July 11, 2007, Harstad, Norway
Hi again, family and friends,
I wrote an entire message Sunday evening before the computer lost it. Too late and too tired to write another; Monday the
weather was fine for swimming and fishing; and Tuesday was the tour of the Adolf Kanon.
Each time I come to Norway, there are two places high on my list to visit again. One is Vigilund's Park in Oslo with the
larger-than-life-sized nude statues of people in all stages of life and relationships. The other is the Adolf Kanon at
Trondenes, outside of Harstad. Kanon actually means large gun, and these are the largest land-based guns in the world.
During WW II, seven were installed in Northern Norway by the Nazis, four in Trondenes and three on another island farther
south. Their purpose was to defend the coast from allied shipping.
My brother-in-law Ivar is one of a small group of navy personel who restored one of the guns, and now retired, they donate
time to maintain it and give guided tours to tourists. Ivar invited me yesterday because after his tour at ten there would be
another by another, younger, guide in both Norwegian and English.
He gave Egil and me a private tour in 1988, and we went along on a tour in 2000, but hearing the information in English
answered a lot of questions for me.
For one thing, I've wondered why the Germans chose this particular area and these guns. The Norwegians had made plans
for coastal defense, but by 1940 when the Nazis invaded the country they had not developed them. The Nazis found them
and put them to use. And why these guns? The Germans had begun to build them for use on battleships, but after they
spread themselves rather thin they had too many needs for steel and adapted the guns for use on land. They intended to
bring the guns and materials to Trondenes by rail from Sweden, through Narvik, but the Swedes said NO, so they had to
use the more risky sea route and build a pier in Trondenes.
How have visiting Germans reacted to this museum? One German visitor told the guide who gave the tour in both
languages that he had been there before: He had been one of the German crew during the war. Photographs of the
operation that he offered the museum are on display there now. The guns succeeded in their purpose; the allies learned
of their existance and their range, and the Murmansk run, for example, stayed out of range. The guns never sank any
ships., although a test firing after the war broke windows in all the houses on the neighboring island, Greitøy. One large
piece of machinery the guide called a "mechanical computer." We all chuckled. But he said it worked very well to
coordinate the functioning of all four guns, perhaps all seven. I'm not certain.
Why have I asked Ivar to take me along on this tour again? (It's on the Naval Base where I'm not allowed to walk onto by
myself). One reason is beause it's part of Egil's brother's life, but another is my fascination with the machinery and the
awesome power of a gun that could reach from here to Narvik and to the outer range of the three guns to the south.
Another is that I think we all need an occasional reminder of our history. I remember U.S. gas, sugar, rubber, and meat
rationing, but Europeans remember starvation, need, terror, secret resistance against the invader.
The details of the gun's size, range, etc. are in a brochure in English I have at home, if anyone's interested, but right now
it's enough to tell about the Russian prisoners of war who, underfed and overworked until they died, built the concrete
bunkers. There's a memorial, in Russian, in the Trondenes Church cemetery in their memory, and, yes, I photographed it.
And about the impressive machinery that still works. Much of it can be operated by hand if the electricity is out. Ivar's
tourgroup included only six adults and a baby on his father's chest, but the two-language tourgroup was large and
included a boy about 10 or 11. The guide asked him to pull the heavy trolley containing a shell on its track to line up with
the gun. He did it easily, quite surprised. Another stunt that guide did, was his invitation to any of the lighter people in the
group to climb into the muzzle of the gun. "Good photo-op," he said. One of the young women accepted the challenge, and
he half lifted her feet first, and slid her into the gun. He explained that in two minutes, turning all the time because of the
rifling, she could be in Narvik. If the gun were fired.
My Norwegian vocabulary is expanding, and my ear and tonality are improving, but I felt a bit humbled by how much I had
missed in the previous Norwegian tours. Also the evening before when, on our way out on a fishing trip, I offered to fetch
an object from the kitchen but didn't understand which cupboard or exactly which object. I'm about half way through the
mystery novel "President's Choice," and reading that much, every day, while listening to the language on the TV and in
conversation is helping. Every weekday morning at 9, Elsa and I listen to an actress with a marvelously clear Norwegian
pronunciation read from one of Astrid Lindgren.s children's books. I'm not sure of the title, other than to know it's not
about Pippi Longstocking, but about a little boy and his brother who are looking for a dragon and trying to avoid the
soldiers of an evil man. I'll ask Elsa.
Since we returned from our island trip, the weather has been warm, sunny, and of course good for swimming. While
southern Norway deals with rain and floods, we're basking in sunny days, and lovely summer evenings. Sunday morning I
walked to the lake for my almost daily swim and got into conversation with an elderly man who came along another trail for
the same purpose. He must have seen me before because he started the conversation by complimenting me on my
swimming. Then he asked if I live in Harstad, and I explained that no, I was visiting family. He asked if I live in Denmark, that
something in my speech sounded a bit foreign to him. Most Norwegians, the minute I open my mouth, identify me as an
American. When I mentioned Ivar's name, he told me his name, Leif Lorentzen, and asked me to greet Ivar warmly from him.
He said he once worked with Ivar at the Naval Base.
When I got home after my swim, I did that, and Ivar told me that Leif was the only one of six men who survived a terrible
explosion. In 1958, Leif and the others heard ticking from underground and ran. Buried German ammunition some distance
from the #1 gun self-exploded and started fires that lasted several days. Leif was knocked unconscious, but the others
were killed instantly. That happened before Ivar's time there, but after he served on that base in 1969, he and Leif worked
together.
Tomorrow Elsa, Ivar, and I are taking a boat trip to Tromsø, a city north of Harstad. By car it would take about twice the
three hours the boat trip will take. Elsa says it will be many years since her last trip there, and Ivar says there are
museums, one of which he hasn't seen. We'll find a good place to have dinner, on Larry and me.
So until next time, best wishes from Norway from Ann
Hi again, family and friends,
I wrote an entire message Sunday evening before the computer lost it. Too late and too tired to write another; Monday the
weather was fine for swimming and fishing; and Tuesday was the tour of the Adolf Kanon.
Each time I come to Norway, there are two places high on my list to visit again. One is Vigilund's Park in Oslo with the
larger-than-life-sized nude statues of people in all stages of life and relationships. The other is the Adolf Kanon at
Trondenes, outside of Harstad. Kanon actually means large gun, and these are the largest land-based guns in the world.
During WW II, seven were installed in Northern Norway by the Nazis, four in Trondenes and three on another island farther
south. Their purpose was to defend the coast from allied shipping.
My brother-in-law Ivar is one of a small group of navy personel who restored one of the guns, and now retired, they donate
time to maintain it and give guided tours to tourists. Ivar invited me yesterday because after his tour at ten there would be
another by another, younger, guide in both Norwegian and English.
He gave Egil and me a private tour in 1988, and we went along on a tour in 2000, but hearing the information in English
answered a lot of questions for me.
For one thing, I've wondered why the Germans chose this particular area and these guns. The Norwegians had made plans
for coastal defense, but by 1940 when the Nazis invaded the country they had not developed them. The Nazis found them
and put them to use. And why these guns? The Germans had begun to build them for use on battleships, but after they
spread themselves rather thin they had too many needs for steel and adapted the guns for use on land. They intended to
bring the guns and materials to Trondenes by rail from Sweden, through Narvik, but the Swedes said NO, so they had to
use the more risky sea route and build a pier in Trondenes.
How have visiting Germans reacted to this museum? One German visitor told the guide who gave the tour in both
languages that he had been there before: He had been one of the German crew during the war. Photographs of the
operation that he offered the museum are on display there now. The guns succeeded in their purpose; the allies learned
of their existance and their range, and the Murmansk run, for example, stayed out of range. The guns never sank any
ships., although a test firing after the war broke windows in all the houses on the neighboring island, Greitøy. One large
piece of machinery the guide called a "mechanical computer." We all chuckled. But he said it worked very well to
coordinate the functioning of all four guns, perhaps all seven. I'm not certain.
Why have I asked Ivar to take me along on this tour again? (It's on the Naval Base where I'm not allowed to walk onto by
myself). One reason is beause it's part of Egil's brother's life, but another is my fascination with the machinery and the
awesome power of a gun that could reach from here to Narvik and to the outer range of the three guns to the south.
Another is that I think we all need an occasional reminder of our history. I remember U.S. gas, sugar, rubber, and meat
rationing, but Europeans remember starvation, need, terror, secret resistance against the invader.
The details of the gun's size, range, etc. are in a brochure in English I have at home, if anyone's interested, but right now
it's enough to tell about the Russian prisoners of war who, underfed and overworked until they died, built the concrete
bunkers. There's a memorial, in Russian, in the Trondenes Church cemetery in their memory, and, yes, I photographed it.
And about the impressive machinery that still works. Much of it can be operated by hand if the electricity is out. Ivar's
tourgroup included only six adults and a baby on his father's chest, but the two-language tourgroup was large and
included a boy about 10 or 11. The guide asked him to pull the heavy trolley containing a shell on its track to line up with
the gun. He did it easily, quite surprised. Another stunt that guide did, was his invitation to any of the lighter people in the
group to climb into the muzzle of the gun. "Good photo-op," he said. One of the young women accepted the challenge, and
he half lifted her feet first, and slid her into the gun. He explained that in two minutes, turning all the time because of the
rifling, she could be in Narvik. If the gun were fired.
My Norwegian vocabulary is expanding, and my ear and tonality are improving, but I felt a bit humbled by how much I had
missed in the previous Norwegian tours. Also the evening before when, on our way out on a fishing trip, I offered to fetch
an object from the kitchen but didn't understand which cupboard or exactly which object. I'm about half way through the
mystery novel "President's Choice," and reading that much, every day, while listening to the language on the TV and in
conversation is helping. Every weekday morning at 9, Elsa and I listen to an actress with a marvelously clear Norwegian
pronunciation read from one of Astrid Lindgren.s children's books. I'm not sure of the title, other than to know it's not
about Pippi Longstocking, but about a little boy and his brother who are looking for a dragon and trying to avoid the
soldiers of an evil man. I'll ask Elsa.
Since we returned from our island trip, the weather has been warm, sunny, and of course good for swimming. While
southern Norway deals with rain and floods, we're basking in sunny days, and lovely summer evenings. Sunday morning I
walked to the lake for my almost daily swim and got into conversation with an elderly man who came along another trail for
the same purpose. He must have seen me before because he started the conversation by complimenting me on my
swimming. Then he asked if I live in Harstad, and I explained that no, I was visiting family. He asked if I live in Denmark, that
something in my speech sounded a bit foreign to him. Most Norwegians, the minute I open my mouth, identify me as an
American. When I mentioned Ivar's name, he told me his name, Leif Lorentzen, and asked me to greet Ivar warmly from him.
He said he once worked with Ivar at the Naval Base.
When I got home after my swim, I did that, and Ivar told me that Leif was the only one of six men who survived a terrible
explosion. In 1958, Leif and the others heard ticking from underground and ran. Buried German ammunition some distance
from the #1 gun self-exploded and started fires that lasted several days. Leif was knocked unconscious, but the others
were killed instantly. That happened before Ivar's time there, but after he served on that base in 1969, he and Leif worked
together.
Tomorrow Elsa, Ivar, and I are taking a boat trip to Tromsø, a city north of Harstad. By car it would take about twice the
three hours the boat trip will take. Elsa says it will be many years since her last trip there, and Ivar says there are
museums, one of which he hasn't seen. We'll find a good place to have dinner, on Larry and me.
So until next time, best wishes from Norway from Ann
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Hi again, family and friends,
I'm now back in Vormsund, an hour north of Oslo, at my nephew Jan Ivar's house. A week ago yesterday I left Harstad on
the Hurtigrutebåt Westerålen, picking it up on its southbound journey from Nord Kapp to Bergen. Under a gray overcast
sky we steamed (actually diesel engines)out of the harbor and around the tip of Trondenes peninsula, where the Adolf
Kanon points harmlessly now toward the island of Grytøy. Beyond it is Bjarkøy, where, according to the history museum
and culture center once lived a Viking chieftain, Tore Hund. Out on deck, I tried to see the big gun but couldn't. The wind
picked up as we came out of the lee of the islands, exposed to the open sea, and the ship rolled in the white-capped sea
so that I had to hang on as I moved about the deck, fighting the cold but unwilling to go below for another layer of warm
clothes. I wrestled with the mixed feelings of the past week: a desire at last to be home again, sadness at leaving Elsa and
Ivar, and excitement at the journey that lay ahead.
The Westerålen is one of the smaller boats in the Hurtigrute fleet, and if I'd chosen it by boat instead of by date, it's the one
I would have selected. Seeing it next to one of the newer, larger boats in some of the ports, I knew I felt most comfortable
there. It's a cruise ship, yes, with cabins, three lounges, a cafeteria, and a dining room but no spa, bar, or gambling casino.
People read, doze, eat, and sit or walk on deck. Someone told me it carries about 350 passengers rather than 500. I heard
much German, some French, Norwegian, and English. Instructions and information about significant places we were
passing were given in all four languages. It also carries cargo, which is loaded and unloaded by forklifts at every port, and
people can take their car or motorcycle, which they drive aboard next to the forklift ramp from which an elevator takes it to
the boatdeck.
After we passed Risøyhamn, the first stop, I watched the coast of Andøy carefully to see if I could spot the house where
Elsa was born, that we had visited earlier. Juggling camera, binoculars, and map of Norway in the wind, I think I saw and
photographed it, but I'm not sure. As we moved back into the lee of islands, the sea calmed, and I explored the upper,
open deck at the stern. Part of it has plastic wind shields on each side, which also hamper vision, and the stern is open all
around. There are picnic tables within the screen, and heavy folding chairs everywhere. You only have to watch the wind
direction to get out of the exhaust pipe above. The Westerålen continued through the Westerålen Islands, for which it is
named, and on to the Lofoten Islands. On the way some passengers disembarked for a special whale and\or sea eagle
watch. The small ship came up along side and put out a railed ramp, and the passengers walked across from boat to boat.
We steamed through an increasingly narrow passage and then turned to port and into Troll Fjord, so narrow it felt as if we
could reach out and touch the rock in the towering mountains on each side. This ship is able to turn around in this narrow
fjord, but I understand that some of the newer, bigger ones cannot. What a loss for more size!
It was in Troll Fjord that I met the most interesting people of the trip. I dropped a book I'd bought in the shop about the
towns and sights of the voyage, and suddenly a voice asked in English if it were mine. That's how I met Lillian Danielsen
and Nikki Pedersen. Their fathers were brothers born in Norway who with their wives emigrated to the states. Lillian
learned Norwegian from her parents and speaks it fluently, but Nikki never did, so we spoke mostly English for his benefit.
We shared our mutual reasons for being on the boat: partly visiting with family and partly seeing the coast of Norway as
tourists. It was through them that I learned how to get out on the narrow, chairless deck on the bow, and about the
panoramic lounge at the top of the boat. They got off the boat Saturday morning at Florø, the last stop before Bergen,
because it was the town where their fathers were born. They would visit an elderly aunt before continuing on to Stavanger
and other towns to visit more family members. We exchanged e-mail and postal addresses and promised further contact.
My cabin was tiny but adequate, with a comfortable single bed made up with a Norwegian summer weight dyne or down
quilt, a couch and shower and toilet. The small window looked out on an outside wall about a foot away and of course
didn't open. Even with cloudy 24 hour daylight, it was dim in there at night. It was at the stern, though, over the engines,
and I fell asleep to their throb and woke when the boat stopped at a port and let down ropes and gangplanks. The food was
fantastic. When I booked the trip, I was offered a choice of paying for food with the ticket or buying it by meal onboard and
told the cost would be the same. Since I've always been addicted to eating three times a day, I bought the package. They
didn't tell me about the cafeteria, but that's OK. I enjoyed the self-serve breakfasts and lunches and the luxury of a
three-course dinner in the quiet elegance of European dining. All three meals, there's no background music, and
conversations are carried on in low voices. All one hears is the click of knife and fork and a low hum. There was no "trendy
mat," though I think it might have been available in the cafeteria. At one lunch and dinner, I sat with a couple from
Australia, on holiday from his job in Kuwait, in the oil business, of course. He works 6 or 7 days a week, 8 to 10 hours a day,
and her activities are limited to her study of piano and the Australian and British women's groups, so every six weeks they
get an escape, and I guess the money to do it. In Kuwait, she has her own driver; taxi drivers and even police can't be
trusted by a woman alone.
