Month: April 2024

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From Norway to Runway to our Doorway

With our Norwegian cruise and its excursions completed, we were returned to Bergen where we spent a last day and night. We were delighted to see the charming city once again and looked forward to just wandering around the town catching whatever we’d missed the first time. While doing so, we ran into this entrance to the funicular, which I think is so-named just to make it seem like you were really having fun when in fact you’re just riding a small train. It’s like telling your kid, “Don’t worry, we’re just going to the Funtist!”

This is the entrance to the funicular. According to their website, the Fløibanen funicular is one of Norway’s best-known and most visited attractions (and Bergen’s most popular), but is also the natural means of transport for people living on the mountainside and for the kindergartens on Fløyen. The journey up to Fløyen (320 m above sea level) takes about 5–8 minutes, and is definitely more fun than going to the funtist.

While it’s called a funicular, the fun really doesn’t start until you get to the top. While we intended just to ride up for a quick look-see and return back fairly quickly, we ended up spending most of the day up there, reveling in the snowy sights and landscapes. It was quite spectacularly beautiful, and we didn’t want to leave it.

I did notice this obviously homeless woman sleeping on the funicular. I put a ten euro note in her pocket just to make sure she’d at least have a meal later.

We were a little bemused at the Bergentonians response to the snow. We would’ve thought they were so used to it that it would be just one more day for them. But, it turns out that this much snow isn’t all that common in Bergen, so the Norwegians were out in force, taking their skis up the funicular like it was just any other ski lift.

Up and up we went, until the views of Bergen literally took our breath away. Of course, that could’ve been from walking up a few stairs. We often end up looking all over the place to see where they put our breath nowadays.

Our first order of business was to check out the signposts to see where we should head. We decided the North Pole was a little too far, so we just camped out at the top of Mount Fløyen as it were.

We also thought to check with tourist help desk, but they were closed, I think on account of the snow, which meant they could have a lot more fun outside than sitting behind a stupid counter. However, as you can see the instructions on the door were quite clear and extensive. Visiting a Troll forest has always been on my bucket list (duh- like anyone with a bucket), so I was excited to go see the trolls and maybe feed them some babies or something.

At the top of the fun ride we found something akin to a small ski resort, with a cafe and gift shop and a hotel or some such that was under reconstruction, as well as some famous goats who apparently live somewhere else when it snows so all we had were some signs indicating that there were famous goats. I was bummed that we missed out on some famous goat autographs. I was really looking forward to seeing a “baaaa” on a piece of paper. I guess I just have to settle for being an old goat.

Kids in Norway learn how to ski even before they’re given thousand-dollar iPhones (crazy, right?). They are cute as buttons as well as future Olympic cross country skiing champions.

Suddenly we found ourselves needing some insulin with the infusion of all this cuteness. This St. Bernard was on hand to deliver rum to stranded skiers so they’d die a little quicker from hypothermia. It’s a little known fact that Norwegians have nothing but disdain for people who get lost in the snow, so all they offer as assistance is a fluid to lower their body temperature. At least the stranded people get a cute dog to look at as they drift off to Valhalla.

Speaking of sweet, here’s a statue partially covered in snow, and I’ll give you three guesses as to what it even is. Look closer. Figure it out yet? Nope, it’s not that. I already gave you a hint. Okay, okay, I’ll tell you. It’s an ice cream cone. I guess this one is snow-flavored. The store itself was closed on account of the idea that no one wants to walk around in the snowy cold eating an ice cream cone. Except me. I definitely would eat an ice cream cone anywhere, even at the South Pole. That’s why they made hell a hot place, part of the torture is watching ice cream melt before you can eat it.

I expressed my disappointment at the whole ice cream thing by first trying to throw myself into the recycling bin (I didn’t fit… I guess it’s all that ice cream), and then hiding behind a tree, and finally throwing a tantrum on a snow-covered table.

Carolyn offered up no sympathy, so I eventually gave up on my pouting and sat on the snow. And they said buttal frostbite wouldn’t be fun…

Meanwhile Carolyn took advantage of the free attractions. I’m sure this costs a lot more in the summer, so we were very happy to be there in the winter when the high fives were free.

