Another day in paradise

Let’s see — where were we and where did we go? I feel like one of the many, many sheep we see in the fields — waiting for the dog to come to tell me where to go next: you, go there now! With or without luggage depending on time of day. It is hard not having a memory. Our fabulous tour manager, Deb, is a wonder — we were very lucky to get her; this is her first trip on this tour, but she does astounding in=depth research on everything. She says she probably won’t sign up for it again. — she’s looking at Asia next.

On Sunday night we finally saw the northern lights — not the most spectacular, but still, we saw them and were thrilled. We got a whatsap from Deb and sprang from our beds, put on shoes and coats and hied it outdoors. We were with a group of Taiwanese and their excited chatter sounded like being in a very close but full aviary.

Monday, we took the ferry, about an hour, to Hellesvlt and then on the bus for more slack-jawed awe as we traveled (a long way) through mountains and up another hairpinny road to skywalk — it was bitterly cold as we exited the bus, felt like 40 below with the meanest wind trying to blow us off the platform! We worried about a little dog whose owner kept dragging it nearer the edge, which it, smartly, did not want to get anywhere near. If she had lost hold of the leash, I am sure the wind would have picked it up and hurled it into space. Going down, another time that was not a picnic. There were lots of places like that all over the place. Luckily, well sorta, was going back down into Geiranger we took a slightly less heart attack road than the original one.

We were really lucky to go to skywalk — it had been closed the day before because of snow and turned out it was closed the day after we were there for whatever reason. It was breathtaking — kind of grand canyon awe, but wider.

I feel like I am on beauty overload — there really is nothing that is less staggeringly beautiful than what came before or will come after — true, every turn of the tires. Laird used up his phone battery on pics then took mine — we’ll probably never be able to identify where any of them are from, and they can’t capture what it really feels like to be in all that beauty.

Trauma bonding has become our group’s catch word. From not getting the trains we were promised to two of us old ladies falling (I was pushed! I blame in on the train, not my ineptitude!).

After 2 nights in Geiranger (ghear-anger, sort of), we got on the bus to Flam (accent mark, of course, the little empty circle above the a). Stopped at 12th century Kaupanger Stave Church — gorgeous, and our guide, whose name was Judith, pronounced Yudith, sang for us; she was quite wonderful, even though I couldn’t really hear what she had to say, or sing, either. Then on to a christmas shop. The shop owner was very funny and sure loved to laugh. I still want a reindeer rug, but no one will ship to the US. We took another ferry to Flam and had a nice hotel.

I do think we might have lucked out with not having several of the trains we were supposed to take because I think we saw lots more of Norway, and Sweden, than we would have otherwise seen. But today, we took two trains after going for a two-hour cruise on two fjords — more spectacularness, of course. Back to Flam and then trains that were supposed to be to Bergen, but weren’t because of some landslide or something. Back on the bus at Voss (kinda wonder why the train if the bus had to meet us in Voss, but oh well) and we went through 33 tunnels to get to Bergen. Yesterday, we went through the Laerdal tunnel, which is the longest road tunnel in the world and 24.5 kilometers — 15 miles for us Americans. Took 21 minutes. Before that, we had like an 11 kilometer tunnel as the “pretunnel”. In the Laerdal, to keep drivers awake and attentive, they vary the intensity of the lights and in the middle, there are lights washing the sides of the tunnel that look like the northern lights.

In Bergen, Laird and I walked down to a shopping center to buy replacement suitcases for me — both of mine had screwed up handles. The new ones are a godawful mint green, but they were cheaper than others and on sale to boot (though still an unwanted expense). I will just have to suck it up and not mind that anyone looking at them will be thinking “god, all that woman’s taste is in her mouth!” And other derogatory musings. My only defense is that the other color was very Barbie pink. We brought them back to hotel and went out again for a very lovely dinner with another passenger, from Scotland. I had venison with chanterelles and brussels sprouts, with roasted potatoes, and Laird had monkfish in lobster sauce with something green. Oh, and I had two orders of oysters in a most amazing sauce, green and delicious. Alas, an order is 2 oysters — isn’t that just ridiculous?!? I gave Laird 1. We shared coconut mousse and homemade raspberry-like dessert — I’m a coconut slut and this was delish! Local pink gin and tonic. Now, time for bed. Tomorrow a tour of Old Town and the Hanseatic League warehouses, etc.