert might work there because I couldn’t understand most of what they were saying, and it was even mostly in English (I think). It all sounded rather echo-y. The video production and presentation was also kind of cutely amateurish, as if some miners had put it all together one drunken night without the help of anyone who knew anything about making a presentation. But they meant well (despite the depiction of the Nazi salute there on the screen), and overall we had a good time.

As a result of our trip inside a marble mine, Carolyn now wants to decorate our next kitchen like this. At least with this, we won’t ever lose our marbles! She proofreads and works on these blogs with me so I’m anticipating a big whack on my shoulder after she reads that she wants this kitchen.

I’ll finish up this entry with a short tour of Hammerfest, voted by me as one of the top five city names in all the world. No one screws with anyone from Hammerfest, even if they were only educated in a videregÃ¥ende skole (which means high school). The school doesn’t need a mascot. As soon as any rival school sees the word Hammerfest they pretty much run away screaming with their hands over their heads. Also, notice the straight lines on the hill? Those are to help prevent avalanches. Landslides and avalanches are the natural hazards in Norway responsible for most losses of human life. I believe killing oneself due to It’s a Small World earworms comes in third.

As you can see, not only is it somewhat industrial –Norway is awash in oil and gas resources and has done an outstanding job of protecting them for the benefit of all Norwegians– but the town itself is just as cute as a bug, with snow-covered houses covering the hills overlooking where the Norwegian Sea meets the Barents Sea for a spot of tea. Hammerfest is pretty much at the tippy top of Norway, making it the northernmost town called Hammerfest in the entire world.

That also made it one of the colder places on our trip, hitting 17°F (-8°C) while we were there. So we donned our green sausage coats and inspected the local ambulance before walking a couple of hundred meters to a monument and then slinking back to the ship, where we stomped the snow and ice from our boots and and loudly demanded hot chocolate.

The monument itself is a “meridian column” (there goes another thing off the bucket list!) and commemorates the scientific measurements needed to see how obese the earth has become and whether it needs to go on a diet. Speaking of which, do you know the only large country (as opposed to all those small island countries where they give birth to pre-sumos) with a higher obesity rate than the United States? Kuwait. Maybe they should stop kuwaiting for take-out.

As you can see the views and scenery from the area around the monument was absolutely gorgeous, so both the marker and the scenery made it a monumental visit despite the brevity of the stop.

And off we sailed again into the wild dark blue yonder, ready for our next excursion while viewing scenes like the below from the comfort of our ship, hot chocolate in hand and “It’s a small world after all!” worming around in my brain. Dammit!

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It’s a Small World after all!

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Northern Lights: Awesome or Aurora Bored-ealis?

As you can see by the photo, our bucket list is starting to look a little worse for wear. So far we’ve crossed off about 20 countries, 18 waterfalls, 342 cathedrals, and 3 shoe stores from the list, so all that’s left is some odds and ends, such as neutralizing Putin and refraining from dying.

As a result of our Norwegian cruise, I now have to scrub “See the Northern Lights” off the bucket. The next one up is: “Run into a crowded bar screaming ‘WHAT YEAR IS IT?'” But I think I want to wait to do that in an American bar because I don’t think most Portuguese would be able to understand my tortured Portuguese. Especially in Screaming Mode. Besides, I don’t think I can put enough panic into “Em que ano estamos?” They’d probably just think I was really a clueless American and offer me some vodka to calm me down. Okay, it’d definitely be worth it for the vodka, so Portugal may hear from me yet, at least until I kick that bucket.

Anyway, if you’re anything like me, and God help you if you are, you’ve probably heard the terms “See the Northern Lights” or “Shoot an apple off someone’s head” or “Do something dangerously stupid in front of a camera” hundreds of times and never really gave them a lot of thought except that of course they should be on everyone’s bucket list.

But just in case one of your bucket list items is also: “know someone who saw the Northern Lights,” you’re in luck! Here follows our firsthand account of seeing the Northern Lights for the very first time:

The four of us were sitting at our table eating dinner when a voice suddenly blared over the loudspeaker: “The Northern Lights are visible! The Northern Lights are visible! Stampede immediately!”