On Thursday morning we crossed the Arctic Circle, leaving the area of the midnight sun a couple of days before the sun
begins to dip below the horizon each night in the far north. It's marked by a globe sculpture on a small island south of
Bodø. A bit later we attended a small ceremony in one of the lounges. On the northbound voyage, we were told, everyone
is "baptized" by King Neptune, in a long purple robe, but on the southern voyage it was more symbolic; a child, who
happened to be French. got a bit of water down his neck. We drank a toast, said "Skål," and got a certificate from Captain
Johannsen. The woman who gave all the information over the loudspeaker explained the origin of the word SKÅL. S is for
sunnhet, health; K is for kjærlighet (the most beautiful word in any language for love); Å is for årene, years; and L is for
livet, life.
On Friday morning the ship was in port at Trondheim for four hours, and I took the opportunity to take a tour of the Folk
Museum there, shortened because the four hours began at 6:30 a.m, and the museum opened specially for us at 8. The
most interesting was the stave church from 1170, not the towering building I expected but a small, one-story, windowless
place with round tree-trunk corners (stave), the altar a pile of flat stones in the slightly smaller section. I realized it is the
same design and proportions as the 1250 Trondenes stone church, built over a former wooden church. We also saw farm
buildings from the 16 or 17 hundreds, though not all of them were open. In one that was, a separate building for
celebrations like weddings, there was a decorated wooden bowl, quite large and heavy, from which guests drank the beer.
I imagine that many of them wore rather much of that beer on their clothing during the week that weddings lasted then. All
the guests brought food, the guide said, and one woman was responsible for remembering who brought what so that the
most important guests' food would be served to the bridal couple at the head of the long table with benches. Friday
evening in Molde, an internationally famous jazz festival was going on, much over-amplified however. Finally the sun had
come out, and we wondered if that clear weather might possibly continue in Bergen, famous for rain.
Saturday morning the clear weather brought many people on the upper deck, basking in the sun and watching the rocky
coast, steep mountains, and small farms and fishing villages strung like a necklace along the narrow shores of mainland
and islands. We saw weekend small sail and power boats, probably some of these houses are now vacation cottages. To
the south a white haze appeared, and about noon we were at the line between gray sky and sea and the blue sky and sea
to the north. We entered Våge, Bergen harbor area under a hazy sun, warm enough so people were swimming, and diving
off a board, in the sea. The water is deep enough that close to the shore.
Disembarking was easy; we were told to have our baggage outside our cabin doors by 9 a.m. where it was picked up by the
crew. We disembarked off the upper deck, walked down into the terminal, and picked our baggage off a moving band the
way one does at an airport. A taxi was waiting for me which I had asked for on the boat, and the driver even carried my very
heavy suitcase up the curving iron staircase to Alkoven, the guest house where I had booked a room. Bergen is crammed
between sea and mountains, and houses are jammed together on the narrow, steep streets. The city must be a police and
fire department nightmare, and the early history includes many disastrous fires. One of the tourist attractions is Brygge,
the area where the German Hanseatic League built the side-by-side wooden structures where businessmen lived who
bought fish from the north and grain from the south and traded both, providing markets but controlling prices to their own
benefit. Sunday morning I went on a tour of the area with a very knowledgeable young Norwegian woman in a simple, long,
red, dress. The Hanseatic League, she said, was a celibate society. Wives and families would distract the men from
concentrating on business and profit. Boys as young as 12 or 13 were brought from Germany to do the cooking, water
carrying, washing, and other chores, promoted as they grew to work on the wharves, unloading boats and weighing and
packing the dried fish. They were so paranoid about fires that all cooking was done in a separate building over one long
central fire, and only the owners were allowed to carry a lighted lamp. There was no glass, so the only windows were
covered by leather in the winter; rooms were dark. The young boys slept two to a bed in alcoves with sliding wooden
doors, the older ones one to a bed. The owner slept in a room by himself, with a narrow winding separate stairway for a
possible nocturnal visitor. This "celibate" society winked at indiscretions unless they became public by a woman having a
child. Then he would be fined. If he gave her living space, he would be sent home. Regardless of all the precautions,
Brygge was destroyed by fire and rebuilt many times. The existing buildings date from the 1700s, a row of narrow
structures, now shops, mostly of both tacky and quality souvenirs (all expensive), below and living space above. In one
through lane, they tilt toward each other. In a courtyard behind the row of buildings, I found a small outdoor restaurant
where I ate Saturday and Sunday night suppers.
Sunday afternoon, I took a five-minute ferry ride from Fiske Torvet (the fish market) to the aquarium where the most
interesting exhibits are the trained seals and the penguins. The day was sunny and warm, and I might have been swimming
if I had found the place and time. After supper, it had begun to get hazy again, and I decided to take the Fløyban to Fløyen
before the weather turned worse. It's a short ride on a funicular, a railway in which two cars operate opposite each other,
passing in the middle, up a very steep slope. I've read of one in Quebec. The view from the top is truly impressive from the
newly constructed, wide stone and concrete viewing area. Far below I could see the Hurtigrutebåt waiting to head north
about 8 o'clock. More tourist stuff (much of it junk) and an expensive restaurant. I had thought of hiking around up there,
but my hostess at Alkoven suggested going up in the evening to avoid tourists and to hike down to town again, and I'm
glad she did. The trail is clearly marked and wide with fanciful carved figures in the woods at the top. Norway spruce and
birch woods open up to views of the harbor, and there are frequent benches. As I neared the town, I was looking down on
the angled design of the roofs of the tightly packed houses.
Monday I spent the morning in a part of the Brygge museum I missed on Sunday, had coffee and coffee cake in the
cafeteria and took the bus out of town to Troldhaugen, the home, burial place, concert hall, and museum of Edvard Grieg.
There I had a baguette (with ham, cheese, and lettuce) in the cafeteria before I bought a ticket. The museum itself is mostly
photographs, letters, and facts about his life. I would have appreciated some recorded music. Concerts are Saturday,
Sunday, and Wednesday, and the aquarium had won out. On the long walk back to the bus, I made the acquaintance of a
large orange tiger cat sitting in his driveway. I stopped and spoke to him in his language, and knelt down. He walked to me,
climbed first on one knee and then onto both knees, telling me clearly that he never had enough love. He was settled in
for a long nap, but his ten pounds on my kneeling lap finally convinced me that if I wanted to walk again we had to part. I
lifted him down, told him in Norwegian to go home now, don't follow me, and limped off.
Alkoven guest house was cozy and comfortable. The hostess actually carried the suitcase, which I could barely lift, up the
winding, narrow stairs to Kjysten, which means loft. A comfortable bed, a chair, table, and secretary desk with drawers. The
shared bathrooms are downstairs, off the stone-floored courtyard, on the way to the shared kitchen, which was fine with
me. The building juts out over the courtyard enough so that when it was raining, I could get to the bathroom without
getting wet. When I got home Saturday evening, a family of five were eating dinner in the shared kitchen. Matthew and
Bernadette, their teen-aged children from Australia, living now in Stockholm where he works with an international bank,
and his mother, on holiday from Australia. They shared their wine and we got acquainted. From them I learned lots about
what to see in Bergen, and when I stumbled onto the Brygge tour the next morning, they were already there. The morning I
left, I met a German couple who now live in Madrid where he works as an astronomer in a part of the UN. Monday evening I
unloaded the books and heavy clothing from my suitcase, brought it down the curving wooden stairs, and re-loaded it
downstairs. The taxi driver took it down the outside stairs. It's embarrassing to travel with a suitcase I can't carry, but so it
goes. Thanks, Lynn. It's been wonderful.
The Bergens Banen, along with the Hurtigrute, has always been one of my dreams. Egil and I traveled on it as far as Geilo
back in January 1981 to go skiing there, but the most impressive scenery is between Bergen and Geilo. Strips of snow line
the mountains all around Harstad, Tromsø, and the islands and mainland I saw from the boat, but the snow on the
Hardanger plateau, which I've been told is much higher, covers much larger areas. And one looks not up, but over at it, or
down on it. In one place, we saw two people on bicycles. The road was covered in one place with snow, and one of them
was actually riding the bike through it. The train was quite long; from my seat in the last car, I could see the front of the
train on some of the curves. I was hoping that some of the stops, Myrdal and Finse, we could get off and have maybe 15
minutes to walk about and look around, but no. The stops were quite short. There are hotels, and at one stop, you can get
off, ride a bus down hairpin turns to a ferry on Sognefjord, one of the deepest and most beautiful, they say, in Norway, and
then back to the railroad at another station. They call it "Norway in a nutshell." I'm not sure what you'd do with your
luggage. The seats are comfortable, in the car I was in, in groups of four with folding tables between. There's free coffee
and carts with food go up and down several times. I had brought an apple and bought coffee, a baguette, and an ice cream.
The trip takes 7 hours; I left Bergen at 10:28 and arrived in Oslo at 17:32. One gets used to a 24 hour clock here, especially
when traveling. Heidi met me at the train station; we wrestled the suitcase down the escalators to the underground, and
rode three stops to a 5 minute walk to her and Asle's new apartment. We ate supper and talked more about their wedding
this Saturday in Arendal, where Asle was working and they were living a year ago when they planned it. This summer has
been unbelievably rainy in southern Norway, and we're hoping the rain will hold off so their planned wedding in a park on
an island won't have to be moved inside to the hotel where the reception will be held.
This is my last message from Norway. I leave Vormsund tomorrow for Arendal and after the wedding I return to Vormsund
on Sunday and leave Norway on Monday for Maine. It's going to be a lot frenzied of re-packing. I'll write another from
Maine. What do I like about Norway that makes it so special to me that I've spent almost 10 weeks here? Aside from the
land where Egil grew up and where his family still live, there is much I like, the public transportation, for one. Busses and
in southern Norway trains run between cities on a regular basis. They're comfortable. The roads are built with plenty of
room at bus stops for the bus to pull out of traffic and with sheltered waiting stations with the bus time schedule printed. I
took the train to Halden because that's the way Egil and I traveled, but I could have taken the bus. I'll probably take the bus
to Arendal, simply because the transfer will be easier. It's still possible to live in Norway without a car, even though most
people have cars now, and the highway system is becoming more and more like that in the US, with limited access
highways. The refrigerators and washing machines I've seen in the homes of family members have features I wish we
could have at home. It's possible to buy a refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom without getting the largest size, or a
good-sized refrigerator, like Elsa's, without a freezer. The washing machines allow one to select the water temperature, in
celcius of course, rather than just cold, warm, or hot. They have lots of other options I haven't become familiar with, simply
because Eva, Stine, and Elsa all mixed my clothes in with theirs and set the dials themselves. I never had enough wash for
a whole load. Then in Bergen, when I really needed to do a wash, I read the instructions and hoped for the best. TV news is
not interrupted between subjects with countless ads, and it's possible to watch an entire movie or segment of a series
without interruptions. The availability on TV of programs from not only the US but from England and other European
countries as well, in the original language with Norwegian subtitles. I don't watch TV at home, but in Harstad I watched not
only the soccer matches and the bicycle race from London to the French Riviera (I guess) that Ivar liked, but a funny series
titled "Hallo Hallo" from the BBC about the interaction of the Nazis and the French underground, and a BBC series about
the fall of the Roman Empire. Too bloody, actually. The news is mostly European, though I did see very brief coverage of
Bush after the most recent vote by Congress to set a date to start bringing troops home and his comment to a press
conference, "We can't afford to fail!" to which I responded in Ivar's living room with a howl: "We have already failed!"
Otherwise it's been a blessed relief from US coverage. The Norwegian coverage has been of bombings, of course, but
short.
Norway is an expensive place to live. I have Egil's family to thank for the wonderful opportunity to spend this much time
here. So especially to Jan Ivar and Eva, to Stine, to Bertil and Sylvia, to Ivar and Elsa, to Leif Arne and Ann Karin, I give my
heartfelt thanks for the time I spent as their guests. I love you all.
Ann
Hi again, family and friends,
I'm now back in Vormsund, an hour north of Oslo, at my nephew Jan Ivar's house. A week ago yesterday I left Harstad on
the Hurtigrutebåt Westerålen, picking it up on its southbound journey from Nord Kapp to Bergen. Under a gray overcast
sky we steamed (actually diesel engines)out of the harbor and around the tip of Trondenes peninsula, where the Adolf
Kanon points harmlessly now toward the island of Grytøy. Beyond it is Bjarkøy, where, according to the history museum
and culture center once lived a Viking chieftain, Tore Hund. Out on deck, I tried to see the big gun but couldn't. The wind
picked up as we came out of the lee of the islands, exposed to the open sea, and the ship rolled in the white-capped sea
so that I had to hang on as I moved about the deck, fighting the cold but unwilling to go below for another layer of warm
clothes. I wrestled with the mixed feelings of the past week: a desire at last to be home again, sadness at leaving Elsa and
Ivar, and excitement at the journey that lay ahead.
The Westerålen is one of the smaller boats in the Hurtigrute fleet, and if I'd chosen it by boat instead of by date, it's the one
I would have selected. Seeing it next to one of the newer, larger boats in some of the ports, I knew I felt most comfortable
there. It's a cruise ship, yes, with cabins, three lounges, a cafeteria, and a dining room but no spa, bar, or gambling casino.
People read, doze, eat, and sit or walk on deck. Someone told me it carries about 350 passengers rather than 500. I heard
much German, some French, Norwegian, and English. Instructions and information about significant places we were
passing were given in all four languages. It also carries cargo, which is loaded and unloaded by forklifts at every port, and
people can take their car or motorcycle, which they drive aboard next to the forklift ramp from which an elevator takes it to
the boatdeck.
After we passed Risøyhamn, the first stop, I watched the coast of Andøy carefully to see if I could spot the house where
Elsa was born, that we had visited earlier. Juggling camera, binoculars, and map of Norway in the wind, I think I saw and
photographed it, but I'm not sure. As we moved back into the lee of islands, the sea calmed, and I explored the upper,
open deck at the stern. Part of it has plastic wind shields on each side, which also hamper vision, and the stern is open all
around. There are picnic tables within the screen, and heavy folding chairs everywhere. You only have to watch the wind
direction to get out of the exhaust pipe above. The Westerålen continued through the Westerålen Islands, for which it is
named, and on to the Lofoten Islands. On the way some passengers disembarked for a special whale and\or sea eagle
watch. The small ship came up along side and put out a railed ramp, and the passengers walked across from boat to boat.
We steamed through an increasingly narrow passage and then turned to port and into Troll Fjord, so narrow it felt as if we
could reach out and touch the rock in the towering mountains on each side. This ship is able to turn around in this narrow
fjord, but I understand that some of the newer, bigger ones cannot. What a loss for more size!
It was in Troll Fjord that I met the most interesting people of the trip. I dropped a book I'd bought in the shop about the
towns and sights of the voyage, and suddenly a voice asked in English if it were mine. That's how I met Lillian Danielsen
and Nikki Pedersen. Their fathers were brothers born in Norway who with their wives emigrated to the states. Lillian
learned Norwegian from her parents and speaks it fluently, but Nikki never did, so we spoke mostly English for his benefit.
We shared our mutual reasons for being on the boat: partly visiting with family and partly seeing the coast of Norway as
tourists. It was through them that I learned how to get out on the narrow, chairless deck on the bow, and about the
panoramic lounge at the top of the boat. They got off the boat Saturday morning at Florø, the last stop before Bergen,
because it was the town where their fathers were born. They would visit an elderly aunt before continuing on to Stavanger
and other towns to visit more family members. We exchanged e-mail and postal addresses and promised further contact.
My cabin was tiny but adequate, with a comfortable single bed made up with a Norwegian summer weight dyne or down
quilt, a couch and shower and toilet. The small window looked out on an outside wall about a foot away and of course
didn't open. Even with cloudy 24 hour daylight, it was dim in there at night. It was at the stern, though, over the engines,
and I fell asleep to their throb and woke when the boat stopped at a port and let down ropes and gangplanks. The food was
fantastic. When I booked the trip, I was offered a choice of paying for food with the ticket or buying it by meal onboard and
told the cost would be the same. Since I've always been addicted to eating three times a day, I bought the package. They
didn't tell me about the cafeteria, but that's OK. I enjoyed the self-serve breakfasts and lunches and the luxury of a
three-course dinner in the quiet elegance of European dining. All three meals, there's no background music, and
conversations are carried on in low voices. All one hears is the click of knife and fork and a low hum. There was no "trendy
mat," though I think it might have been available in the cafeteria. At one lunch and dinner, I sat with a couple from
Australia, on holiday from his job in Kuwait, in the oil business, of course. He works 6 or 7 days a week, 8 to 10 hours a day,
and her activities are limited to her study of piano and the Australian and British women's groups, so every six weeks they
get an escape, and I guess the money to do it. In Kuwait, she has her own driver; taxi drivers and even police can't be
trusted by a woman alone.
