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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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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.

Nordvågen 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 Nordvågen. 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 Nordvågen 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 Nordvågen 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 videregående 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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The Most Fjordable Trip Ever!

There were three main anticipations we had for this Norwegian voyage. First and foremost was to see the Northern Lights (that entry is still a-comin’!). The second was to see the actual majestic fjords, not those little fjordettes we saw on the way to Oslo while on a ferry from Denmark a while back. The third was to infiltrate Russia and do something about this Putin problem.

(The picture here was created by the artist Banksy and is located in Stavanger, Norway. We didn’t get to see it because Stavanger is about 4-1/2 hours south of Bergen, plus we didn’t want to be photographed by the KGB prior to our infiltration, but I think it’s safe to say that Banksy shares our sentiments. Plus it gave me some ideas, like making birds eat little undigestible bomblets and then releasing them over the Kremlin. Genius!)

Anyway, we grabbed our spot on the fjord cruise and sailed away to wonder, gawk, and point at some of earth’s greatest majesties.

But first we had to get Carolyn all straightened out and recovered after her trip to the hospital.

As you can see here, we had our work cut out for us.

It didn’t get much better as the morning wore on. So I googled: “Can a small broken wrist bone affect your brain or personality?” Unfortunately, both the medical community and Dr. Google scandalously ignore the wrist/brain continuum, so we were on our own.

When she began looking like a homeless person, I reverted to my childhood medical training and decided she needed some 7-Up. Sure, maybe it doesn’t heal anything, but it it does make throwing up taste a little better. She wasn’t throwing up, but like the song says, “The wrist bone is attached to the stomach bone…” Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any unopened 7-Up cans on the sidewalk, so I had to do the next best thing.

Between Carolyn’s green sausage wrap and Susan’s “neverlost” coat that can be seen from space, they became known Norway-wide as “The 7-Up Sisters.” Someone even donated a bucket ‘o 7-Up fixin’s in the hopes that the word would get out that Norway grows the best limes and lemons in the world. (“Tell the world about our citrus in your famous blog!” the farmer cried.) Eventually, Carolyn did act a little more spritely, especially after we generously donated some of the fruit to starving Norwegians. And by donated, I meant whatever was left after we were finished with the margaritas. And sure, maybe we used them all, but the rinds were still perfectly edible, if you’re starving.

Our cruise ship docked in a town called Ålesund, whose motto is, “We’re so awesome we put a halo on the first letter of our name.” Ålesund is famous for its Art Nouveau architecture, which we mostly missed because they hustled us from our cruise ship to a more fjordable ship. I can tell you that Ålesund is the 13th most populous municipality in Norway with a population of over 67,000, and was founded in the 9th century. What I can’t tell you is how you pronounce the “Å in Ålesund.” Probably Aaaaaaalesund.

Judging by the architectural scenery, we bypassed the whole Art Nouveau thing and instead were led through Unrefined Oldeau, and were even mooned in the process.

You know, here’s the thing about Ålesund: it’s a town.

We wiped our shoes of Ålesund and boarded our fjord-craft and agreed with Carolyn that it was really cool to see a “staaar!” in the daytime. We were still a bit worried about her.

And we were off! The rest of this entry is mostly going to be showing you scenery. I had to go through hundreds of pictures just to whittle out the riff raff. Hopefully all I ended up with is raff. But I gotta say, during the voyage up the fjord it was as if every five minutes the scenery was just different enough to warrant another photo or five. If we had made that trip during the olden days of our youth, we would’ve spent eight hundred euros on film processing just from this excursion, including having to pay for all the photos of our frozen thumbs.

The ship sailed down a fjord named Geirangerfjord, ending the first half of the journey with a stop at the small village of Geiranger located at the end of the fjord. That area is one of Norway’s most visited tourist locations, and in 2005, it was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We were glad we hadn’t made arrangements to stay in the town when we saw those rustic hutches, thinking they were the local Motel 6.