The scenery was just so beautiful, and it was so calm and quiet and serene. We were content to simply wander about taking pictures and reveling in the splendor. We took so many pictures that while working up this blog entry it took me a long time just to whittle these scenic views above to a sweet 16. Good thing I’m retired!

I didn’t have as much luck whittling down my “city views,” I was only able to get it down to 21. You gotta admit, they’re all sure purrrty though. Bergen looks quite expansive from up there. It is the second-largest city in Norway after Oslo, with just under 300,000 people.

We ended up spending most of the day simply enjoying the quiet and scenery until we realized the sun had begun setting, even though it was only three in the afternoon. So we decided to stay for the sunset and take a few more pictures. We eventually discovered that a setting sun in Norway takes about as long to complete as it takes Donald Trump to set his hair every morning. As a result, we captured hundreds of more pictures: perhaps every possible variation and placement of the sun in the sky over Bergen. The above are the top twelve, picked mostly by using a combination of my sunny disposition and random finger pointing.

A visit to any decent ski resort always deserves a little hot chocolate and whipped cream (some of which I saved for later). I gotta tell ya, even though that day was spent doing almost nothing but enjoying the scenery, it was one of our most memorable and enjoyable days on the trip, or maybe any trip. Just magical!

So I have to finish up our Norwegian adventure with some assorted signs I got a kick out of:

I love the way Europeans often spare no details when it comes to bodily functions, especially compared to Americans. Americans enjoy plenty of potty humor, but not a lot of humor in the potty, if you know what I mean. Anyway, I’m pretty sure most bathroom cleaning personnel in the world would really like it if this image was above every toilet. I must say it looks like that guy is peeing after a long night of drinking and debauchery, or maybe the artist was some teen-aged boy’s mother. Either way gentlemen, we really should aim to please!

This is the name of a clothing store. I don’t think livid means what they think it means. Out of curiosity, I translated “livid” from Norwegian to English. The answer? “Livid.” Well, I guess livid sounds cool if you don’t know what it means, although the potential advertising line of “I only shop Livid” is a little awkward.

It’s nice when they offer up pre-programmed responses to common questions, such as, “Did you see where my wife went?”

Smidesang specializes in strategic communications, like lying.

Their honesty in advertising also extends to making sure their customers know their bathrobes are bad. It’s nice to know that ahead of time. And that’s no kjøkken.

Kvik, find me another kjoke!

You might be wondering why I took a picture of a guy standing on an escalator (ignore the woman, she’s collateral photo damage). It’s actually a pretty funny story. So while we were waiting for our plane I wandered around the airport and noticed this escalator that wasn’t working. I began thinking of ways to have some fun with it (you know, for the blog) when this guy walks up and solves my problem. WIth his face buried in his phone, he steps onto the unmoving escalator. He takes a step or two up slowly, still engrossed in his phone, and then stops. He has no idea the escalator isn’t moving. So I watched him for a while and took this shot. He just stood and stood thinking he was moving toward the next floor. Finally I thought, “okay, I’ve got to get this on video.” So of course just as I get the video capture pulled up he finally realizes he’s been standing on an unmoving escalator and starts to walk up. So, no video, you’ll just have to take my word for it. The whole thing is funny, but it’s also a little sad, eh?

On a more serious note, on the hotel airport bus we noticed that they had a built-in child’s safety seat. Genius! In our travels, I must say we saw a lot of little things that demonstrate the importance the Scandinavian cultures place on the safety and education of their children. Just one of the many reasons Scandinavia is leading the way in the advancement of human culture. God knows we could use more of that nowadays!

Our plane got delayed a bit because of… snow. Something I wouldn’t have thought you’d ever say in a country like Norway!

Ok, after all those samplings of views from the ship that I began putting at the end of all my Norway blog entries, I still had, literally, 284 more to go. Oy vey! I whittled them down to thirty, whereby I finally gave up and thought what the hell, I can put all thirty up since it doesn’t cost me any more to show more photos. It’s just hard to say no to beauty, even if you’ve already seen similar, y’know?