On Thursday morning we crossed the Arctic Circle, leaving the area of the midnight sun a couple of days before the sun
begins to dip below the horizon each night in the far north. It's marked by a globe sculpture on a small island south of
Bodø. A bit later we attended a small ceremony in one of the lounges. On the northbound voyage, we were told, everyone
is "baptized" by King Neptune, in a long purple robe, but on the southern voyage it was more symbolic; a child, who
happened to be French. got a bit of water down his neck. We drank a toast, said "Skål," and got a certificate from Captain
Johannsen. The woman who gave all the information over the loudspeaker explained the origin of the word SKÅL. S is for
sunnhet, health; K is for kjærlighet (the most beautiful word in any language for love); Å is for årene, years; and L is for
livet, life.
On Friday morning the ship was in port at Trondheim for four hours, and I took the opportunity to take a tour of the Folk
Museum there, shortened because the four hours began at 6:30 a.m, and the museum opened specially for us at 8. The
most interesting was the stave church from 1170, not the towering building I expected but a small, one-story, windowless
place with round tree-trunk corners (stave), the altar a pile of flat stones in the slightly smaller section. I realized it is the
same design and proportions as the 1250 Trondenes stone church, built over a former wooden church. We also saw farm
buildings from the 16 or 17 hundreds, though not all of them were open. In one that was, a separate building for
celebrations like weddings, there was a decorated wooden bowl, quite large and heavy, from which guests drank the beer.
I imagine that many of them wore rather much of that beer on their clothing during the week that weddings lasted then. All
the guests brought food, the guide said, and one woman was responsible for remembering who brought what so that the
most important guests' food would be served to the bridal couple at the head of the long table with benches. Friday
evening in Molde, an internationally famous jazz festival was going on, much over-amplified however. Finally the sun had
come out, and we wondered if that clear weather might possibly continue in Bergen, famous for rain.
Saturday morning the clear weather brought many people on the upper deck, basking in the sun and watching the rocky
coast, steep mountains, and small farms and fishing villages strung like a necklace along the narrow shores of mainland
and islands. We saw weekend small sail and power boats, probably some of these houses are now vacation cottages. To
the south a white haze appeared, and about noon we were at the line between gray sky and sea and the blue sky and sea
to the north. We entered Våge, Bergen harbor area under a hazy sun, warm enough so people were swimming, and diving
off a board, in the sea. The water is deep enough that close to the shore.
Disembarking was easy; we were told to have our baggage outside our cabin doors by 9 a.m. where it was picked up by the
crew. We disembarked off the upper deck, walked down into the terminal, and picked our baggage off a moving band the
way one does at an airport. A taxi was waiting for me which I had asked for on the boat, and the driver even carried my very
heavy suitcase up the curving iron staircase to Alkoven, the guest house where I had booked a room. Bergen is crammed
between sea and mountains, and houses are jammed together on the narrow, steep streets. The city must be a police and
fire department nightmare, and the early history includes many disastrous fires. One of the tourist attractions is Brygge,
the area where the German Hanseatic League built the side-by-side wooden structures where businessmen lived who
bought fish from the north and grain from the south and traded both, providing markets but controlling prices to their own
benefit. Sunday morning I went on a tour of the area with a very knowledgeable young Norwegian woman in a simple, long,
red, dress. The Hanseatic League, she said, was a celibate society. Wives and families would distract the men from
concentrating on business and profit. Boys as young as 12 or 13 were brought from Germany to do the cooking, water
carrying, washing, and other chores, promoted as they grew to work on the wharves, unloading boats and weighing and
packing the dried fish. They were so paranoid about fires that all cooking was done in a separate building over one long
central fire, and only the owners were allowed to carry a lighted lamp. There was no glass, so the only windows were
covered by leather in the winter; rooms were dark. The young boys slept two to a bed in alcoves with sliding wooden
doors, the older ones one to a bed. The owner slept in a room by himself, with a narrow winding separate stairway for a
possible nocturnal visitor. This "celibate" society winked at indiscretions unless they became public by a woman having a
child. Then he would be fined. If he gave her living space, he would be sent home. Regardless of all the precautions,
Brygge was destroyed by fire and rebuilt many times. The existing buildings date from the 1700s, a row of narrow
structures, now shops, mostly of both tacky and quality souvenirs (all expensive), below and living space above. In one
through lane, they tilt toward each other. In a courtyard behind the row of buildings, I found a small outdoor restaurant
where I ate Saturday and Sunday night suppers.
Sunday afternoon, I took a five-minute ferry ride from Fiske Torvet (the fish market) to the aquarium where the most
interesting exhibits are the trained seals and the penguins. The day was sunny and warm, and I might have been swimming
if I had found the place and time. After supper, it had begun to get hazy again, and I decided to take the Fløyban to Fløyen
before the weather turned worse. It's a short ride on a funicular, a railway in which two cars operate opposite each other,
passing in the middle, up a very steep slope. I've read of one in Quebec. The view from the top is truly impressive from the
newly constructed, wide stone and concrete viewing area. Far below I could see the Hurtigrutebåt waiting to head north
about 8 o'clock. More tourist stuff (much of it junk) and an expensive restaurant. I had thought of hiking around up there,
but my hostess at Alkoven suggested going up in the evening to avoid tourists and to hike down to town again, and I'm
glad she did. The trail is clearly marked and wide with fanciful carved figures in the woods at the top. Norway spruce and
birch woods open up to views of the harbor, and there are frequent benches. As I neared the town, I was looking down on
the angled design of the roofs of the tightly packed houses.
Monday I spent the morning in a part of the Brygge museum I missed on Sunday, had coffee and coffee cake in the
cafeteria and took the bus out of town to Troldhaugen, the home, burial place, concert hall, and museum of Edvard Grieg.
There I had a baguette (with ham, cheese, and lettuce) in the cafeteria before I bought a ticket. The museum itself is mostly
photographs, letters, and facts about his life. I would have appreciated some recorded music. Concerts are Saturday,
Sunday, and Wednesday, and the aquarium had won out. On the long walk back to the bus, I made the acquaintance of a
large orange tiger cat sitting in his driveway. I stopped and spoke to him in his language, and knelt down. He walked to me,
climbed first on one knee and then onto both knees, telling me clearly that he never had enough love. He was settled in
for a long nap, but his ten pounds on my kneeling lap finally convinced me that if I wanted to walk again we had to part. I
lifted him down, told him in Norwegian to go home now, don't follow me, and limped off.
Alkoven guest house was cozy and comfortable. The hostess actually carried the suitcase, which I could barely lift, up the
winding, narrow stairs to Kjysten, which means loft. A comfortable bed, a chair, table, and secretary desk with drawers. The
shared bathrooms are downstairs, off the stone-floored courtyard, on the way to the shared kitchen, which was fine with
me. The building juts out over the courtyard enough so that when it was raining, I could get to the bathroom without
getting wet. When I got home Saturday evening, a family of five were eating dinner in the shared kitchen. Matthew and
Bernadette, their teen-aged children from Australia, living now in Stockholm where he works with an international bank,
and his mother, on holiday from Australia. They shared their wine and we got acquainted. From them I learned lots about
what to see in Bergen, and when I stumbled onto the Brygge tour the next morning, they were already there. The morning I
left, I met a German couple who now live in Madrid where he works as an astronomer in a part of the UN. Monday evening I
unloaded the books and heavy clothing from my suitcase, brought it down the curving wooden stairs, and re-loaded it
downstairs. The taxi driver took it down the outside stairs. It's embarrassing to travel with a suitcase I can't carry, but so it
goes. Thanks, Lynn. It's been wonderful.
The Bergens Banen, along with the Hurtigrute, has always been one of my dreams. Egil and I traveled on it as far as Geilo
back in January 1981 to go skiing there, but the most impressive scenery is between Bergen and Geilo. Strips of snow line
the mountains all around Harstad, Tromsø, and the islands and mainland I saw from the boat, but the snow on the
Hardanger plateau, which I've been told is much higher, covers much larger areas. And one looks not up, but over at it, or
down on it. In one place, we saw two people on bicycles. The road was covered in one place with snow, and one of them
was actually riding the bike through it. The train was quite long; from my seat in the last car, I could see the front of the
train on some of the curves. I was hoping that some of the stops, Myrdal and Finse, we could get off and have maybe 15
minutes to walk about and look around, but no. The stops were quite short. There are hotels, and at one stop, you can get
off, ride a bus down hairpin turns to a ferry on Sognefjord, one of the deepest and most beautiful, they say, in Norway, and
then back to the railroad at another station. They call it "Norway in a nutshell." I'm not sure what you'd do with your
luggage. The seats are comfortable, in the car I was in, in groups of four with folding tables between. There's free coffee
and carts with food go up and down several times. I had brought an apple and bought coffee, a baguette, and an ice cream.
The trip takes 7 hours; I left Bergen at 10:28 and arrived in Oslo at 17:32. One gets used to a 24 hour clock here, especially
when traveling. Heidi met me at the train station; we wrestled the suitcase down the escalators to the underground, and
rode three stops to a 5 minute walk to her and Asle's new apartment. We ate supper and talked more about their wedding
this Saturday in Arendal, where Asle was working and they were living a year ago when they planned it. This summer has
been unbelievably rainy in southern Norway, and we're hoping the rain will hold off so their planned wedding in a park on
an island won't have to be moved inside to the hotel where the reception will be held.
This is my last message from Norway. I leave Vormsund tomorrow for Arendal and after the wedding I return to Vormsund
on Sunday and leave Norway on Monday for Maine. It's going to be a lot frenzied of re-packing. I'll write another from
Maine. What do I like about Norway that makes it so special to me that I've spent almost 10 weeks here? Aside from the
land where Egil grew up and where his family still live, there is much I like, the public transportation, for one. Busses and
in southern Norway trains run between cities on a regular basis. They're comfortable. The roads are built with plenty of
room at bus stops for the bus to pull out of traffic and with sheltered waiting stations with the bus time schedule printed. I
took the train to Halden because that's the way Egil and I traveled, but I could have taken the bus. I'll probably take the bus
to Arendal, simply because the transfer will be easier. It's still possible to live in Norway without a car, even though most
people have cars now, and the highway system is becoming more and more like that in the US, with limited access
highways. The refrigerators and washing machines I've seen in the homes of family members have features I wish we
could have at home. It's possible to buy a refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom without getting the largest size, or a
good-sized refrigerator, like Elsa's, without a freezer. The washing machines allow one to select the water temperature, in
celcius of course, rather than just cold, warm, or hot. They have lots of other options I haven't become familiar with, simply
because Eva, Stine, and Elsa all mixed my clothes in with theirs and set the dials themselves. I never had enough wash for
a whole load. Then in Bergen, when I really needed to do a wash, I read the instructions and hoped for the best. TV news is
not interrupted between subjects with countless ads, and it's possible to watch an entire movie or segment of a series
without interruptions. The availability on TV of programs from not only the US but from England and other European
countries as well, in the original language with Norwegian subtitles. I don't watch TV at home, but in Harstad I watched not
only the soccer matches and the bicycle race from London to the French Riviera (I guess) that Ivar liked, but a funny series
titled "Hallo Hallo" from the BBC about the interaction of the Nazis and the French underground, and a BBC series about
the fall of the Roman Empire. Too bloody, actually. The news is mostly European, though I did see very brief coverage of
Bush after the most recent vote by Congress to set a date to start bringing troops home and his comment to a press
conference, "We can't afford to fail!" to which I responded in Ivar's living room with a howl: "We have already failed!"
Otherwise it's been a blessed relief from US coverage. The Norwegian coverage has been of bombings, of course, but
short.
Norway is an expensive place to live. I have Egil's family to thank for the wonderful opportunity to spend this much time
here. So especially to Jan Ivar and Eva, to Stine, to Bertil and Sylvia, to Ivar and Elsa, to Leif Arne and Ann Karin, I give my
heartfelt thanks for the time I spent as their guests. I love you all.
Ann
| ANN'S NORWAY TRIP MAY 25 - JULY 31, 2007 |
| All of the text, graphics and photos on this webpage are Copyright © 2007 Ann Fogg . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. |
May 20, 2007
Hi everyone,
Most of you know by now that I'm heading to Norway this summer for nine weeks (May 25 to July 31). I'll visit Egil's family,
some in southern Norway and some north of the arctic circle, and attend a wedding. I'll fly north and then return south by
boat, making port at several towns along the coast, to Bergen, where I've never been, and train across the Hardanger
plateau, one of the most scenic railroads in the world.
My long-time friend Lynn, who is now my housemate, will keep the garden going here while I'm gone. She put me in touch
with her friend Alan, who set up a blog for her when she left Vancouver Island to drive here last fall, and he's agreed to set
up a blog for me for this trip. The link is www.gypsyy.com/ann.html
Periodically I'll send news and a few photos to him from computers of family members or from internet cafes or libraries,
and if you're interested, you can see and read what's going on.
This last week home is filled with anxiety: so many tasks still to do here, and the somewhat disturbing fact that my passport,
which I sent in for renewal early in March, has not yet arrived. I was told it would take "up to ten weeks," which I figured
probably meant a bit less than the full ten. But here I am, ten weeks to the day, and communicating by e-mail with the
passport people, Lynn, an experienced traveler, assures me that I'll still get to Norway, though possibly not as early as I
planned, but I'm hoping desperately that I'll find the passport in the mail tomorrow. So no, I'm not "excited." Not yet.
Best to you all, Ann
Hi everyone,
Most of you know by now that I'm heading to Norway this summer for nine weeks (May 25 to July 31). I'll visit Egil's family,
some in southern Norway and some north of the arctic circle, and attend a wedding. I'll fly north and then return south by
boat, making port at several towns along the coast, to Bergen, where I've never been, and train across the Hardanger
plateau, one of the most scenic railroads in the world.
My long-time friend Lynn, who is now my housemate, will keep the garden going here while I'm gone. She put me in touch
with her friend Alan, who set up a blog for her when she left Vancouver Island to drive here last fall, and he's agreed to set
up a blog for me for this trip. The link is www.gypsyy.com/ann.html
Periodically I'll send news and a few photos to him from computers of family members or from internet cafes or libraries,
and if you're interested, you can see and read what's going on.
This last week home is filled with anxiety: so many tasks still to do here, and the somewhat disturbing fact that my passport,
which I sent in for renewal early in March, has not yet arrived. I was told it would take "up to ten weeks," which I figured
probably meant a bit less than the full ten. But here I am, ten weeks to the day, and communicating by e-mail with the
passport people, Lynn, an experienced traveler, assures me that I'll still get to Norway, though possibly not as early as I
planned, but I'm hoping desperately that I'll find the passport in the mail tomorrow. So no, I'm not "excited." Not yet.
Best to you all, Ann
May 25, 2007
Hi Everyone,
Just want you to know my passport arrived today, Thursday, May 24, at 11 am by FedEx, having gone, according to the
tracking, from New Hampshire to Tennessee to Boston to Portland and finally to me! So far, all systems GO. Next message
should be from Norway.
Ann
Hi Everyone,
Just want you to know my passport arrived today, Thursday, May 24, at 11 am by FedEx, having gone, according to the
tracking, from New Hampshire to Tennessee to Boston to Portland and finally to me! So far, all systems GO. Next message
should be from Norway.
Ann
May 28, 2007
Hello, everyone,
I finally made it to Norway, but not exactly at the time I expected. We sat in the plane at Logan Airport for about two hours
Friday evening while mechanics repaired a battery charger. The plane was warm while they turned off the air conditioning,
but when they needed to turn off the lights we had to deplane for about 15 minutes. Then again at Reykjavik the next
morning we waited while mechanics did something to repair the gas tank. Still, it was refreshing to enter a world in which
English is not the first language. We heard from the captain and the head stewardess first in Icelandic and then in English.
And I met several delightful people near my seats, a woman who had married and was traveling home to Reykjavik from
her home in Detroit, and a man who had moved to Norway from Reykjavik at age four and had returned to attend a
lexicographers' conference. He and I compared three languages most of the way to Oslo and discussed Trygve
Gulbransen and Sigrid Undsett and the thoroughness of my well-thumbed Norwegian/English dictionary. In the Reykjavik
Airport, a company has an ad series based on names from the Icelandic Eddas, which I hope to have time to copy on my
way home. One, I think, is the goddess of poetry, from which we get the word brag. Instead of arriving in Oslo about noon,
it was about 4 p.m. No long inspection at customs, my lexicographer friend and I sailed through the gate marked "Nothing
to declare" and Egil's nephew Jan-Ivar was there to meet me.