Actually, those hutches are old fisherman huts and are still in use; you can park boats underneath them and they’re also a good place to hide dead bodies. But as you can see from the photo of the hotel that could’ve been the set for The Shining, Geiranger has much nicer accommodations than those huts. In fact, the wedding of Norwegian Princess Märtha Louise and Durek Verrett took place at the Hotel Union in Geiranger (which isn’t the one pictured). No one outside of Scandinavia knows who they are but hey, if you have “Princess” before your name, everything you do is noteworthy. In my next life I want to be a princess. Carolyn just told me I already am one, so score!

They put us on a bus in order to take us to the top of the mountain. The ride was more than a little harrowing due to snow and ice all over roads featuring more twists and turns than a blender full of snakes. When the bus first started to leave the parking lot, the driver had to take two or three runs at it before he got enough traction to hit the road. It’s a little disconcerting to be sitting in a bus that’s moving backwards when the tires aren’t turning! The road itself snaked up the mountain with only a small guardrail standing between us and a short bus flight to Valhalla. Anyway, we crossed our fingers that our driver knew what he was doing, and apparently he did because we’re alive to tell the tale. I still can’t uncross one of my fingers, though.

As you can see, the views were well worth the sweaty palms, heart palpitations, migraines, heartbreak of psoriasis, and the ominous bouts of gurgling diarrhea potential that we suffered as a result of that death-defying drive. We regularly risk our lives just to entertain our baldsasquatch.com readers!

So anyway, here follows the curated shots from the cruise up Geirangerfjord. It was very chilly outside, exacerbated by the wind whipping into our faces like the time I stuck my head out of a 747 mid-flight. After we were out there long enough to have our phones ice over, we would go inside and bask in the warmth, defrost the electronics and our bodily dangly bits, and then brave the chilly blasts to go outside and snap some more photos. The following series of photos is as close as I can come to providing a complete video of the excursion. In a way, despite the similar looks of the scenery, the sheer volume is one of the things that really demonstrates the majesty of it all. It was definitely one of the highlights, if not the highlight, of the entire voyage!

One of the interesting things about the fjord was observing and hearing about the small villages that dot the coastline. Talk about remote! We were told stories of the olden days when they had to row sick people in boats for about 15 hours each way (in uphill water besides!) just to get to a doctor, who unfortunately was often out playing snow golf. Anyway, if you crave isolation, Norway has some towns just for you!

Bottom line: if you ever get the chance, sail down the fjords of Norway. One of our best trips ever!

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Bodø, Tromsø, and Sømna. What cøuld they pøssibly have in cømmøn?

Øh sure, we’re all smiles and everything in this phøtø, nøt løøking cøld and wet at all, but little did we knøw that nøt løng after this picture was taken, Carølyn’s life wøuld gø spinning øut øf cøntrøl after catapulting herself acrøss the ice and intø a majør bøøbøø øøpsie.

Bodø is alsø where I learned that writing in Nørwegian is sø easy: yøu just crøss øut the o’s!

Løøk Ma! I’m writing in Nørwegian!

As far as prønunciatiøn gøes, my understanding is if the “ø” is at the end øf a wørd, yøu døn’t prønøunce it at all because, y’knøw, it’s an “o” that’s been øverlaid with the internatiønal symbøl for “Get øut of my face.” Thereføre, we wøuld prønøunce Bodø as “Bod,” and Tromsø as “Troms.” Accordingly, in Nørway when yøu want to startle someøne yøu shøut, “B!” because øf cøurse the twø ø’s in “bøø” wøuld be silent.

B!

Ha ha, sorry for the fright. I’ll go back to English to help slow down your rapidly beating heart.

This photo shows the last meal my honey bunny enjoyed before experiencing the mother of all disasters, complete with broken bones (well, one anyway). The four of us generally ate all of our meals on the ship because they were already paid for and we’re cheap-ass seniors on a budget, but we had heard that Bodø makes the best pizza in all of Bodø, so we had to try it out.