While those may not have been the exact words, that seems to be what everyone on the ship heard. You’d think that they’d just announced the hot fudge sundae dispenser at the buffet had just been fixed the way everyone jumped out of their seats and started running. Except it was the kind of running you do to make it look like you’re walking because you’re embarrassed to be seen actually running, but everyone in the entire world can tell that you are in fact sprinting.

Of course, here I’m poking fun at my fellow passengers while the truth is we were speed-walking our way to the exits with the best of them. I was surprised at it all because I had thought we were the only people on the ship who really, really wanted to see the Northern Lights. Boy was I wrong! During the mad dash to the door someone got their finger stuck in my ear and someone else took a bite out of one of my socks, but we eventually got outside with minimal blood loss.

Once we hit the freezing wind, all hell really broke loose. The announcer forgot to add, “And baby it’s coooold outside!” to the announcement, so when dozens of excited tourists careened onto a deck coated with ice, there was slipping and sliding, skating and flopping, and cursing and screaming galore. People were falling on top of each other and generally looking like a school of freshly caught tuna being poured onto a deck, all just to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights. (Truthfully, one lady apparently hurt her arm during the scramble. It was a little bit amusing to watch the mayhem from off to the side, as long as no one got seriously hurt. Which means, I suppose, that being funnily hurt is okay.)

Once the wounded were carted off and the hoopla died down, we gingerly tip-toed our way outside in order to see Miss Aurora. I had snapped only the single photo above of the developing riot before I began worrying that my forehead might end up getting tattooed with the outline of a shoe tread, so I missed out on more exciting images, sorry about that. But to give you an honest feel for what it was like: the ship was pitching badly back and forth in fairly rough seas, the icy wind was hitting our faces like a frozen sledgehammer, thick ice covered the deck, and there was a crowd of people all trying to get through a door and out into the ice all at once while wearing street shoes and trying to keep their balance while holding their phones aloft. So yeah, it was a miracle there weren’t some fatalities.

So did you see that previous small photo with all those colors filling the entire sky? Well we sure didn’t, that’s not my photo. Not that it was totally uninteresting, but this gray smudge is more or less what we saw at first.

I mean, it’s not really much of an eyeful, is it? We thought maybe our vision was just pulling a yolk on us or something, as you can see by the zoom-in gathered from one of our selfies. Egg-xactly.

What we learned very quickly is that what you see with the naked, or nude, eye is a bit different than what you see with the clothed eye. Not sure about the egged eye. I’m scrambling to whip up a better comment, but I’m too chicken to poach from someone else, so I’ll have to come out of my shell and hatch a new plan.

BTW, Carolyn made me promise never to use that image again. It is kinda mega creepy, which is why I laugh maniacally whenever I use it.

Back to reality: by clothed eye, I mean what digital photography sees and takes a picture of. For example, below are two similar photos, one showing what it’s like to see with the naked, or nude, eye, the other from the lens of an iPhone. In layman’s terms, the digital magranometers in the lenses of the phone adjust their paleintelogic sensors automatically to the refractional deltoids from the atmospheric thrombosii, thereby reducing the spectrumized dilation continuums into a more visible spectrum. At least that’s how it seems to me.

One looks like maybe a faint cloud, the other looks like what a faint cloud might look like on Planet Everything’s Green.

Here’s another good example. So what we actually saw looked basically like clouds at night. As soon as we held up our phones, they turned green on the screen, kind of like those science fiction movies where you only see the aliens in their true form by looking through the bottom an old bottle of Prell shampoo. “You can tell with Prell!” went the anti-alien government ad.

Which doesn’t mean the lights weren’t interesting and worth a backdrop in a photo of me even though I look like I probably did when my 6th grade teacher promised me a big prize for winning a race and all I got was a bag of four mostly unchewed gummy bears and a button that said “Winer!” that they got at a discount because of the misspelling (at least I hope it was a misspelling) and so I’m paying Sister Koppert back by writing a big-ol’ run-on sentence, take that Sister Grammar Nazi! Also, I don’t think my beard was gray in the 6th grade.