Besides his job as a CPA, Jan-Ivar buys and sells English cars and car parts, and Sunday we drove south to Råde to pick up
a car he had bid on and won. From there we drove to Døback on the Oslo fjord. This holiday weekend (Pinse Dag or
Pentecost, not Memorial Day) the town was full of people enjoying an spring holiday weekend, but we found places to park
both cars. Jan-Ivar bought us a half kilo of shrimp off a fishing boat in the harbor, and we ate them there on the wharf.
Farther along is a sculpture of three mermaids sitting together, De Tre Havfruer (The Three Mermaids) says the small sign.
Havfruer combines the words for sea and wives. Go figure!
After dinner at a restaurant, we drove home to Vormsund, a little north of Oslo, and birthday cake for his and Eva's son
Jan-André, 15. The weather, which had started out sunny and about 20 C (70 F) clouded over from the south, and after we
got home started to rain. It's been raining all day today and is about 8 C (45 F), a good day to sit in and read.
At the airport, Jan-Ivar asked me which language we should speak. Soon after we got home, it became clear the answer is
both. Eva, I think, welcomes a chance to use English, and we hold long discussions about Humanism and comparative
language. Their daughter Henriette has studied English for about two years in school and has an excellent ear, not only
for the English she has learned, but for fine tuning my pronunciation of Norwegian vowels. She has become a lærerinne,
teacher.
Eva just knocked on my door, yes her computer is in my room) and asked if I want some cake. Selføgelig!
I feel very much at home here. More later, Ann
Hello, everyone,
I finally made it to Norway, but not exactly at the time I expected. We sat in the plane at Logan Airport for about two hours
Friday evening while mechanics repaired a battery charger. The plane was warm while they turned off the air conditioning,
but when they needed to turn off the lights we had to deplane for about 15 minutes. Then again at Reykjavik the next
morning we waited while mechanics did something to repair the gas tank. Still, it was refreshing to enter a world in which
English is not the first language. We heard from the captain and the head stewardess first in Icelandic and then in English.
And I met several delightful people near my seats, a woman who had married and was traveling home to Reykjavik from
her home in Detroit, and a man who had moved to Norway from Reykjavik at age four and had returned to attend a
lexicographers' conference. He and I compared three languages most of the way to Oslo and discussed Trygve
Gulbransen and Sigrid Undsett and the thoroughness of my well-thumbed Norwegian/English dictionary. In the Reykjavik
Airport, a company has an ad series based on names from the Icelandic Eddas, which I hope to have time to copy on my
way home. One, I think, is the goddess of poetry, from which we get the word brag. Instead of arriving in Oslo about noon,
it was about 4 p.m. No long inspection at customs, my lexicographer friend and I sailed through the gate marked "Nothing
to declare" and Egil's nephew Jan-Ivar was there to meet me.
Besides his job as a CPA, Jan-Ivar buys and sells English cars and car parts, and Sunday we drove south to Råde to pick up
a car he had bid on and won. From there we drove to Døback on the Oslo fjord. This holiday weekend (Pinse Dag or
Pentecost, not Memorial Day) the town was full of people enjoying an spring holiday weekend, but we found places to park
both cars. Jan-Ivar bought us a half kilo of shrimp off a fishing boat in the harbor, and we ate them there on the wharf.
Farther along is a sculpture of three mermaids sitting together, De Tre Havfruer (The Three Mermaids) says the small sign.
Havfruer combines the words for sea and wives. Go figure!
After dinner at a restaurant, we drove home to Vormsund, a little north of Oslo, and birthday cake for his and Eva's son
Jan-André, 15. The weather, which had started out sunny and about 20 C (70 F) clouded over from the south, and after we
got home started to rain. It's been raining all day today and is about 8 C (45 F), a good day to sit in and read.
At the airport, Jan-Ivar asked me which language we should speak. Soon after we got home, it became clear the answer is
both. Eva, I think, welcomes a chance to use English, and we hold long discussions about Humanism and comparative
language. Their daughter Henriette has studied English for about two years in school and has an excellent ear, not only
for the English she has learned, but for fine tuning my pronunciation of Norwegian vowels. She has become a lærerinne,
teacher.
Eva just knocked on my door, yes her computer is in my room) and asked if I want some cake. Selføgelig!
I feel very much at home here. More later, Ann
June 3rd, 2007
Hi everyone,
I've been to Oslo three times this week, fortunately selecting the days when the weather wasn't rainy. Eva now tells me I
must go there everyday to ensure clear weather for them. But the report for the next week is for clear and warm days, so I
can stay with them now.
Oslo is an hour bus ride from the wooden shelter just a short walk from Jan Ivar's and Eva's driveway, and it costs 93
kroner, about $10.00. So it helped that Eva gave me a bus ticket. Twice the driver didn't have the stamp with him and then
he had to let me ride free, but twice he did. Now there's not another ride left on it.
The bus terminal is connected to the Oslo Central Train Station, with which I became familiar on previous trips with Egil,
and from there it's not a long walk to what for me is the center of Oslo, Karl Johans Gate. (Gate means street.) Part of it is a
walking street with many tourist souvenir shops, then it runs alng one side of a long park that stretches from the Storting
(National Government building) to the Oslo University and the National Theater and then the palace where the king and his
family live. Two days I ate lunch outside, once in front of The American Hotel and once at an outside restaurant in the park,
watching people of many nationalities walk by, sightseeing or going about their business. Indian women in saris and
Muslim women wearing either a scarf or an enveloping wrap that leaves only the face exposed and looks hot and
claustrophobic to me. Lots of English people identifiable by their speech.
One reason to go to Oslo was to shop for a wedding present for Egil's and my niece Heidi. Her sister Stine told me she had
registered at a big department store, Glas Magasin, and much of my time the first day was spent searching for it. When I
finally found it, they had no record of it and suggested perhaps a store called Til Bords (for the table). The second day I
found it, quite near the bus terminal as I had been told, so I went there first. They printed out the list of Heidi's and Asle's
wishes, only some of which they had in stock. I was able to buy what I chose, some dinner plates in their pattern, later in
the day on my way back to Vorsund.
I've been able to ask directions and make that purchase using my rudimentary Norwegian. A couple of times someone has
praised me on my use of the language, which of course makes me feel pretty good. The clerk at Til Bords didn't understand
an Englsh phrase I used so I managed to figure out how to say it in Norwegian, which she understood. Once I asked
directions from a couple in the park and got the answer, in British accent, "We haven't the least idea what you're saying."
In front of the National Theater, I photographed the statues of Henrik Ibsen and Bjørnstern Bjørnson. Performances of
Ibsen's "The Wild Duck," in which Egil played a small part in the Belfast Maskers production, are over now, but "Hedda
Gabler" tickets are still available. It's many years since I saw the play, and with the hour long bus ride afterward, I probably
won't make the effort to see it. But I went inside the lobby, wandered around, and picked up the schedule.
The first afternoon I bought a daily paper, "Aftenposten" to read on the bus home and found an article about Sigrid Undset,
the Norwegian author of "Kristian Lavransdatter" and other novels. There's a conference about her work this week in
Lillehammer and, Jan Ivar told me, an exhibit at the Nationale Bibliotek. So my second day in Oslo I walked past the National
Theater and up Henrik Ibsen's Gate to see it. It included clips from Norwegian television and from the movie of "Kristin
Lavransdatter" that you gave me, Anne, and that you, Lynn, and I watched together.
On one side of Henrik Ibsen's Gate, there's a decorative wrought iron fence and a row of lilac bushes between the street
and the palace. I walked up toward the palace, watched the changing of the guard (about 4 men in uniform) and then back
to the street. On the other side is the American Embassy, huge and black and formidable, guarded by a very high and thick
black iron fence. It's ugly and looks like a place Darth Vader might lurk. Around the building is all concrete; no plants
anywhere in sight. I stood reading a sign in both English and Norwegian that expressed regret that security procedures
might hinder people and that everyone is important. A man walked up to me on the other side of the fence and asked
in both languages, perfectly accented, what I was doing. I answered in English: "I'm reading this sign, in both languages,
and noticing how much more formidable the Embassy is than the palace across the street." Norwegians want the embassy
to move to an outlying part of Oslo, because the demonstrations there are unpleasant and perhaps a threat to the palace,
but it is as unwelcome anywhere as a half-way house is likely to be in the states.
The third day in Oslo I was the guest of Heidi and her fiance Asle. They met me at the bus terminal, and we had coffee at a
sidewalk table and then took the trolley to Frogner Park. Every time I come to Norway I want to go there and see again
Gustav Vigeland's statues. Some are bronze, the most famous, "The Angry Boy," but the main part are stone, larger than life
size, and ranged in three levels around a monolith of human bodies. They represent human interaction between children,
between children and parents, between young, middle aged, and old people. Vigeland captured emotions in stone. They're
all nude. Heidi said that when she and Stine took Stine's two boys, Peder and Herman, to the park, the boys said, "So
many penises!" Children climb all over the statues, and adults examine them with hands as well as eyes. Touchable art.
Heidi and Asle moved to Oslo from Arendal only a few weeks ago because of Asle's new job, and they're living in a tiny
rented apartment while they wait to find a larger place. They think they've found one, but it will be a few weeks until they
can move in. Heidi has also found a job she likes very much. We bought a one-time grill and took it and the food to a nearby
park, full of people, including a very loud rock band. We chose a place as far from the band as possible, spread a blanket,
grilled hot dogs and pork chops, and ate them and the salad we had brought. We talked about their wedding, July 28, the
location now changed to an island that we'll reach by ferry. They'll be married by a woman from a Humanist society here in
Norway. Anne, you remember perhaps the magazines I brought home in 2000. Eva is a member of the same organization. In
case of rain, the wedding will be at a hotel. The last name they have chosen to use is a combination of Heidi's grandmother
Schau and Asle's great grandmother Hvatum: Schau-Hvatum. He has already changed his name, and Heidi will change hers
at the wedding. They appear very happy together, and I feel very happy for them.
Now I must close and walk next door to an old school that's been turned into a museum, which is opening today.
Ann
Hi everyone,
I've been to Oslo three times this week, fortunately selecting the days when the weather wasn't rainy. Eva now tells me I
must go there everyday to ensure clear weather for them. But the report for the next week is for clear and warm days, so I
can stay with them now.
Oslo is an hour bus ride from the wooden shelter just a short walk from Jan Ivar's and Eva's driveway, and it costs 93
kroner, about $10.00. So it helped that Eva gave me a bus ticket. Twice the driver didn't have the stamp with him and then
he had to let me ride free, but twice he did. Now there's not another ride left on it.
The bus terminal is connected to the Oslo Central Train Station, with which I became familiar on previous trips with Egil,
and from there it's not a long walk to what for me is the center of Oslo, Karl Johans Gate. (Gate means street.) Part of it is a
walking street with many tourist souvenir shops, then it runs alng one side of a long park that stretches from the Storting
(National Government building) to the Oslo University and the National Theater and then the palace where the king and his
family live. Two days I ate lunch outside, once in front of The American Hotel and once at an outside restaurant in the park,
watching people of many nationalities walk by, sightseeing or going about their business. Indian women in saris and
Muslim women wearing either a scarf or an enveloping wrap that leaves only the face exposed and looks hot and
claustrophobic to me. Lots of English people identifiable by their speech.
One reason to go to Oslo was to shop for a wedding present for Egil's and my niece Heidi. Her sister Stine told me she had
registered at a big department store, Glas Magasin, and much of my time the first day was spent searching for it. When I
finally found it, they had no record of it and suggested perhaps a store called Til Bords (for the table). The second day I
found it, quite near the bus terminal as I had been told, so I went there first. They printed out the list of Heidi's and Asle's
wishes, only some of which they had in stock. I was able to buy what I chose, some dinner plates in their pattern, later in
the day on my way back to Vorsund.
I've been able to ask directions and make that purchase using my rudimentary Norwegian. A couple of times someone has
praised me on my use of the language, which of course makes me feel pretty good. The clerk at Til Bords didn't understand
an Englsh phrase I used so I managed to figure out how to say it in Norwegian, which she understood. Once I asked
directions from a couple in the park and got the answer, in British accent, "We haven't the least idea what you're saying."
In front of the National Theater, I photographed the statues of Henrik Ibsen and Bjørnstern Bjørnson. Performances of
Ibsen's "The Wild Duck," in which Egil played a small part in the Belfast Maskers production, are over now, but "Hedda
Gabler" tickets are still available. It's many years since I saw the play, and with the hour long bus ride afterward, I probably
won't make the effort to see it. But I went inside the lobby, wandered around, and picked up the schedule.
The first afternoon I bought a daily paper, "Aftenposten" to read on the bus home and found an article about Sigrid Undset,
the Norwegian author of "Kristian Lavransdatter" and other novels. There's a conference about her work this week in
Lillehammer and, Jan Ivar told me, an exhibit at the Nationale Bibliotek. So my second day in Oslo I walked past the National
Theater and up Henrik Ibsen's Gate to see it. It included clips from Norwegian television and from the movie of "Kristin
Lavransdatter" that you gave me, Anne, and that you, Lynn, and I watched together.
On one side of Henrik Ibsen's Gate, there's a decorative wrought iron fence and a row of lilac bushes between the street
and the palace. I walked up toward the palace, watched the changing of the guard (about 4 men in uniform) and then back
to the street. On the other side is the American Embassy, huge and black and formidable, guarded by a very high and thick
black iron fence. It's ugly and looks like a place Darth Vader might lurk. Around the building is all concrete; no plants
anywhere in sight. I stood reading a sign in both English and Norwegian that expressed regret that security procedures
might hinder people and that everyone is important. A man walked up to me on the other side of the fence and asked
in both languages, perfectly accented, what I was doing. I answered in English: "I'm reading this sign, in both languages,
and noticing how much more formidable the Embassy is than the palace across the street." Norwegians want the embassy
to move to an outlying part of Oslo, because the demonstrations there are unpleasant and perhaps a threat to the palace,
but it is as unwelcome anywhere as a half-way house is likely to be in the states.
The third day in Oslo I was the guest of Heidi and her fiance Asle. They met me at the bus terminal, and we had coffee at a
sidewalk table and then took the trolley to Frogner Park. Every time I come to Norway I want to go there and see again
Gustav Vigeland's statues. Some are bronze, the most famous, "The Angry Boy," but the main part are stone, larger than life
size, and ranged in three levels around a monolith of human bodies. They represent human interaction between children,
between children and parents, between young, middle aged, and old people. Vigeland captured emotions in stone. They're
all nude. Heidi said that when she and Stine took Stine's two boys, Peder and Herman, to the park, the boys said, "So
many penises!" Children climb all over the statues, and adults examine them with hands as well as eyes. Touchable art.
Heidi and Asle moved to Oslo from Arendal only a few weeks ago because of Asle's new job, and they're living in a tiny
rented apartment while they wait to find a larger place. They think they've found one, but it will be a few weeks until they
can move in. Heidi has also found a job she likes very much. We bought a one-time grill and took it and the food to a nearby
park, full of people, including a very loud rock band. We chose a place as far from the band as possible, spread a blanket,
grilled hot dogs and pork chops, and ate them and the salad we had brought. We talked about their wedding, July 28, the
location now changed to an island that we'll reach by ferry. They'll be married by a woman from a Humanist society here in
Norway. Anne, you remember perhaps the magazines I brought home in 2000. Eva is a member of the same organization. In
case of rain, the wedding will be at a hotel. The last name they have chosen to use is a combination of Heidi's grandmother
Schau and Asle's great grandmother Hvatum: Schau-Hvatum. He has already changed his name, and Heidi will change hers
at the wedding. They appear very happy together, and I feel very happy for them.
Now I must close and walk next door to an old school that's been turned into a museum, which is opening today.
Ann
June 21st, 2007
Hello again, everyone,
Sorry about the gap between entries, but MidMaine Communications, I found out last Saturday, has been hit by hackers
with lots of scam and has shut down overseas contact. I've using the computer and address of my nephew, Leif Arne
Sørensen, here in Harstad. And when I called Lynn, she told me Alan is traveling himself and hadn't posted the blog entry I
sent over a week ago. She also told me how to set up a new web site with Google, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I
don't live in the same house with the computer I'm now using. Still, I'm glad I'm not lugging around a lap top.