At the time, it was lost on us that the pizza looked like it was covered with the guts of an unfortunate soul who might’ve scattered her insides all over the ice fields of Norway as an eerie portent of the brutal calamities to follow.

I have to say that Bodø was fairly emblematic of the various Norwegian towns we saw along the way. Before the cruise, I had expected charming villages with quaint buildings perhaps covered in reindeer hides, polar bear skins, and used troll underwear, but I was quickly reminded that the allies bombed the hell out of most of the towns because the Germans decided to vacation in Norway and then waved their Lugers around so they wouldn’t have to pay for lodging. The only way the allies could figure out how to get them to hand over their credit cards was to blow everything up. Since most blown-up buildings have poor plumbing and lousy insulation, after the war they were replaced by buildings that were largely built via programs such as the famous reconstruction act entitled: Cheap Reconstruction & Area Planning, or CRAP.

(They aren’t actually all that crappy; sometimes I have to throw an entire civilization under the bus just to work a joke in.)

Carolyn’s slip and fall on the ice meant that we would have to substitute a visit with Santa’s eight tiny reindeer for a tour of a Norwegian hospital. So we left Tim and Susan in charge of letting us know how it all smelled. (Just scratch your screen on one of those pictures and then lean in and take a sniff to find out. If you don’t smell anything, call someone over to help you, their noses might be better.)

Unfortunately, their trip to the location was apparently interrupted by a huge herd of reindeer so they never got there and had to stop at some weird and fruity place with looms instead.

It looks to me as if they had some sort of mystical ceremony involving a longhouse and strange Norwegian plant matter. They must’ve sat around smoking it for a while because Tim and Susan were high as kites upon their return. I could tell because they actually laughed at one of my dad jokes. I thought to interrogate them about all this Russian spy business while they were impaired… but they’re either really well-trained or I simply couldn’t understand them what with their mouths stuffed with Norwegian butter cookies, so I got nowhere.

On the way to the reindeer penitentiary they were treated to some of the Norwegian scenery that the Norwegians borrowed from the Swedes. Before the Great Borrowing, Norway was mostly a brown and empty land filled with trolls, mutant reindeer, and women named Olga who could bench press three Svens.

The Captain was blackmailed convinced to make a stop in Tromsø so Carolyn and I could grab a cab and head to a hospital. Unfortunately, we didn’t get any photos of inside the hospital because if I had, I’d have had to publish this post only on the Dark Web, what with all the blood & entrails laying around and the sick reindeer throwing up on everything. I even saw a perfectly good spleen just sitting there in the waiting room, dripping its goo all over a copy of Highlights.

We sat cheek to jowl (mostly face cheeks) with hundreds of sick or injured Norwegians, some having lain on a gurney for weeks or even months, now looking rather pale and stiff. Pssh. Socialized medicine, am I right Americans? You’d never see that kind of stuff in an American hospital!

Of course, you do get to deal with all this instead. I actually grimace when an American argues that capitalism keeps prices down; something rarely uttered by a diabetic who needs insulin. Like the old saying goes, “If you wanna get diabetic, Turkey’s definitely the place to be!”

These are the best I could do photo-wise with Tromsø what with the taxi speeding through town like Rudolph being chased by a herd of ugly reindeerettes with bad lipstick. Drivers can speed in Norway because they got rid of all the police, apparently thinking that they already had plenty of ice, so why would they need any pol-ice? That may be why we never saw any cops at all during our time there, other than all the ones chasing us. Anyway, as everyone knows, the more police you have the more crime you have, so they eliminated the police and voila! No crime! They did end up with a lot of speeders, but we were grateful for that because we thought the broken bone in her hand might start hemorrhaging at any moment. Although we were a little discouraged when we arrived to see “61” up on the number screen while our newly printed ticket had 765 on it. Socialized medicine, am I right?