And so we said goodbye to Norway. It was truly the trip of a lifetime, amidst a lifetime that is becoming full of trips of a lifetime. We are truly blessed. Our thanks go out to Tim and Susan Darcy, who invited us on this cruise and never made us regret a minute of it. If Tim and Susan come a-knockin’, say yes!

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The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!

If you haven’t seen The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming, I encourage you to give it a watch. It’s a madcap comedy from 1966 that, thanks to Putin’s illegal and disgusting invasion of Ukraine, has almost as much political relevance today as it did when it was released.

The plot involves a Russian submarine accidentally running aground on US soil, resulting in misunderstandings and a bit of mayhem. In my case I was planning to very un-accidentally land in Russia and intentionally create a little mayhem with my fellow spies Jim and Joe in order to straighten out that Putiny nincompoop once and for all.

My first order of business was to create a disguise. As you can see here, I transformed myself into a Russian military officer; officially, Polkovnik (which means “Colonel”) Boris Gleb of the Russian Armed Forces. Combined with the ever-blooming beard I grew for the Norwegian cold, you can see that I was barely recognizable. Yes, that’s really me! Also, I thanked my lucky stars that I took that nine week elective Russian language course in the 7th grade. At the time I had no idea that I’d have to remember all of it 50 years later just so I could sneak into Russia and give Putin a spanking he’d never forget.

The first sign we encountered quickened my pulse, because I knew I wasn’t going to follow any of their stinkin’ rules. I looked for separate signs that would specifically cover the rules for spies, but since there were none, I got the message loud and clear: bring it on dude.

Oh I’ll be so bringin’ it on, Mr. Dude-tin, so much so that even your ears’ll be bringing, or um, ringing. Yeah, you, Mr. Pute-butt, Mr. Stupid Invasioner guy with a turdy face and bad breath! I’m coming for you, you Stalin-lovin’ pile of unwashed socks! And I’ll make my wife fart in your general direction while I do! Plus, your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!

The tour actually took us to two different border crossings, which was a big help in terms of how I was going to sneak in. With two crossings to watch, that means Russia would have only half the manpower at each. My confidence grew! I scoffed at the “It is illegal to cross the border” threats. By the way, do you know what the difference between unlawful and illegal is? Unlawful is when something is against the statutes passed by the governing body of the terrority, and illegal is just a sick bird. And no sick bird was gonna keep me from my mission! Polkovnik Boris Gleb was on his way!

These are the official border markers. What I wanted to know is who actually owns the land between the markers. The border between Norway and Russia is just under 200 kilometers long. I’d say there’s about a two meter separation between those posts. Meaning that there are 400 total kilometers of land that essentially no one’s claiming. Accordingly, before I left, I had the green sign produced and declared the strip of land Andersonvilletonland, a free nation. Sure, maybe it has no residents to speak of, but we do have a couple of very handsome reindeer, a can-do attitude, yellow snow exports, and designs on constructing our own nuclear arsenal, at least as soon as Amazon.nk delivers the do-it-yourself nuclear bomb kit I ordered.

Long live Andersonvilletonland! I’m working on an anthem as we speak.

This is the main border crossing. If it looks somewhat abandoned, it may have something to do with a little thing called genocide currently being committed by Ptooey-tin. Despite that, Russia and Norway did reach an agreement to allow certain crossings of the border, by fishermen and families, for instance. But Norway did tell Russia in no uncertain terms that if they drive up in an old pick-up with a nuclear missile strapped to the bed and a fuse dangling from the back with Wile E. Coyote holding a match nearby, they will be very annoyed, and will place an immediate call to the CEO of Acme.

I had Tim and Susan pose for some pictures in order to distract the Russian surveillance team. I knew that watch tower on the hill was tracking our every move, but there’s no way they could see anything else except that yellow coat when looking through their viewfinders. In the tradecraft, we call that Yellow-Coat-Blindness. Yes, it’s a thing. Look it up. Page 231, second paragraph down, smack dab in the CIA Spy Handbook, actually written by Jim and Joe themselves!