Orientation: the first two and a half weeks I was in Vormsund, an hour's bus trip outside of Oslo, and in Halden, a town on
the southern border between Norway and Sweden. The weekend in Halden, the weather was in the high 80s (high 20s C),
and I had been swimming once in the ocean. Sunday I visited Egil's brother Bertil in Fredrikstad, on the west coast of the
Oslo fjord, and we swam there in the ocean, rougher but just as warm. Saturday night Egil's brother Bengt had invited me
to his house for a cook out and the opera at the fortress. That was fantastic! I had translated the plot line from the
brochure, so I could follow it. Because it was performed outdoors, the gypsies had a real fire, and instead of horses, the
Harley Owners Association and their bikes became part of the cast. A messenger arrived in a red 50s Buick convertible,
and Norwegian soldiers rapelled down from the ramparts of the fortress. The orchestra and singing were impressive, of
course, you understand, to my untrained ear. John and Carol, perhaps you can tell me why in Verdi's The Troubadour there
was no sign of a troubadour.' In order to use lights for effect, the performance began at 10:30 and ended at 12:30, By the
time we walked back to Bengt's and he drove me to Stine's house, it was nearly 2 when I got to bed. Somehow I managed to
function Sunday.
Monday I took the train and bus back to Vormsund, and Wednesday morning I flew to Harstad on SAS. The temperature had
dropped so the summer weather was ended for a while, but I landed to find clear weather. As before, the glaciers across
the fjord from Elsa's and Ivar's house still etch the sharp peaks with white, and this morning we could see new snow
around the glaciers. Ivar is Egil's next brother in age, three years younger, 74 earlier this month. The sea is dark blue with
deep aqua marine in the shallows near the stony beach.
Harstad is part of the Lofoten Islands, north of the Arctic Circle, so there is no night from May 21 until July 21. This is the
land of Midnatt Sola, the midnight sun. The sun doesn't drop below the horizon, and it's never overhead either. The next
day the clouds, rain, and cold arrived, and today is the first sunny day since the day I arrived here. It's also Summer
Solstice, the turning point of the earth that led the Vikings and Celts and others to celebrate with bon fires and feasts. It's
celebrated now as Sankt Hans.
Ivar's and Elsa's house looks out on the fjord, across the road and down a slope to a stony beach. I've been visiting my old
favorite sites, Trondenes Church where Leif Arne and Ann Karin were married in 2000 and the Culture Center near it where
their reception was held. It's also a museum which just opened for the season, so I haven't been through it yet. There are
miles of hiking trails in the woods above the houses, a lake where I expect I'll be swimming if this clear weather holds, and
Viking remains discovered since Egil's and my visit in 2000.
The center of Harstad is about a mile from their house, easy walking, and yesterday noon I enjoyed a band concert on the
wharf, celebrating the season's opening of the Harstad Culture Center with free cream cake and coffee. Last evening, we
caught two brief glimpses of my rain parka and white hair in the local TV news coverage of the concert. I've been on
Norwegian TV! The following week is an annual art festival, sort of the Folk Festival stretched out.
Elsa, Ivar, and I expect to take a fishing trip as soon as the weather warms up, and they've planned a trip to Åndelos,
another Lofoten island where Elsa was born, during my stay..I'm visiting relatives, reading, speaking, and listening to
Norwegian, catching up on each other's lives, exploring the area, enjoying my grand nephew and grand nieces. Today Elsa
and I spent a couple of hours working in her flower garden, and this afternoon I watched my grand niece Carina, 9, play
football (soccer to Americans) and win 4 to 0. I'm not a tourist for the nonce. If this entry is as boring as it seemed when I
just read it over, tough.
My camera, a new Sony digital I bought for this trip, is in Oslo being repaired. I don't know what happened to it, but Leif
Arne helped me contact Sony and Best Buy to verify the purchase date, and it ought to be back early next week. Another
benefit of having relatives in the part of the world I most want to visit. ''
By for now, Ann
Hello again, everyone,
Sorry about the gap between entries, but MidMaine Communications, I found out last Saturday, has been hit by hackers
with lots of scam and has shut down overseas contact. I've using the computer and address of my nephew, Leif Arne
Sørensen, here in Harstad. And when I called Lynn, she told me Alan is traveling himself and hadn't posted the blog entry I
sent over a week ago. She also told me how to set up a new web site with Google, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I
don't live in the same house with the computer I'm now using. Still, I'm glad I'm not lugging around a lap top.
Orientation: the first two and a half weeks I was in Vormsund, an hour's bus trip outside of Oslo, and in Halden, a town on
the southern border between Norway and Sweden. The weekend in Halden, the weather was in the high 80s (high 20s C),
and I had been swimming once in the ocean. Sunday I visited Egil's brother Bertil in Fredrikstad, on the west coast of the
Oslo fjord, and we swam there in the ocean, rougher but just as warm. Saturday night Egil's brother Bengt had invited me
to his house for a cook out and the opera at the fortress. That was fantastic! I had translated the plot line from the
brochure, so I could follow it. Because it was performed outdoors, the gypsies had a real fire, and instead of horses, the
Harley Owners Association and their bikes became part of the cast. A messenger arrived in a red 50s Buick convertible,
and Norwegian soldiers rapelled down from the ramparts of the fortress. The orchestra and singing were impressive, of
course, you understand, to my untrained ear. John and Carol, perhaps you can tell me why in Verdi's The Troubadour there
was no sign of a troubadour.' In order to use lights for effect, the performance began at 10:30 and ended at 12:30, By the
time we walked back to Bengt's and he drove me to Stine's house, it was nearly 2 when I got to bed. Somehow I managed to
function Sunday.
Monday I took the train and bus back to Vormsund, and Wednesday morning I flew to Harstad on SAS. The temperature had
dropped so the summer weather was ended for a while, but I landed to find clear weather. As before, the glaciers across
the fjord from Elsa's and Ivar's house still etch the sharp peaks with white, and this morning we could see new snow
around the glaciers. Ivar is Egil's next brother in age, three years younger, 74 earlier this month. The sea is dark blue with
deep aqua marine in the shallows near the stony beach.
Harstad is part of the Lofoten Islands, north of the Arctic Circle, so there is no night from May 21 until July 21. This is the
land of Midnatt Sola, the midnight sun. The sun doesn't drop below the horizon, and it's never overhead either. The next
day the clouds, rain, and cold arrived, and today is the first sunny day since the day I arrived here. It's also Summer
Solstice, the turning point of the earth that led the Vikings and Celts and others to celebrate with bon fires and feasts. It's
celebrated now as Sankt Hans.
Ivar's and Elsa's house looks out on the fjord, across the road and down a slope to a stony beach. I've been visiting my old
favorite sites, Trondenes Church where Leif Arne and Ann Karin were married in 2000 and the Culture Center near it where
their reception was held. It's also a museum which just opened for the season, so I haven't been through it yet. There are
miles of hiking trails in the woods above the houses, a lake where I expect I'll be swimming if this clear weather holds, and
Viking remains discovered since Egil's and my visit in 2000.
The center of Harstad is about a mile from their house, easy walking, and yesterday noon I enjoyed a band concert on the
wharf, celebrating the season's opening of the Harstad Culture Center with free cream cake and coffee. Last evening, we
caught two brief glimpses of my rain parka and white hair in the local TV news coverage of the concert. I've been on
Norwegian TV! The following week is an annual art festival, sort of the Folk Festival stretched out.
Elsa, Ivar, and I expect to take a fishing trip as soon as the weather warms up, and they've planned a trip to Åndelos,
another Lofoten island where Elsa was born, during my stay..I'm visiting relatives, reading, speaking, and listening to
Norwegian, catching up on each other's lives, exploring the area, enjoying my grand nephew and grand nieces. Today Elsa
and I spent a couple of hours working in her flower garden, and this afternoon I watched my grand niece Carina, 9, play
football (soccer to Americans) and win 4 to 0. I'm not a tourist for the nonce. If this entry is as boring as it seemed when I
just read it over, tough.
My camera, a new Sony digital I bought for this trip, is in Oslo being repaired. I don't know what happened to it, but Leif
Arne helped me contact Sony and Best Buy to verify the purchase date, and it ought to be back early next week. Another
benefit of having relatives in the part of the world I most want to visit. ''
By for now, Ann
June 24th, 2007
Hi Everyone,
Apparently the blog I wrote June 10 from Halden didn't make the cut before MidMaine Communications cut off contact with
overseas. So you didn't get to read about my niece's 32nd birthday party with her two boys, Peder, 9, and Herman, 5,
driving everyone nuts with the large water pistols their grandfather Bengt thoughtfully brougot them or about our trip one
afternoon to a salt water beach not far from Halden where we had a delightful swim and the kids went crabbing. Oh, well,
those are the strongest images from that week; the swimming, as everyone who knows me well knows, heads the list.
Back to Harstad and some thoughts I've had since I wrote the last one. Climate is one. Even though Oslo and Halden are
quite a lot farther north than Monroe, the plants bloom about the same time. The end of May and the first of June the lilacs
around Stottet (the kings palace in Oslo) were in full bloom, just as they were when I left, and the lupine along the
roadsides and railroads were masses of purple and pink. Here in Harstad, an hour and a half flight north, tulips and
daffodils were just beginning to fade, and some of the lupine are in bloom, but others, in the shade, are just beginning.
And the blooms last a lot longer. I don't see as much lilac, but what I do is just beginning. Trees are fully leaved out, and
behind them are the glaciers, steaks of white etching sharp-peaked mountains of rock.
Life at Ivar's and Elsa's house is a bit in the slow lane, but that doesn't mean it's boring. Ivar's retired Norwegian navy, and
he spends some of his time giving tours of the Adolf Kanon (big gun, not cannon) at the base. Hitler put four of them (Guns
of Navaronne) in this area during WWII, and Ivar was one of the men responsible for restoring it and its accompanying
bunkers. Sometime during this stay, I'll invite myself to hear it again. Otherwise he works around the house, does most of
the shopping, and mows the lawn.
Elsa is a housewife in the best sense of the word. She's a fabulous cook (unless you're a vegetarian), so I'm getting a meat
and fish fix. And desserts! She made two cakes for coffee (about 4 every afternoon) yesterday for Sankt Hans, a chocolate
one with a cream filling and chocolate frosting, and a bløt cake, a white cake with whipped cream and strawberry filling and
topping. Today, dessert was a baked merangue covered with whipped cream and trimmed with sliced banana, kiwi, and
raspberries. The fact that I walked a bit over a mile to Leif Arne's to use his computer and will walk home again may save
my arteries. she and Ivar are in good health regardless, except that Elsa, over 30 years ago, underwent a hysterectomy for
cancer and has since had lymphedema in one leg. She wears one elastic stocking and cannot walk far without swelling and
discomfort, though she wishes she could. And she has suffered from asthma for many years. She's the best organized
housewife I've ever known or had the opportunity to watch. Every task is organized, vacuuming, laundry, ironing, plant
care, as well as cooking. Will any of it rub off? She was born in the Lofoten Islands, of which Hannøya, where Harstad is, is
one, into a fishing family, and her passion is going fishing. With reports of clear and warm weather, we're planning a fishing
trip for tomorrow evening, and Ivar has been looking for worms.
This morning I hiked to the lake in the woods several streets above the house. This part of Norway, like much of the
country, rises steeply from the sea. I had the trails and the lake to myself. My swim was brief, a dip actually; the water was
much colder than the ocean was off Halden and Fredrikstad, but the sun was warm, and it was delightful to sit quietly and
air dry in the sun. A skjære (a large--think raven--black and white bird with a long tail and a bluejay's liking for hasseling
smaller birds and warning them of marauding cats, landed about two yards (meters, Lynn) from me, and took a couple of
steps closer. My camera, which returned from repair yesterday, was in my back pack, of course, and any movement would
startle it. Later on the beach with Ann Karin and Carina, I waded into the sea. Wind was from the sea, and yes, it felt not too
cold. But it was outgoing tide and too shallow for swimming. I'm waiting for full moon high tide in about a week. I had to
check Elsa's calendar to remember moon phases; the moon isn't visible here with 24 hour daylight. I may not stay in longer
than I stayed in the lake today, but I'll try.
Solstice is celebrated here, as I wrote last time, as Sankt Hans. Anyone figure it out? It's Saint John's, John the Baptist, I
think, purported to have been born around that time. Early people celebrated it with bonfires and festivities on the
beaches, and that's the way it's celebrated today. I suspect the churches still observe it, but I haven't found out how.
OK, 'nuff for now. Best to everyone, Ann
Hi Everyone,
Apparently the blog I wrote June 10 from Halden didn't make the cut before MidMaine Communications cut off contact with
overseas. So you didn't get to read about my niece's 32nd birthday party with her two boys, Peder, 9, and Herman, 5,
driving everyone nuts with the large water pistols their grandfather Bengt thoughtfully brougot them or about our trip one
afternoon to a salt water beach not far from Halden where we had a delightful swim and the kids went crabbing. Oh, well,
those are the strongest images from that week; the swimming, as everyone who knows me well knows, heads the list.
Back to Harstad and some thoughts I've had since I wrote the last one. Climate is one. Even though Oslo and Halden are
quite a lot farther north than Monroe, the plants bloom about the same time. The end of May and the first of June the lilacs
around Stottet (the kings palace in Oslo) were in full bloom, just as they were when I left, and the lupine along the
roadsides and railroads were masses of purple and pink. Here in Harstad, an hour and a half flight north, tulips and
daffodils were just beginning to fade, and some of the lupine are in bloom, but others, in the shade, are just beginning.
And the blooms last a lot longer. I don't see as much lilac, but what I do is just beginning. Trees are fully leaved out, and
behind them are the glaciers, steaks of white etching sharp-peaked mountains of rock.
Life at Ivar's and Elsa's house is a bit in the slow lane, but that doesn't mean it's boring. Ivar's retired Norwegian navy, and
he spends some of his time giving tours of the Adolf Kanon (big gun, not cannon) at the base. Hitler put four of them (Guns
of Navaronne) in this area during WWII, and Ivar was one of the men responsible for restoring it and its accompanying
bunkers. Sometime during this stay, I'll invite myself to hear it again. Otherwise he works around the house, does most of
the shopping, and mows the lawn.
Elsa is a housewife in the best sense of the word. She's a fabulous cook (unless you're a vegetarian), so I'm getting a meat
and fish fix. And desserts! She made two cakes for coffee (about 4 every afternoon) yesterday for Sankt Hans, a chocolate
one with a cream filling and chocolate frosting, and a bløt cake, a white cake with whipped cream and strawberry filling and
topping. Today, dessert was a baked merangue covered with whipped cream and trimmed with sliced banana, kiwi, and
raspberries. The fact that I walked a bit over a mile to Leif Arne's to use his computer and will walk home again may save
my arteries. she and Ivar are in good health regardless, except that Elsa, over 30 years ago, underwent a hysterectomy for
cancer and has since had lymphedema in one leg. She wears one elastic stocking and cannot walk far without swelling and
discomfort, though she wishes she could. And she has suffered from asthma for many years. She's the best organized
housewife I've ever known or had the opportunity to watch. Every task is organized, vacuuming, laundry, ironing, plant
care, as well as cooking. Will any of it rub off? She was born in the Lofoten Islands, of which Hannøya, where Harstad is, is
one, into a fishing family, and her passion is going fishing. With reports of clear and warm weather, we're planning a fishing
trip for tomorrow evening, and Ivar has been looking for worms.
This morning I hiked to the lake in the woods several streets above the house. This part of Norway, like much of the
country, rises steeply from the sea. I had the trails and the lake to myself. My swim was brief, a dip actually; the water was
much colder than the ocean was off Halden and Fredrikstad, but the sun was warm, and it was delightful to sit quietly and
air dry in the sun. A skjære (a large--think raven--black and white bird with a long tail and a bluejay's liking for hasseling
smaller birds and warning them of marauding cats, landed about two yards (meters, Lynn) from me, and took a couple of
steps closer. My camera, which returned from repair yesterday, was in my back pack, of course, and any movement would
startle it. Later on the beach with Ann Karin and Carina, I waded into the sea. Wind was from the sea, and yes, it felt not too
cold. But it was outgoing tide and too shallow for swimming. I'm waiting for full moon high tide in about a week. I had to
check Elsa's calendar to remember moon phases; the moon isn't visible here with 24 hour daylight. I may not stay in longer
than I stayed in the lake today, but I'll try.
Solstice is celebrated here, as I wrote last time, as Sankt Hans. Anyone figure it out? It's Saint John's, John the Baptist, I
think, purported to have been born around that time. Early people celebrated it with bonfires and festivities on the
beaches, and that's the way it's celebrated today. I suspect the churches still observe it, but I haven't found out how.