62? …… 62? ………………………. 63? (We look down at 765 for already the 8th time.)

(For the record, it actually was fast, professional, thorough, and it didn’t cost hardly anything. Socialized medicine, am I right?)

One of the many brief stops the ship made was in Sømna. If you’ve never heard of it, it may be because Sømna has a population of around 2,000 people and 25,000 reindeer (actually, 25,000 is about how many reindeer there are in all of Norway). I do think it may be where they invented the word “Insomnia;” I’d definitely be insomniated if I lived there. Note that it was mid afternoon and all the streetlights were on because the sun was hiding behind the horizon, giggling.

We managed to stay awake long enough for a quick meander into town and an ice cream. You’d think with all that snow we’d just lick the street or something (although I don’t like the lemon flavor), but oh no, my companions had to spend money just to help keep the ship’s stop beneficial to the town. With the invention of email, mail deliveries have shrunk to an average of three old Sears catalogs and a discount coupon for Swedish meatballs, so the need for help was understandable.

And with that, we leave you with nine more random photos from the ship.

Oh, and: B!

Ha ha!

(After the fright wears off, scroll down to see previous entries if you haven’t read them… and want to for some reason.)

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The Top Two of Trondheim

On our first visit to a city for sightseeing, our usual modus operandi is to take a look at TripAdvisor or the like and sort the “Things to do” and “Attractions” by the traveler rankings. Depending on whether we want to see the first handful of places, we then usually leave the rest to chance. Some of the most interesting things we’ve seen on our travels have been when we’ve accidentally stumbled across them. Or, in the case of seeing the inside of a foreign hospital, one of us, who shall remain nameless (Carolyn), accidentally stumbling and falling onto her rumpe (Norwegian for “butt”).

We only had part of a day to explore Trondheim while Tim and Susan went on a tour of the Nidaros Cathedral, which just happens to be the number one site to see according to the readers of TripAdvisor. Since we’ve taken to boycotting the insides of Cathedrals after having seen approximately one million of them, we let our friends go on our merry way while we wandered the streets of Trondheim, finally free of the two people I was beginning to suspect might be Russian spies intent on disrupting my infiltration of Russia.

Trondheim’s daily weather from November to March generally hovers around freezing, with a record high in January of 13.7°C (56.7°F), and a record low of −25.6°C (−14.1°F). We were glad to be there when it was hovering around freezing. These are the scenes that greeted us at the dock. They greeted us the same way when we returned to the ship, because Norwegian scenes are notoriously greetful.

Despite the relatively balmy temperatures, Carolyn still dressed up like a big green sausage. We actually purchased that coat in Norway, figuring if there was anyone who knew about warm coats, it would be the Norwegians. Plus now she can hide in a forest, or in a green sausage factory.

Since it was a Sunday, it was quiet in Trondheim despite it being Norway’s third largest city. Religiously, the Norwegians are largely Lutheran, although Norway is ranked as one of the most agnostic/atheist countries in the world per capita, joining Sweden, Vietnam, Denmark, and Japan in the top five. So maybe it wasn’t quiet because the Trondheimians (Trondeimites? Trondheimcicles?) were all in church, maybe they were just recovering from Saturday night hangovers. (Actually, the country has pretty strict rules on alcohol consumption; including that anything stronger than wine or beer must be sold only through state-run liquor stores, and never on Sundays. I suppose that’s a smart thing because excessive drinking might be a little too tempting when you’re in the middle a long, dark, winter.)

We trudged through the city until we got to the Number One Bestest Site In All of Trondheim, the Nidaros Cathedral. True Trivia (as opposed to the stuff I just make up): Trondheim used to be called Nidaros. It was changed to Trondheim in the 16th century, back to Nidaros in 1930, and then back to Trondheim a year later. Which is good, because I think Trondheim is one of the coolest city names ever. I can just see a burly, full-bearded Viking king standing tall, slamming the base of his bondeøk on the ground while bellowing, “This… is… TRONDHEIM!” (A Bondeøk is a Norwegian battle axe, not to be confused with any particular Viking wife of the time.)