I saw nothing in these rules that said anything about my fellow spies Jim and Joe or impersonating a military officer, so the plan was getting nothing but green lights at this point.

I know these photos may look like boring pictures of just a sign and scenery, but due to my extensive CIA training, I am actually in each photo. Believe it or don’t! I planned to use my stealth skills to tiptoe, as Elmer Fudd used to say, “evah so quietry,” across the border where I’d then find a turbo-charged Lada Granta sedan filled with weapons, leather spanking paddles, and a bribery cache consisting of ten cases of Reese’s Pieces, fifty vodka-infused peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, and twelve dozen “The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming” DVDs. Young Russian men never seem to look past the titles.

But remember when I said my alias was Polkovnik Boris Gleb? As you can see below, I was astonished to discover that somehow, some way, Russia was on to me:

Because here on the fence they had posted an obvious warning, essentially saying, “Boris Gleb, we know who and where you are.” I was absolutely gobsmacked.

This is how I look when I’m gobsmacked. It ain’t pretty.

So, I sent Jim and Joe off without me. Honestly, I was a little relieved in that now I could finish up the cruise without having to dodge shoulder-mounted missiles on a motorcycle as I zoom through the streets of Moscow while going down multiple staircases and driving through middle eastern spice markets and then race around and around the top of several Russian onion domes while being responsible for at least a dozen separate car crashes as I dodge something like 50,000 bullets and slightly muss up the little hair I have left in the process. They say movies are just, y’know, all Hollywood, but they’re hiding everything in plain sight I tell you. Anyway, I can’t describe what Jim and Joe actually did because the CIA would put a bullet in my brain, and worse, refuse to take it back out.

We ended the tour with a visit to a small gift shop being patrolled by this fearsome guard dog. The truth is that he was actually starved for affection, so I spent the next fifteen minutes petting him and rubbing his belly and otherwise just being totally smitten with this overabundance of cuteness.

The gift shop was literally just as big as you see here, just one small room filled to the brim with souvenirs and Russian things made in China.

My two favorite items were these Commemorative Dictator Mugs and their companion look-alike figurines. Carolyn thought I Photoshopped the mugs, but no, this is what they were actually offering. Russia may be the only other country in the world where a significant percentage of the population actually likes Donald Trump.

As we left the border area, we snapped these final scenic pictures. While Carolyn and I had some discussions about possibly visiting Russia before they invaded Ukraine, this clearly is the closest we’re ever going to get to it now. I will say I got a small kick out of my iPhone automatically switching to Russian time when I got close enough to the border, which was I think two hours different than Norwegian time. So at least I can say I was close enough to Russia to have my clock switch to their time. I hope I didn’t get infected with some sort of KGB virus.

The final chapter of the Jim and Joe saga is this: when my two sons were young, I used to tell them a bedtime story pretty much every night. My two main characters were Jim and Joe, who were both fellow spies and a sort of comedy duo. I started a good many of the tales with an intro of Jim saying to Joe, “What do you want to do?” And Joe replies, “I don’t know what do you want to do?” And Jim replies, “I don’t know what do you want to do?” And Joe replies, “I don’t know– now cut that out!” I stole that from a cartoon, but the boys always seemed to get a kick out of it, even after the 500th time. (The truth is that I used that intro line to try and delay things while I came up with a story. Sometimes the back and forth “what-do-you-want-to-do’s” hit the double digits as I wracked my brain for a new adventure.)

After hundreds of adventure/spy stories, I really began to struggle to come up with new exploits, and of course as most childhood things do, the stories eventually drifted away into oblivion. Until I discovered that my oldest son has actually been telling his son his own version of the Jim and Joe stories. I was flattered and touched, but also amazed that this tiny legacy I thought had all but been forgotten has actually been passed down to my grandson, and perhaps even beyond. So if in the year 2086 a new hit TV series about the adventures of Jim and Joe hits it big, you’ll know where it all started. And I want my descendents to get royalties!

And so we left Russia to the Russians and returned to our lovely ship for the return voyage.

And here are nine more views from the ship to wrap this entry up:

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