OK, 'nuff for now. Best to everyone, Ann
June 26th, 2007
Hi Everybody,
One of Elsa's and Ivar's favorite summer activities is "en fisketur," a fishing trip, and last evening we went on the first one
of the season. The day had started out so fine that I had hiked again to the lake and this time taken a longer swim (about
three strokes out and back to shore). The water is as clear as that in the Maine lakes where we paddle on the canoe trip.
But colder, I just need to get used to it. I also explored another of the trails in these woods and found a ruined stone
look-out built by the Germans during the war when they occupied Norway. From it I could see Trondenes Kirke and the
fjord where Viking remains have been found in the years since Egil's and my trip here in 2000. There's a trail to get to them
that I'll follow another day. While at this spot I talked with an elderly man who was whistling for his dog, an Alaskan husky,
which actually responded while we conversed, panting heavily from her run.
By evening clouds had come in, good weather for fishing. We loaded up the fishing poles, warm clothes, and the worms
Ivar had dug and drove on increasingly narrow dirt roads to the same place where we fished together in 2000. On the way
we picked up Carina, Ivar's and Elsa's 9 year old granddaughter. It would be her second fishing trip. Sheep grazed nearby,
and we could hear their bleats and the bell one of them wore. We spread out along the coast of land-surrounded salt water
and proceded to feed the worms to whatever was eating them and to remove seagrass from our hooks and rebait them. It
took me a while to master the art of working the reel, releasing the brake at just the right time so the hook and bobber
went far out instead of dropping a couple of feet from the bank. Elsa and Ivar each caught one fish, small speckled trout,
and Carina caught two, including the largest, of which she was, of course, extremely proud. I caught nothing, the same as I
did seven years ago. But we'll go again. After Elsa and Ivar invited me to stay "a long time" and we settled on five weeks,
I've wondered if that might be too long, but it doesn't feel that way now, nearly two weeks since I arrived here in Harstad.
There'll be more fishing trips, among other plans.
Elsa's major indoor activity is needlework, knitting, embroidery, crocheting. My bed has a crocheted cover over the
summer-weight down quilt, and she crochets squares while watching TV and embroiders the openwork shelf and table
covers that cover every horizontal surface in their house. She began a new one this morning, first basting a dark line
across the middle of the material which she proceeded to use as a guide to the design. She says she loves to do it and
could do it for hours, but it would drive me mad. She's making them now for a friend.
I brought with me a sequel to the Norwegian book I'd just finished and have started a couple of others I found at a library
sale, but the one that's keeping me reading, well-thumbed dictionary beside me, is a mystery I got as a birthday present.
Set in 2005, the first woman US president, of Norwegian heritage, arrives in Norway on the evening of May 17, Norway's
national day, which I witnessed in Oslo in 1988, and disappears from the hotel, not turning up for the scheduled breakfast
at the palace with the King and his family. Reading the book and the news, I meet words I begin to recognize in
conversation. I also brought the vest I began knitting, and I've done some work on that. Being here is a complete vacation;
I make my own breakfast and snacks, help with the dishes and laundry, have time to hike, read, swim, and knit, and don't
have to think about what to make for dinner.
Varmllig hilsen, som vi sier her, (warm greetings, as we say here)
Ann
Hi Everybody,
One of Elsa's and Ivar's favorite summer activities is "en fisketur," a fishing trip, and last evening we went on the first one
of the season. The day had started out so fine that I had hiked again to the lake and this time taken a longer swim (about
three strokes out and back to shore). The water is as clear as that in the Maine lakes where we paddle on the canoe trip.
But colder, I just need to get used to it. I also explored another of the trails in these woods and found a ruined stone
look-out built by the Germans during the war when they occupied Norway. From it I could see Trondenes Kirke and the
fjord where Viking remains have been found in the years since Egil's and my trip here in 2000. There's a trail to get to them
that I'll follow another day. While at this spot I talked with an elderly man who was whistling for his dog, an Alaskan husky,
which actually responded while we conversed, panting heavily from her run.
By evening clouds had come in, good weather for fishing. We loaded up the fishing poles, warm clothes, and the worms
Ivar had dug and drove on increasingly narrow dirt roads to the same place where we fished together in 2000. On the way
we picked up Carina, Ivar's and Elsa's 9 year old granddaughter. It would be her second fishing trip. Sheep grazed nearby,
and we could hear their bleats and the bell one of them wore. We spread out along the coast of land-surrounded salt water
and proceded to feed the worms to whatever was eating them and to remove seagrass from our hooks and rebait them. It
took me a while to master the art of working the reel, releasing the brake at just the right time so the hook and bobber
went far out instead of dropping a couple of feet from the bank. Elsa and Ivar each caught one fish, small speckled trout,
and Carina caught two, including the largest, of which she was, of course, extremely proud. I caught nothing, the same as I
did seven years ago. But we'll go again. After Elsa and Ivar invited me to stay "a long time" and we settled on five weeks,
I've wondered if that might be too long, but it doesn't feel that way now, nearly two weeks since I arrived here in Harstad.
There'll be more fishing trips, among other plans.
Elsa's major indoor activity is needlework, knitting, embroidery, crocheting. My bed has a crocheted cover over the
summer-weight down quilt, and she crochets squares while watching TV and embroiders the openwork shelf and table
covers that cover every horizontal surface in their house. She began a new one this morning, first basting a dark line
across the middle of the material which she proceeded to use as a guide to the design. She says she loves to do it and
could do it for hours, but it would drive me mad. She's making them now for a friend.
I brought with me a sequel to the Norwegian book I'd just finished and have started a couple of others I found at a library
sale, but the one that's keeping me reading, well-thumbed dictionary beside me, is a mystery I got as a birthday present.
Set in 2005, the first woman US president, of Norwegian heritage, arrives in Norway on the evening of May 17, Norway's
national day, which I witnessed in Oslo in 1988, and disappears from the hotel, not turning up for the scheduled breakfast
at the palace with the King and his family. Reading the book and the news, I meet words I begin to recognize in
conversation. I also brought the vest I began knitting, and I've done some work on that. Being here is a complete vacation;
I make my own breakfast and snacks, help with the dishes and laundry, have time to hike, read, swim, and knit, and don't
have to think about what to make for dinner.
Varmllig hilsen, som vi sier her, (warm greetings, as we say here)
Ann
July 4th, 2007
Hi again, friends and family,
A couple of fishing trips since the first one, and I've improved my casting and the trick of feeding the hook to a worm that
is clearly uninterested in having it for dinner. And one evening last week I finally caught a fish, a trout of respectable size
that will, with those Elsa, Ivar, and Carina have caught, be our dinner tomorrow. Obviously, it's good that everyone's not
dependent on me. Last evening the weather was clear and warm and instead of wearing lots of layers, I stripped down to T
shirt and enjoyed the sun on my back. The sun shone on the glaciers on the same mountains we see from Elsa's and Ivar's
house, and kayaks and a lovely Norwegian rowboat passed us.
Last weekend, Ivar, Elsa, and I took a two-day car trip to the island where Elsa was born and lived until she was 7, when the
family moved to Senja, the island where she grew up. Harstad is on Hinnøya (øya means island), the largest island in
Norway. I realized Saturday that most of it is mountainous; the journey followed the coast, curving around fjords on one
side and steep, pointed mountains adorned with glaciers on the other and across the fjords. We stopped part way for
coffee and buns with på legg (eggs, cheese, liverwurst, jam, etc.) on them. Motor homes and camping trailers filled the
rest area parking lot, and the picnic tables had little turf roofs.
I always thought Hinnøye was part of the Lofoten Islands, but Elsa informed me it's part of Westerålen Islands as is Andøy,
where we were headed. The Lofoten chain is just south of the Westerålan group. We crossed a long bridge to Andøy and
turned left along the fjord coast. On the left, between the road and the fjord, we found the house where Elsa was born and
the building where her grandfather worked building boats. She showed me a chain hanging from the roof of a shed,
necessary once to hold the roof on against the wind. The house used to have one also. Roofs must have improved since
then. We passed the school where Elsa went to first and second grades, lovely white sand beaches and many troll
decorations on the houses. Trolls are very popular there. Finally the road ended, and we turned around and retraced the
route to a road that crosses the island to the outer shore. Mountains dominate Andøy also, the road winding between and
around them. Surf crashed on the outer shore and on the outlying rocks. The tide was coming in, the wind was strong, and
the clouds that had hidden the sun since the preceding Tuesday were breaking. Many camping vans, tents, and motor
homes indicated the popularity of this area and the fact that in Norway nearly everyone is on vacation in July. We stopped
for a snack at a camping center that serves food and provides showers and washers and dryers. The whole place is for
sale for 1,500,000 Norwegian Kroner. If anyone's interested, divide by 6.23 to get dollars. At least that's the exchange rate
I've been using, though I know it's undoubtedly been changing.
At the tip of this long narrow island we came to Andenes, a fairly large town with a long fishing history. Elsa's grandparents
are buried there, and we bought plants, cleared the ground around the stone with an army entrenching tool Ivar carries in
the car and our hands, and planted them. Even though Andøy and Hinnøy are neighboring islands, this is a two-day trip,
partly but not completely because we took the scenic route. We left Harstad about 8 and by the time we were finished
planting it was after 3, time for middagen, or dinner.
We found the place where Elsa had made reservations, settled in, and yes, they were serving dinner. The menu was in
both Norwegian and English, often confusing in the translation. My loks (salmon) was oven baked in Norwegian but fried in
English. If I could't read Norwegian I wouldn't have ordered it. Elsa's fish is called stein biter (stein means stone) and a
local delicacy. She had shown me last week the ugly black fish in the fish market. But on the English menu it was called
catfish, which to me means fish from freshwater in the US south. The next day we found it again where we ate dinner and
by that time I knew what it was. Very delicious.
After dinner Elsa and Ivar took a nap and I went exploring. Past the fishing fleet and fish processing plants, up to the light
house, and along the coast. The midnight sun, which is not visible at night from the house in Harstad because of the hills
behind it, is completely visible from the tip of Andøy. About 6 the sun was still fairly high in the sky on its sliding journey
down to the horizon and then back up again. When I went out again after 11, it was still a ways above the horizon, even
when I gave up about 11:45. The other time I saw it, in Harstad when we drove a ways to do it, the sky was cloudy enough
so we could get a good look, but last Saturday night was completely clear and I didn't have smoked glass.
The place where we stayed was more than perfect for us. Built two years ago on a wharf above the tide, it's a row of
two-story places with two rooms, one above the other with a double bed and bunk above it in each. A bath with washer and
dryer downstairs and a kitchenette and table upstairs. The furniture and walls are pine, trim bright blue, the windows swing
out and hook against the wind. Elsa says the wind is always strong there. For three of us, one night was 1080 kroner, which
we split three ways. Do the math if you want to compare with rates at home.
The next morning we ate breakfast in our kitchenette from food we had bought in the grocery the day before. Andenes has
a long fishing history; in the 1890s the Norwegian government approved money for the long breakwater that protects the
harbor now. The crossties of the railroad that was built to haul the millions of tons of stone that it's built from are still
visible, a walkway along the coast. And near the place where we stayed, there's a monument to those who died at sea from
1920s until a date I now don't remember. From the dates it's clear that some storms took men from several families. The
North Sea is a dangerous place to fish, as are the outer banks off Maine and the Maritimes.
On the way home, we drove down the better road on the fjord coast of Andøy passing fields where they actually mine the
soil. Elsa says it's very rich and is sent all over the world. Is it because of the short growing season that they don't use it
there? I don't know. We kept seeing the Hurtigrutebåt which I'll take when I leave Harstad July 18, It winds its way between
these islands, and I'll be able to see the house where Elsa was born from the deck. We ate dinner on the porch of a hotel
in Lødingen, a town off the Hinnøye highway on the fjord. We had to hunt for it; in one town we were too early, at another
camping place and hotel they were serving only a buffet, which Elsa turned down. But this was worth the wait. A boat
moored in front of the porch where we ate Elsa recognized as a whaling boat her brother had worked on. A gun mounted
on the bow shoots harpoons. The whales Norway was criticized for hunting some years ago, Elsa said, began dying of over
population, and Greenpeace gave their OK to start hunting again. Dinner today was whale meat, cooked in a sauce and
traditionally served with spaghetti, along with the ubiquitous potatoes. It looks like beef but has its own taste.
The weather has turned warm, 20 C and up to 26 C in the shade (in the 70s F), and the water in the lake is warming up
enough so swimming is not only possible, but exhilarating, Yeah, I know. I lie. So what? Last night was so warm I couldn't
sleep under the summer weight dyne (down quilt) I've been able to manage.
Time to spend some time with my godson. Since I arrived nearly three weeks ago he's learned to crawl and is trying to
figure out how to get his fat little legs to support him. He's pulled himself up with his arms on the couch and with his
mother's support actually stood until his legs gave way. Why did I miss this in this life?
Love to all, Ann
Hi again, friends and family,
A couple of fishing trips since the first one, and I've improved my casting and the trick of feeding the hook to a worm that
is clearly uninterested in having it for dinner. And one evening last week I finally caught a fish, a trout of respectable size
that will, with those Elsa, Ivar, and Carina have caught, be our dinner tomorrow. Obviously, it's good that everyone's not
dependent on me. Last evening the weather was clear and warm and instead of wearing lots of layers, I stripped down to T
shirt and enjoyed the sun on my back. The sun shone on the glaciers on the same mountains we see from Elsa's and Ivar's
house, and kayaks and a lovely Norwegian rowboat passed us.
Last weekend, Ivar, Elsa, and I took a two-day car trip to the island where Elsa was born and lived until she was 7, when the
family moved to Senja, the island where she grew up. Harstad is on Hinnøya (øya means island), the largest island in
Norway. I realized Saturday that most of it is mountainous; the journey followed the coast, curving around fjords on one
side and steep, pointed mountains adorned with glaciers on the other and across the fjords. We stopped part way for
coffee and buns with på legg (eggs, cheese, liverwurst, jam, etc.) on them. Motor homes and camping trailers filled the
rest area parking lot, and the picnic tables had little turf roofs.
I always thought Hinnøye was part of the Lofoten Islands, but Elsa informed me it's part of Westerålen Islands as is Andøy,
where we were headed. The Lofoten chain is just south of the Westerålan group. We crossed a long bridge to Andøy and
turned left along the fjord coast. On the left, between the road and the fjord, we found the house where Elsa was born and
the building where her grandfather worked building boats. She showed me a chain hanging from the roof of a shed,
necessary once to hold the roof on against the wind. The house used to have one also. Roofs must have improved since
then. We passed the school where Elsa went to first and second grades, lovely white sand beaches and many troll
decorations on the houses. Trolls are very popular there. Finally the road ended, and we turned around and retraced the
route to a road that crosses the island to the outer shore. Mountains dominate Andøy also, the road winding between and
around them. Surf crashed on the outer shore and on the outlying rocks. The tide was coming in, the wind was strong, and
the clouds that had hidden the sun since the preceding Tuesday were breaking. Many camping vans, tents, and motor
homes indicated the popularity of this area and the fact that in Norway nearly everyone is on vacation in July. We stopped
for a snack at a camping center that serves food and provides showers and washers and dryers. The whole place is for
sale for 1,500,000 Norwegian Kroner. If anyone's interested, divide by 6.23 to get dollars. At least that's the exchange rate
I've been using, though I know it's undoubtedly been changing.
At the tip of this long narrow island we came to Andenes, a fairly large town with a long fishing history. Elsa's grandparents
are buried there, and we bought plants, cleared the ground around the stone with an army entrenching tool Ivar carries in
the car and our hands, and planted them. Even though Andøy and Hinnøy are neighboring islands, this is a two-day trip,
partly but not completely because we took the scenic route. We left Harstad about 8 and by the time we were finished
planting it was after 3, time for middagen, or dinner.
We found the place where Elsa had made reservations, settled in, and yes, they were serving dinner. The menu was in
both Norwegian and English, often confusing in the translation. My loks (salmon) was oven baked in Norwegian but fried in
English. If I could't read Norwegian I wouldn't have ordered it. Elsa's fish is called stein biter (stein means stone) and a
local delicacy. She had shown me last week the ugly black fish in the fish market. But on the English menu it was called
catfish, which to me means fish from freshwater in the US south. The next day we found it again where we ate dinner and
by that time I knew what it was. Very delicious.
After dinner Elsa and Ivar took a nap and I went exploring. Past the fishing fleet and fish processing plants, up to the light
house, and along the coast. The midnight sun, which is not visible at night from the house in Harstad because of the hills
behind it, is completely visible from the tip of Andøy. About 6 the sun was still fairly high in the sky on its sliding journey
down to the horizon and then back up again. When I went out again after 11, it was still a ways above the horizon, even
when I gave up about 11:45. The other time I saw it, in Harstad when we drove a ways to do it, the sky was cloudy enough
so we could get a good look, but last Saturday night was completely clear and I didn't have smoked glass.