Construction of the cathedral began in 1070, and it was built to memorialize the burial place of Olav II of Norway (he didn’t get to bellow the Trondheim thing). It is an impressive-looking building, but we weren’t sad not to have seen the inside of it. Of course, by the looks of the graves on the grounds, a lot of people were already dying to get inside. Okay, yeah, sure, bad dad joke; but one out of tomb ain’t bad.

Besides, Tim and Susan did the tour of the inside for us, so I hacked into their phones to grab the best pictures. Can you go to hell for stealing photos of a church? Hopefully three is the minimum go-to-hell quantity since I only got these two.

Trondheim’s second most popular attraction is the Bakklandet, a neighborhood with lots of small shops, narrow streets, and flat-faced wooden buildings. It’s charming and beautiful, although not particularly overwhelming for a Number Two Attraction (to be fair, lots of number two attractions are pretty shitty). However, even though the “top two” things to do in Trondheim didn’t blow our socks off (which we were glad for because it was still around freezing), we thought the city was adorable. You go Number Two!

The next top attraction (after a couple of museums and a fortress) in Trondheim is the Old Town Bridge. On the walk there, we met a friendly German family (who happened to be on our cruise), and they told us about some sort of tradition about it being good luck to kiss on the bridge. After some confused looks, they emphasized that it was supposed to be with your own significant other.

So we kissed on the bridge.

However, it was only a few days after that that Carolyn slipped on the ice. And so I call bullshit on the good luck thing… although I’m always game for a kiss (for some reason I really wanted to go see Stiftsgarden right afterwards).

But insofar as counting our luck, we were on a cruise in Norway, accompanied by two of the most delightful Russian spy travel companions one could ask for, and we were retirees walking leisurely around a beautiful snow-covered city in Norway, so maybe we’ve had some damn fine luck after all, even sealed with a kiss.

We did get a kick out of a couple of things in Trondheim. One was this Christmas decor that may serve double duty as an emergency bonfire, I dunno. If you look closely, there are ice skates and Christmas trees with Santa hats as well as a chair for baby Jesus. I’m sure it all means something to somebody. On the other hand, it might’ve been a shelter for some holiday-loving homeless man, or maybe a recycling spot for old holiday decor and ice skates.

On the way back to the ship we inadvertently walked through what must’ve been the red light district, what with their offer to photograph titts and all. Although Europeans tend to think of female breasts as being largely the same as male breasts, except maybe just a tad poofier, so maybe these photographers simply liked calling their business Titt. I know I would.

Speaking of moose titts (were we?), we did sign up for the Moose Ride. I mean, who doesn’t have “riding a moose” on their bucket list? Unfortunately, it was only fun for all of about three seconds before we tumbled off in a heap of old-age moans and swear words (I didn’t know “Moosetard” was even a word). Fortunately, the snow was deep so when we fell off we hardly broke any major bones at all. So all we really got was three seconds on the back of that monster and this lousy photo. Pfft. I could’ve probably Photoshopped that picture instead and saved the 500 euro expedition fees.

And so the sun set on our Trondheim expedition and we were off to our next destination. Of course, the sun never did rise much more than what you see here. During January, Trondheim receives only about six to eight hours of sunlight a day, and the sun never gets too high… especially with all those alcohol restrictions. Ba dum bum.

Part of my process of selecting photos for the blog involves first going through each photo and putting them into folders based on location. For this trip, I ended up with 17 different folders (oy vay!), one of which is entitled “Views from the ship.” That folder alone had more than 400 photos in it. Thanks to digital technology, we sometimes found ourselves snapping endless shots of the same view: “Maybe the sun will hit just right,” or “Ooh! A new angle!” or “Man you’ve got a big head, sit down!” Still, we have some very beautiful pictures of nature’s beauty, so I think I’ll just select a handful at random and put them at the end of every Norway blog entry.