So while the lights weren’t unimpressive, they mostly served one main purpose: Cross one more item off our bucket list.

Someone asked me if we could see any other colors besides green in the lights. As you can see here, there is a bit of tinge of red, and you could kinda see that with your naked, or nude, eye. I imagine that every viewing of the Aurora Borealis is different from minute to minute and place to place. We got the Beginner’s Aurora Borealis. It was, after all, our first shot at it, so it’s understandable that they reserved the good stuff for the professionals.

I did drive myself a little batty trying to figure out why I thought someone might be in trouble while I shot this photo, but I couldn’t quite figure out why I felt that way.

Anyway, here are the best of the rest of the photos we shot over a two-night period. The second night went a lot better since the Aurora Borealis was brighter and all the troublemakers were still in hospital beds. But mostly, we were now a shipful of experienced Borealis watchers, so when they announced it again, only one knucklehead leapt up and started to run for the exits, until he noticed he was the only one. He stopped suddenly, looked around, and with some poorly covered-up sheepishness, walked quickly into the men’s room instead. I kinda really did have to go, though.

The rush to the bathroom story makes me want to finish off this entry with a very serious commentary on some problems with getting older, which everyone except the dead is doing simultaneously. It’s just that some of us bellyache about it all a lot more. And yes, this has everything to do with Norway, a country that managed to disappoint me greatly despite it’s wonderful scenery, delightful people, first-rate social structure, and perfect town names.

I just want to say that it’s no easy feat to make it to 65 years of age. In fact, no one in the history of the world who died when they were 64 or younger ever made it to 65, and so obviously I’m a lot better than billions of other people. Which is why I should get discounts.

As you lurch, stumble, stagger and wallow your way into your 60’s, you learn that grunts are a necessary accompaniment to mundane tasks such as shoe tying, turning your head, or beginning to lift one foot up so you can get out of bed. You also learn that Toilet Location Awareness (what us seniors know as TLA) becomes a vital survival strategy for virtually everywhere you go, including a quick run to the grocery store or a walk into your garage. Or when you’re rolled into the inside of an MRI scanner and they tell you the whole scan is going to take 1-1/2 hours, so you panic just a little wondering if you can hold everything for that long. And then you wonder if there are senior discounts on MRIs. And then you forget what you were wondering about other than why MRIs have to be so freakin’ loud.

You also wonder how it is that some of your aches and pains can suddenly develop their own personal aches, and even your grunts get their own grunts because, y’know, grunting takes effort. Body parts start falling off so often you’re constantly checking the ground behind you in case it’s something you still might need. So when you hit 65 you think woohoo! At least now I can get a discount on a meal at a Denny’s restaurant, or a euro/buck off a movie ticket, or even just to sit in a seat beneath a sign showing the outlines of a handicapped person, a pregnant woman, and a man with one foot inside a coffin. Oh such wonderful rewards almost makes all this grunting worth it!

But not if you’re Norwegian. In Norway, apparently you have to wait another 2 years to enjoy all of those benefits. That really sucks! You know how many people die between 65 and 67? I can’t imagine dying before I get my Denny’s discount. Now I’m terrified of dying within the next two years. It’s like waiting your whole life to go to Disneyland and when you finally get there you suddenly keel over, your life force ebbing out of you just long enough for you to understand your life has been a complete failure because you never even got to ride the teacups. The horror! The horror!

So yeah, Norway, you’ve disappointed me. I worked diligently to avoid dying in order to get to 65. Raising the bar to 67 is like lifting the tennis net just as the victor jumps over it. Now I have to wait until my next entry to know whether I’m going to forgive you. (Hint: I do.)

Lastly, I can’t forget to use up some more of our regular views from the ship. I can’t let them just sit and rot in my computer without being seen by my reader! (Hi mom!)

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