The place where we stayed was more than perfect for us. Built two years ago on a wharf above the tide, it's a row of
two-story places with two rooms, one above the other with a double bed and bunk above it in each. A bath with washer and
dryer downstairs and a kitchenette and table upstairs. The furniture and walls are pine, trim bright blue, the windows swing
out and hook against the wind. Elsa says the wind is always strong there. For three of us, one night was 1080 kroner, which
we split three ways. Do the math if you want to compare with rates at home.
The next morning we ate breakfast in our kitchenette from food we had bought in the grocery the day before. Andenes has
a long fishing history; in the 1890s the Norwegian government approved money for the long breakwater that protects the
harbor now. The crossties of the railroad that was built to haul the millions of tons of stone that it's built from are still
visible, a walkway along the coast. And near the place where we stayed, there's a monument to those who died at sea from
1920s until a date I now don't remember. From the dates it's clear that some storms took men from several families. The
North Sea is a dangerous place to fish, as are the outer banks off Maine and the Maritimes.
On the way home, we drove down the better road on the fjord coast of Andøy passing fields where they actually mine the
soil. Elsa says it's very rich and is sent all over the world. Is it because of the short growing season that they don't use it
there? I don't know. We kept seeing the Hurtigrutebåt which I'll take when I leave Harstad July 18, It winds its way between
these islands, and I'll be able to see the house where Elsa was born from the deck. We ate dinner on the porch of a hotel
in Lødingen, a town off the Hinnøye highway on the fjord. We had to hunt for it; in one town we were too early, at another
camping place and hotel they were serving only a buffet, which Elsa turned down. But this was worth the wait. A boat
moored in front of the porch where we ate Elsa recognized as a whaling boat her brother had worked on. A gun mounted
on the bow shoots harpoons. The whales Norway was criticized for hunting some years ago, Elsa said, began dying of over
population, and Greenpeace gave their OK to start hunting again. Dinner today was whale meat, cooked in a sauce and
traditionally served with spaghetti, along with the ubiquitous potatoes. It looks like beef but has its own taste.
The weather has turned warm, 20 C and up to 26 C in the shade (in the 70s F), and the water in the lake is warming up
enough so swimming is not only possible, but exhilarating, Yeah, I know. I lie. So what? Last night was so warm I couldn't
sleep under the summer weight dyne (down quilt) I've been able to manage.
Time to spend some time with my godson. Since I arrived nearly three weeks ago he's learned to crawl and is trying to
figure out how to get his fat little legs to support him. He's pulled himself up with his arms on the couch and with his
mother's support actually stood until his legs gave way. Why did I miss this in this life?
Love to all, Ann
July 17, 2007
Hello, Family and Friends,
Hurtigrute is a company that runs boats for residents and tourists along Norway’s long, island-dotted coast. Last Thursday
Ivar, Elsa, and I took the hurtigbåt from Harstad to Tromsø, a large city three hours north by sea but twice that by road.
Smaller boats service the smaller islands, and the large hurtigrutebåts, one of which, the Westerålen, I’ll take Wednesday
when I leave Harstad, travel back and forth between Bergen and Nord Kapp. We see the hurtigrutebåts every morning,
one going north and one going south, on their way to the quay at Harstad. I can see their route, in red, winding among the
islands.
The only problem about the hurtigbåt is that, unlike the ferries to Islesboro and Monhegan, it’s impossible to sit out on
deck in the wind and spray. All the seats on the Fjord Kongen are inside, in wide rows like a massive jet liner, the same
kinds of seats. We got window seats on the island side. Elsa’s family moved to the large island of Senja soon after WW II,
where her father and uncles were fishermen. Like most of the land here, it’s high, steep, rocky mountain etched with white
glaciers and a narrow strip of land between mountain and sea. Elsa says the fishing villages are on the other, outer, shore,
but we saw their house, in a rather large, for this area, town near the northern tip of the island, not far from the bridge to
Finsnes on the mainland, where the boat stopped to take on passengers. Their younger son, Leif Arne, was born in the
hospital there; since Ivar was at sea in the navy, Elsa had moved home for the birth.
We had coffee and a snack on the pier at Tromsø and then walked through the city to Polarlys, a museum that focuses on
life on Svalbard, a series of islands north of Nord Kapp. It was a fantastic exhibit which started with a film showing the
birds that nest there, the polar bears, and the harsh snow and rock surface. There are live exhibits of the fish that swim in
this sea, and I came face to face with the steinbiter, a large, dark fish with nasty sharp teeth that in restaurants has been
on the menu as catfish. It’s actually called ulvfisk (wolf fish) which is more accurate. One of them rose at least 4 inches
from the water in the aquarium, opening and closing its mouth as if it were hoping for a finger. Since it’s fed by attendants
tossing food into the water, it probably wasn’t really after me. The museum owns five bearded seals, which we saw
swimming and basking in their pool and simulated ice. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay long enough to see them fed, when
they perform their tricks, perhaps like Andre, the seal at Rockport used to do.
The other museum is devoted to Roald Amundsen and Fridjof Nansen, the Norwegian polar explorers, and we saw lots of
dead, stuffed polar bears, walruses, seals, and sled dogs and life-size figures of the men who explored these areas. One
exhibit I wish I could have a copy of showed the native peoples. Inuit, Eskimo, Sami, who lived in the polar regions. The ski
museum in Olso says that Norwegians invented the ski, but this exhibit says it was the Sami, or Lapps, who invented it.
After two museums, we were ready for middagen, or dinner. It was somewhere about 1:30 and 2:00, the time when Ivar and
Elsa prefer to eat, and we looked forward to finding some good Norwegian food in this large city. My cousin Larry had
asked me to use some of his money to treat to lunch one or some of the people he met at Egil’s memorial, and this was the
time we were going to use it. But in place after place, we were told it was much too early for middagen but they could
serve us pizza or hamburgers, “trendy mat,” one young man told us. The Ugly American has won. None of us wanted to eat
trendy food. I wondered if it would be spelled trendig in Norwegian, but Elsa and Ivar said no, the same way it’s spelled in
English. It isn’t in either part of my two year old English/Norwegian/Norsk/Engelsk dictionary. Not even the word trend.
Finally we found a restaurant where we could at least choose marinated beef, boat potatoes (cut in boat shapes and fried,
but hardly the boiled potatoes Elsa wanted), and onions, red peppers, and carrots swimming in the sauce. Because he
wasn’t driving, Ivar could have a beer; Elsa had mineral water, and I had cider. Dessert was warm apple cake with whipped
cream for Elsa and vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce for Ivar and me, and coffee. Everything tasted delicious. I wish I
could capture Elsa’s outraged descriptions to family and friends, in her broadest northern speech, of our experience with
trendy mat. We’ve laughed about it since. We say a hearty greeting to Larry, and say “Takk for maten, Larry,” the phrase
one uses here at the end of every meal to whoever prepared or provided it.
At the Polarlys museum, Elsa and Ivar bought gifts for their grandchildren. I couldn’t find anything else there that seemed
appropriate, and before we took the return boat, we found a toy store where I found some gifts for them, Egil’s and my
great nieces and great nephew, my god son. Their parents own the computer I’ve been using here. We went home on
Fjord Dronning (Queen) II, a bit smaller boat but just as fast and as comfortable, again with a window seat on the same side
where we could see the other coast. Sunday afternoon, when
Leif Arne, Ann Karin, Carina, Theresa, and Christien came to dinner, we told the children there would be a surprise
afterward. They had great fun unwrapping their gifts, and we had as much fun watching them.
When I arrived here five weeks ago, Christien was still trying to figure out how to get his fat legs in the right position to
crawl. One leg was always in his way and he’d end up on his rump. Now he’s moving over the floor at a good pace and is
trying to pull himself up on tables and any other surface he can grab. He likes to hold fast to two fore fingers while he
supports his weight on his legs. He’s a cheerful little chap with a big smile most of the time. We have to protect him from
his sister Theresa, who has spent her two-year old year with this competition for attention and wants whatever he has. She’
ll turn three soon, and is beginning to show a bit of improvement. His older sister, Carina, at almost 9, is a big help with
both him and Theresa. She’s been on fishing trips with Ivar, Elsa, and me, and I hit the jackpot when I gave her yesterday a
book of questions and answers about animals, organized into mammals, insects, fish, reptiles, and birds, though not
necessarily in that order. Elsa told me she asked her how I could possibly know that kind of book was what she wanted.
Carina and I haven’t conversed much; she speaks very fast, and I’m usually a sentence or so behind in understanding what
I hear.
This will be probably the last you’ll hear from me until I reach Jan Ivar’s and Eva’s house outside Oslo July 24. Lynn told me
to try Google and g-mail, which I could use on the hurtigutebåt and at the guest house in Bergen, but I haven’t gotten
around to it. I doubt I’ll spend much time inside on the boat, where there is place to be outside, and I’ll have only two days
in Bergen, where there’s a lot to see and do. The day I reach Bergen, July 21, is the last day of the midnight sun, but in
Bergen we’ll be quite far south of it. From Bergen I’ll take the Bergensbane, the railroad from Bergen to Oslo, across the
Hardanger plateau. I’ll try to send stuff about that from Eva’s computer before I take the bus to Arendal for Heidi’s wedding.
This has been a fantastic visit with Egil’s brother and sister-in-law. The weather has been warm and sunny most of the last
three weeks, and I’ve been swimming in the lake almost every day. I’ve been twice in the North Sea, across the road from
the house, where there’s a small stony beach. Short dips with a couple of strokes. One day I went on to the lake for a real
swim, and the other, cloudy and cool, I went back inside for a hot shower. But the water was so clear, greenish blue and
the stones on the bottom, maybe four feet below my face, sharp and clear. Exhilarating. I’ve caught two fish on four to six
fishing trips; I’ve lost count. But spending three hours on a beautiful Norwegian summer night that lasts and lasts (we
come home usually about 10) gazing at the mountains, farms, sheep, clouds, feeding the hook to the worms (Ivar tells me
that if any hook is showing, the fish won’t bite), and thinking long thoughts, has been pleasant. Last night we came home to
warmed up cauliflower soup, thick like a chowder. I’ve eaten a year’s share of meat and gravy and look forward to feasting
on vegetables, but I’m a strong believer that in Norway I’ll do as the Norwegians do. It won’t kill me. While northern Norway
has been basking in warmth, southern Norway has been rainy, with floods in some places. I’ve been keeping my eye on
Arendal during the TV news, hoping it will dry up enough for the island wedding.
So good-bye for now.’
Ann
Hello, Family and Friends,
Hurtigrute is a company that runs boats for residents and tourists along Norway’s long, island-dotted coast. Last Thursday
Ivar, Elsa, and I took the hurtigbåt from Harstad to Tromsø, a large city three hours north by sea but twice that by road.
Smaller boats service the smaller islands, and the large hurtigrutebåts, one of which, the Westerålen, I’ll take Wednesday
when I leave Harstad, travel back and forth between Bergen and Nord Kapp. We see the hurtigrutebåts every morning,
one going north and one going south, on their way to the quay at Harstad. I can see their route, in red, winding among the
islands.
The only problem about the hurtigbåt is that, unlike the ferries to Islesboro and Monhegan, it’s impossible to sit out on
deck in the wind and spray. All the seats on the Fjord Kongen are inside, in wide rows like a massive jet liner, the same
kinds of seats. We got window seats on the island side. Elsa’s family moved to the large island of Senja soon after WW II,
where her father and uncles were fishermen. Like most of the land here, it’s high, steep, rocky mountain etched with white
glaciers and a narrow strip of land between mountain and sea. Elsa says the fishing villages are on the other, outer, shore,
but we saw their house, in a rather large, for this area, town near the northern tip of the island, not far from the bridge to
Finsnes on the mainland, where the boat stopped to take on passengers. Their younger son, Leif Arne, was born in the
hospital there; since Ivar was at sea in the navy, Elsa had moved home for the birth.
We had coffee and a snack on the pier at Tromsø and then walked through the city to Polarlys, a museum that focuses on
life on Svalbard, a series of islands north of Nord Kapp. It was a fantastic exhibit which started with a film showing the
birds that nest there, the polar bears, and the harsh snow and rock surface. There are live exhibits of the fish that swim in
this sea, and I came face to face with the steinbiter, a large, dark fish with nasty sharp teeth that in restaurants has been
on the menu as catfish. It’s actually called ulvfisk (wolf fish) which is more accurate. One of them rose at least 4 inches
from the water in the aquarium, opening and closing its mouth as if it were hoping for a finger. Since it’s fed by attendants
tossing food into the water, it probably wasn’t really after me. The museum owns five bearded seals, which we saw
swimming and basking in their pool and simulated ice. Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay long enough to see them fed, when
they perform their tricks, perhaps like Andre, the seal at Rockport used to do.
The other museum is devoted to Roald Amundsen and Fridjof Nansen, the Norwegian polar explorers, and we saw lots of
dead, stuffed polar bears, walruses, seals, and sled dogs and life-size figures of the men who explored these areas. One
exhibit I wish I could have a copy of showed the native peoples. Inuit, Eskimo, Sami, who lived in the polar regions. The ski
museum in Olso says that Norwegians invented the ski, but this exhibit says it was the Sami, or Lapps, who invented it.
After two museums, we were ready for middagen, or dinner. It was somewhere about 1:30 and 2:00, the time when Ivar and
Elsa prefer to eat, and we looked forward to finding some good Norwegian food in this large city. My cousin Larry had
asked me to use some of his money to treat to lunch one or some of the people he met at Egil’s memorial, and this was the
time we were going to use it. But in place after place, we were told it was much too early for middagen but they could
serve us pizza or hamburgers, “trendy mat,” one young man told us. The Ugly American has won. None of us wanted to eat
trendy food. I wondered if it would be spelled trendig in Norwegian, but Elsa and Ivar said no, the same way it’s spelled in
English. It isn’t in either part of my two year old English/Norwegian/Norsk/Engelsk dictionary. Not even the word trend.
Finally we found a restaurant where we could at least choose marinated beef, boat potatoes (cut in boat shapes and fried,
but hardly the boiled potatoes Elsa wanted), and onions, red peppers, and carrots swimming in the sauce. Because he
wasn’t driving, Ivar could have a beer; Elsa had mineral water, and I had cider. Dessert was warm apple cake with whipped
cream for Elsa and vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce for Ivar and me, and coffee. Everything tasted delicious. I wish I
could capture Elsa’s outraged descriptions to family and friends, in her broadest northern speech, of our experience with
trendy mat. We’ve laughed about it since. We say a hearty greeting to Larry, and say “Takk for maten, Larry,” the phrase
one uses here at the end of every meal to whoever prepared or provided it.
At the Polarlys museum, Elsa and Ivar bought gifts for their grandchildren. I couldn’t find anything else there that seemed
appropriate, and before we took the return boat, we found a toy store where I found some gifts for them, Egil’s and my
great nieces and great nephew, my god son. Their parents own the computer I’ve been using here. We went home on
Fjord Dronning (Queen) II, a bit smaller boat but just as fast and as comfortable, again with a window seat on the same side
where we could see the other coast. Sunday afternoon, when
Leif Arne, Ann Karin, Carina, Theresa, and Christien came to dinner, we told the children there would be a surprise
afterward. They had great fun unwrapping their gifts, and we had as much fun watching them.
When I arrived here five weeks ago, Christien was still trying to figure out how to get his fat legs in the right position to
crawl. One leg was always in his way and he’d end up on his rump. Now he’s moving over the floor at a good pace and is
trying to pull himself up on tables and any other surface he can grab. He likes to hold fast to two fore fingers while he
supports his weight on his legs. He’s a cheerful little chap with a big smile most of the time. We have to protect him from
his sister Theresa, who has spent her two-year old year with this competition for attention and wants whatever he has. She’
ll turn three soon, and is beginning to show a bit of improvement. His older sister, Carina, at almost 9, is a big help with
both him and Theresa. She’s been on fishing trips with Ivar, Elsa, and me, and I hit the jackpot when I gave her yesterday a
book of questions and answers about animals, organized into mammals, insects, fish, reptiles, and birds, though not
necessarily in that order. Elsa told me she asked her how I could possibly know that kind of book was what she wanted.
Carina and I haven’t conversed much; she speaks very fast, and I’m usually a sentence or so behind in understanding what
I hear.