Enjoy!

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Cruising can be a Risky Business!

I don’t know about you, but as soon as I hear the name “Tom Cruise,” I’m first in line at the local theatre to watch his next movie. The man, while possibly a bit unhinged in real life, certainly knows how to pick and exploit his acting roles.

So somehow when I heard the word “Cruise,” I ended up assuming we’d be roommates or at the least spend a bunch of time with Tom Cruise as we explored Norway. See how much fun old age can be? Sometimes I like to act befuddled on purpose just so you can’t tell between the times I’m playing at it and really am befuddled (hint: which is most of the time nowadays).

Long story short, all we got was this lousy photo op. Pfft. I could’ve probably Photoshopped that picture instead and saved the 500 euro photo op fee. Well, lesson learned; now all I had to worry about was enjoying the Harrison Ford Ship as well as waiting for the right moment to infiltrate Russia and take Putin down.

We selected the Havila Cruise Line (and by we, I mean Tim and Susan, who pretty much intimidated and threatened us into showing up at a Norwegian dock at a particular time) because the ship is actually a working vessel, and very eco-friendly besides. In addition to ferrying a bunch of chilly cruisers well beyond the Arctic Circle, it delivers and collects goods all up and down the Norwegian coastline (which is, by the way, the second longest country coastline in the world, after Canada).

In the winter, you’d have a hard time jumping on the freeway to drive from Bergen to Kirkenes. What with the snow and fjords and mountain trolls, there just isn’t an easy way to do it. Fortunately, the ship is powered mostly by battery, so there isn’t even any engine noise. As a result, pulling into a port for a short visit to exchange goods is hardly even noticed by the passengers. Unless the Captain was drinking again, of course.

BAM! “Oops.”

The ship itself is small-sized for a cruise ship, which kinda matches Tom Cruise’s stature as well, so I guess we had a little piece of him in our hearts after all.

It’s actually a fairly new ship (we could see the dealer’s tags still on the license plate on the stern). But my fears about it being a working ship were quickly allayed once I saw there were no crates of live squawking chickens we’d have to step around to get to our cabin.

Before we set sail, I inspected every cubit of the ship for proper safety protocols, including having enough lifeboats for our class (who cares about the people in steerage, am I right?) as well as the proper flotation devices should the worst occur. Yellow is a good color to be seen in when you’re stranded in an ice cold ocean.

Of course, you can have all the safety protocols in place you want, but if your passengers are 1) Inclined to sneeze in a shirt when they think no one is looking or 2) put on their shoes before they put their pants on over their long underwear, well, y’know, you just can’t save ’em all.

And yup, this is not one of those glamour-shots kinds of blogs.

I took this shot of Susan and Carolyn from outside the ship, braving frostbite and being hurled overboard just to get a photo. I think they were arguing over who was the cutest, Tom Cruise or Harrison Ford. I took the other shot of Carolyn walking because it was a little wavy out on the ocean and she was tottering from side to side as if she was on her second wine bottle (which, for the record, she wasn’t, there was still a little left in her first one). Since it’s a photo and not a video, you have to zoom in on the photo, and then take your device and sway it around to get the effect. Trust me, it’s hilarious!

I had been driving my travel companions a little batty with my expressed desire to experience reindeer meat. It’s not that I have anything against reindeer, I’d just never eaten it, so how do I know it might not surpass ice cream as my favorite food? Lo and behold, the menus in the restaurant changed every three to four days, so I was delighted when I saw reindeer broth on the menu. Let me tell you, it tasted just like… well hell, I dunno, broth. I declared that my search for real reindeer meat was still on; the broth had not sated the desire. Besides, there was no actual meat in there, so I’m thinking they just wrung out reindeer hides into the pot to get the dark color.

Well wouldn’t you know they followed that up with a reindeer… uh, what do you call a plate of something that looks like Rudolph got into some bushes and ate something he shouldn’t have? Who knows if the Norwegian translation of the dish was really “Reindeer Poop Stew?” Anyway, we downed it because we didn’t want to starve and waste away to nothing. So I checked the reindeer thing off my bucket list without being able to say anything like, “It tasted like chicken,” or “it was a bit gamey,” or “I wouldn’t eat that again if they turned it into ice cream.” You know, all the normal phrases for something like this. It was actually fine, just not remarkable (he says after just spending a whole paragraph remarking on it).

You know, they didn’t say the reindeer was from contented reindeer, so they may have died a gruesome death just to fill our stomachs. Otherwise, I always feel like the taste of a contented animal is much better than the taste of one that goes down screaming and squealing like a big baby. You’re food, deal with it.

Other than fine cuisine, the ship offered a ton of entertainment options, such as free wifi. Actually, that’s about it. I mean, what more do people need nowadays other than being able to stick their nose into their phones anyway? (To be fair, they did have a jigsaw puzzle as well). Despite what it looks like, the four of us gabbed incessantly. We learned more about each other than I knew about Carolyn before I married her (more or less), and parted ways after the voyage still speaking to and liking each other! I mean, what are the odds of that?

They did have an entertaining little ceremony with a guy dressed up as someone like Belsnickel, who is a German Imp that mimics Santa Claus, and was played by Dwight in The Office (season 9, episode 9 just in case you don’t believe me). Except in the Norwegian version, this Belsnickel-wannabe pretends that it’s a good thing to have ice water poured down the back of your neck while sailing the Arctic. We refrained from such frivolity because we easily total over three digits after adding up our four collective IQs.

Much of the entertainment actually comes from the expeditions available at the various ports of call. And if you do any of them, or all of them, or none of them, you can still buy yourself a Polar Certificate to commemorate the fact that you’re no longer bipolar.

While Carolyn isn’t bipolar, she’s certainly biclumsy, because there rarely seems to be a trip we take where she doesn’t damage something on herself. This time it was a slip and fall on some ice. Keep in mind that 1) We had already purchased cleats to put over our shoes in order to avoid exactly that happening, 2) We had the cleats with us, 3) We hadn’t put them on, and 4) The accident occured after the ladies insisted they knew the way back to the ship over Tim’s objections, leading them right into an ice field where Carolyn rather unceremoniously landed on her rump. The result was the change of our next excursion into a ride in a cab to the hospital, where we were treated to the inner workings of Norwegian medicine and where we learned she had a small cracked bone in her wrist, a bruised elbow, and bad hat hair. Oy vey. She’s fine now; the doctor says she’ll live at least another few months. We did make a habit of checking out the location of every ambulance at every stop after that.

Now you know why the title of this entry is about cruising being a risky business.

Fortunately, throughout our ordeal we enjoyed the attention and expert services of Éirinn (I think that’s at least close to the right spelling… we just called her “Erin”), who was of immeasurable help, even accompanying me to a rushed visit to a pharmacy while the ship was docked for only half an hour. As so often happens, the people are what make so many trips special, and “Erin” certainly did that for us. We miss you Erin!

No tour of a ship would be complete without a visit to the bridge. It was a bit of a treat to see all the high-tech gear, sophisticated electronics, and hidden room cams the staff all used to control the ship and entertain themselves. I spoke with the Captain at length about cubits. I also told him not to ram any icebergs, which he agreed to, and ultimately upheld his end of the bargain. However, despite his obvious good looks which won him points because he kinda looks like me, he didn’t understand my Tom Cruise jokes, so pssht: the worst Captain we’ve ever had on a Norwegian cruise during January 2024, hands down.

But we were on our way!