This will be probably the last you’ll hear from me until I reach Jan Ivar’s and Eva’s house outside Oslo July 24. Lynn told me
to try Google and g-mail, which I could use on the hurtigutebåt and at the guest house in Bergen, but I haven’t gotten
around to it. I doubt I’ll spend much time inside on the boat, where there is place to be outside, and I’ll have only two days
in Bergen, where there’s a lot to see and do. The day I reach Bergen, July 21, is the last day of the midnight sun, but in
Bergen we’ll be quite far south of it. From Bergen I’ll take the Bergensbane, the railroad from Bergen to Oslo, across the
Hardanger plateau. I’ll try to send stuff about that from Eva’s computer before I take the bus to Arendal for Heidi’s wedding.
This has been a fantastic visit with Egil’s brother and sister-in-law. The weather has been warm and sunny most of the last
three weeks, and I’ve been swimming in the lake almost every day. I’ve been twice in the North Sea, across the road from
the house, where there’s a small stony beach. Short dips with a couple of strokes. One day I went on to the lake for a real
swim, and the other, cloudy and cool, I went back inside for a hot shower. But the water was so clear, greenish blue and
the stones on the bottom, maybe four feet below my face, sharp and clear. Exhilarating. I’ve caught two fish on four to six
fishing trips; I’ve lost count. But spending three hours on a beautiful Norwegian summer night that lasts and lasts (we
come home usually about 10) gazing at the mountains, farms, sheep, clouds, feeding the hook to the worms (Ivar tells me
that if any hook is showing, the fish won’t bite), and thinking long thoughts, has been pleasant. Last night we came home to
warmed up cauliflower soup, thick like a chowder. I’ve eaten a year’s share of meat and gravy and look forward to feasting
on vegetables, but I’m a strong believer that in Norway I’ll do as the Norwegians do. It won’t kill me. While northern Norway
has been basking in warmth, southern Norway has been rainy, with floods in some places. I’ve been keeping my eye on
Arendal during the TV news, hoping it will dry up enough for the island wedding.
So good-bye for now.’
Ann
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Hi again, family and friends,
I'm now back in Vormsund, an hour north of Oslo, at my nephew Jan Ivar's house. A week ago yesterday I left Harstad on
the Hurtigrutebåt Westerålen, picking it up on its southbound journey from Nord Kapp to Bergen. Under a gray overcast
sky we steamed (actually diesel engines)out of the harbor and around the tip of Trondenes peninsula, where the Adolf
Kanon points harmlessly now toward the island of Grytøy. Beyond it is Bjarkøy, where, according to the history museum
and culture center once lived a Viking chieftain, Tore Hund. Out on deck, I tried to see the big gun but couldn't. The wind
picked up as we came out of the lee of the islands, exposed to the open sea, and the ship rolled in the white-capped sea
so that I had to hang on as I moved about the deck, fighting the cold but unwilling to go below for another layer of warm
clothes. I wrestled with the mixed feelings of the past week: a desire at last to be home again, sadness at leaving Elsa and
Ivar, and excitement at the journey that lay ahead.
The Westerålen is one of the smaller boats in the Hurtigrute fleet, and if I'd chosen it by boat instead of by date, it's the one
I would have selected. Seeing it next to one of the newer, larger boats in some of the ports, I knew I felt most comfortable
there. It's a cruise ship, yes, with cabins, three lounges, a cafeteria, and a dining room but no spa, bar, or gambling casino.
People read, doze, eat, and sit or walk on deck. Someone told me it carries about 350 passengers rather than 500. I heard
much German, some French, Norwegian, and English. Instructions and information about significant places we were
passing were given in all four languages. It also carries cargo, which is loaded and unloaded by forklifts at every port, and
people can take their car or motorcycle, which they drive aboard next to the forklift ramp from which an elevator takes it to
the boatdeck.
After we passed Risøyhamn, the first stop, I watched the coast of Andøy carefully to see if I could spot the house where
Elsa was born, that we had visited earlier. Juggling camera, binoculars, and map of Norway in the wind, I think I saw and
photographed it, but I'm not sure. As we moved back into the lee of islands, the sea calmed, and I explored the upper,
open deck at the stern. Part of it has plastic wind shields on each side, which also hamper vision, and the stern is open all
around. There are picnic tables within the screen, and heavy folding chairs everywhere. You only have to watch the wind
direction to get out of the exhaust pipe above. The Westerålen continued through the Westerålen Islands, for which it is
named, and on to the Lofoten Islands. On the way some passengers disembarked for a special whale and\or sea eagle
watch. The small ship came up along side and put out a railed ramp, and the passengers walked across from boat to boat.
We steamed through an increasingly narrow passage and then turned to port and into Troll Fjord, so narrow it felt as if we
could reach out and touch the rock in the towering mountains on each side. This ship is able to turn around in this narrow
fjord, but I understand that some of the newer, bigger ones cannot. What a loss for more size!
It was in Troll Fjord that I met the most interesting people of the trip. I dropped a book I'd bought in the shop about the
towns and sights of the voyage, and suddenly a voice asked in English if it were mine. That's how I met Lillian Danielsen
and Nikki Pedersen. Their fathers were brothers born in Norway who with their wives emigrated to the states. Lillian
learned Norwegian from her parents and speaks it fluently, but Nikki never did, so we spoke mostly English for his benefit.
We shared our mutual reasons for being on the boat: partly visiting with family and partly seeing the coast of Norway as
tourists. It was through them that I learned how to get out on the narrow, chairless deck on the bow, and about the
panoramic lounge at the top of the boat. They got off the boat Saturday morning at Florø, the last stop before Bergen,
because it was the town where their fathers were born. They would visit an elderly aunt before continuing on to Stavanger
and other towns to visit more family members. We exchanged e-mail and postal addresses and promised further contact.
My cabin was tiny but adequate, with a comfortable single bed made up with a Norwegian summer weight dyne or down
quilt, a couch and shower and toilet. The small window looked out on an outside wall about a foot away and of course
didn't open. Even with cloudy 24 hour daylight, it was dim in there at night. It was at the stern, though, over the engines,
and I fell asleep to their throb and woke when the boat stopped at a port and let down ropes and gangplanks. The food was
fantastic. When I booked the trip, I was offered a choice of paying for food with the ticket or buying it by meal onboard and
told the cost would be the same. Since I've always been addicted to eating three times a day, I bought the package. They
didn't tell me about the cafeteria, but that's OK. I enjoyed the self-serve breakfasts and lunches and the luxury of a
three-course dinner in the quiet elegance of European dining. All three meals, there's no background music, and
conversations are carried on in low voices. All one hears is the click of knife and fork and a low hum. There was no "trendy
mat," though I think it might have been available in the cafeteria. At one lunch and dinner, I sat with a couple from
Australia, on holiday from his job in Kuwait, in the oil business, of course. He works 6 or 7 days a week, 8 to 10 hours a day,
and her activities are limited to her study of piano and the Australian and British women's groups, so every six weeks they
get an escape, and I guess the money to do it. In Kuwait, she has her own driver; taxi drivers and even police can't be
trusted by a woman alone.
On Thursday morning we crossed the Arctic Circle, leaving the area of the midnight sun a couple of days before the sun
begins to dip below the horizon each night in the far north. It's marked by a globe sculpture on a small island south of
Bodø. A bit later we attended a small ceremony in one of the lounges. On the northbound voyage, we were told, everyone
is "baptized" by King Neptune, in a long purple robe, but on the southern voyage it was more symbolic; a child, who
happened to be French. got a bit of water down his neck. We drank a toast, said "Skål," and got a certificate from Captain
Johannsen. The woman who gave all the information over the loudspeaker explained the origin of the word SKÅL. S is for
sunnhet, health; K is for kjærlighet (the most beautiful word in any language for love); Å is for årene, years; and L is for
livet, life.
On Friday morning the ship was in port at Trondheim for four hours, and I took the opportunity to take a tour of the Folk
Museum there, shortened because the four hours began at 6:30 a.m, and the museum opened specially for us at 8. The
most interesting was the stave church from 1170, not the towering building I expected but a small, one-story, windowless
place with round tree-trunk corners (stave), the altar a pile of flat stones in the slightly smaller section. I realized it is the
same design and proportions as the 1250 Trondenes stone church, built over a former wooden church. We also saw farm
buildings from the 16 or 17 hundreds, though not all of them were open. In one that was, a separate building for
celebrations like weddings, there was a decorated wooden bowl, quite large and heavy, from which guests drank the beer.
I imagine that many of them wore rather much of that beer on their clothing during the week that weddings lasted then. All
the guests brought food, the guide said, and one woman was responsible for remembering who brought what so that the
most important guests' food would be served to the bridal couple at the head of the long table with benches. Friday
evening in Molde, an internationally famous jazz festival was going on, much over-amplified however. Finally the sun had
come out, and we wondered if that clear weather might possibly continue in Bergen, famous for rain.
Saturday morning the clear weather brought many people on the upper deck, basking in the sun and watching the rocky
coast, steep mountains, and small farms and fishing villages strung like a necklace along the narrow shores of mainland
and islands. We saw weekend small sail and power boats, probably some of these houses are now vacation cottages. To
the south a white haze appeared, and about noon we were at the line between gray sky and sea and the blue sky and sea
to the north. We entered Våge, Bergen harbor area under a hazy sun, warm enough so people were swimming, and diving
off a board, in the sea. The water is deep enough that close to the shore.
Disembarking was easy; we were told to have our baggage outside our cabin doors by 9 a.m. where it was picked up by the
crew. We disembarked off the upper deck, walked down into the terminal, and picked our baggage off a moving band the
way one does at an airport. A taxi was waiting for me which I had asked for on the boat, and the driver even carried my very
heavy suitcase up the curving iron staircase to Alkoven, the guest house where I had booked a room. Bergen is crammed
between sea and mountains, and houses are jammed together on the narrow, steep streets. The city must be a police and
fire department nightmare, and the early history includes many disastrous fires. One of the tourist attractions is Brygge,
the area where the German Hanseatic League built the side-by-side wooden structures where businessmen lived who
bought fish from the north and grain from the south and traded both, providing markets but controlling prices to their own
benefit. Sunday morning I went on a tour of the area with a very knowledgeable young Norwegian woman in a simple, long,
red, dress. The Hanseatic League, she said, was a celibate society. Wives and families would distract the men from
concentrating on business and profit. Boys as young as 12 or 13 were brought from Germany to do the cooking, water
carrying, washing, and other chores, promoted as they grew to work on the wharves, unloading boats and weighing and
packing the dried fish. They were so paranoid about fires that all cooking was done in a separate building over one long
central fire, and only the owners were allowed to carry a lighted lamp. There was no glass, so the only windows were
covered by leather in the winter; rooms were dark. The young boys slept two to a bed in alcoves with sliding wooden
doors, the older ones one to a bed. The owner slept in a room by himself, with a narrow winding separate stairway for a
possible nocturnal visitor. This "celibate" society winked at indiscretions unless they became public by a woman having a
child. Then he would be fined. If he gave her living space, he would be sent home. Regardless of all the precautions,
Brygge was destroyed by fire and rebuilt many times. The existing buildings date from the 1700s, a row of narrow
structures, now shops, mostly of both tacky and quality souvenirs (all expensive), below and living space above. In one
through lane, they tilt toward each other. In a courtyard behind the row of buildings, I found a small outdoor restaurant
where I ate Saturday and Sunday night suppers.
Sunday afternoon, I took a five-minute ferry ride from Fiske Torvet (the fish market) to the aquarium where the most
interesting exhibits are the trained seals and the penguins. The day was sunny and warm, and I might have been swimming
if I had found the place and time. After supper, it had begun to get hazy again, and I decided to take the Fløyban to Fløyen
before the weather turned worse. It's a short ride on a funicular, a railway in which two cars operate opposite each other,
passing in the middle, up a very steep slope. I've read of one in Quebec. The view from the top is truly impressive from the
newly constructed, wide stone and concrete viewing area. Far below I could see the Hurtigrutebåt waiting to head north
about 8 o'clock. More tourist stuff (much of it junk) and an expensive restaurant. I had thought of hiking around up there,
but my hostess at Alkoven suggested going up in the evening to avoid tourists and to hike down to town again, and I'm
glad she did. The trail is clearly marked and wide with fanciful carved figures in the woods at the top. Norway spruce and
birch woods open up to views of the harbor, and there are frequent benches. As I neared the town, I was looking down on
the angled design of the roofs of the tightly packed houses.
Monday I spent the morning in a part of the Brygge museum I missed on Sunday, had coffee and coffee cake in the
cafeteria and took the bus out of town to Troldhaugen, the home, burial place, concert hall, and museum of Edvard Grieg.
There I had a baguette (with ham, cheese, and lettuce) in the cafeteria before I bought a ticket. The museum itself is mostly
photographs, letters, and facts about his life. I would have appreciated some recorded music. Concerts are Saturday,
Sunday, and Wednesday, and the aquarium had won out. On the long walk back to the bus, I made the acquaintance of a
large orange tiger cat sitting in his driveway. I stopped and spoke to him in his language, and knelt down. He walked to me,
climbed first on one knee and then onto both knees, telling me clearly that he never had enough love. He was settled in
for a long nap, but his ten pounds on my kneeling lap finally convinced me that if I wanted to walk again we had to part. I
lifted him down, told him in Norwegian to go home now, don't follow me, and limped off.
Alkoven guest house was cozy and comfortable. The hostess actually carried the suitcase, which I could barely lift, up the
winding, narrow stairs to Kjysten, which means loft. A comfortable bed, a chair, table, and secretary desk with drawers. The
shared bathrooms are downstairs, off the stone-floored courtyard, on the way to the shared kitchen, which was fine with
me. The building juts out over the courtyard enough so that when it was raining, I could get to the bathroom without
getting wet. When I got home Saturday evening, a family of five were eating dinner in the shared kitchen. Matthew and
Bernadette, their teen-aged children from Australia, living now in Stockholm where he works with an international bank,
and his mother, on holiday from Australia. They shared their wine and we got acquainted. From them I learned lots about
what to see in Bergen, and when I stumbled onto the Brygge tour the next morning, they were already there. The morning I
left, I met a German couple who now live in Madrid where he works as an astronomer in a part of the UN. Monday evening I
unloaded the books and heavy clothing from my suitcase, brought it down the curving wooden stairs, and re-loaded it
downstairs. The taxi driver took it down the outside stairs. It's embarrassing to travel with a suitcase I can't carry, but so it
goes. Thanks, Lynn. It's been wonderful.
The Bergens Banen, along with the Hurtigrute, has always been one of my dreams. Egil and I traveled on it as far as Geilo
back in January 1981 to go skiing there, but the most impressive scenery is between Bergen and Geilo. Strips of snow line
the mountains all around Harstad, Tromsø, and the islands and mainland I saw from the boat, but the snow on the
Hardanger plateau, which I've been told is much higher, covers much larger areas. And one looks not up, but over at it, or
down on it. In one place, we saw two people on bicycles. The road was covered in one place with snow, and one of them
was actually riding the bike through it. The train was quite long; from my seat in the last car, I could see the front of the
train on some of the curves. I was hoping that some of the stops, Myrdal and Finse, we could get off and have maybe 15
minutes to walk about and look around, but no. The stops were quite short. There are hotels, and at one stop, you can get
off, ride a bus down hairpin turns to a ferry on Sognefjord, one of the deepest and most beautiful, they say, in Norway, and
then back to the railroad at another station. They call it "Norway in a nutshell." I'm not sure what you'd do with your
luggage. The seats are comfortable, in the car I was in, in groups of four with folding tables between. There's free coffee
and carts with food go up and down several times. I had brought an apple and bought coffee, a baguette, and an ice cream.
The trip takes 7 hours; I left Bergen at 10:28 and arrived in Oslo at 17:32. One gets used to a 24 hour clock here, especially
when traveling. Heidi met me at the train station; we wrestled the suitcase down the escalators to the underground, and
rode three stops to a 5 minute walk to her and Asle's new apartment. We ate supper and talked more about their wedding
this Saturday in Arendal, where Asle was working and they were living a year ago when they planned it. This summer has
been unbelievably rainy in southern Norway, and we're hoping the rain will hold off so their planned wedding in a park on
an island won't have to be moved inside to the hotel where the reception will be held.
This is my last message from Norway. I leave Vormsund tomorrow for Arendal and after the wedding I return to Vormsund
on Sunday and leave Norway on Monday for Maine. It's going to be a lot frenzied of re-packing. I'll write another from
Maine. What do I like about Norway that makes it so special to me that I've spent almost 10 weeks here? Aside from the
land where Egil grew up and where his family still live, there is much I like, the public transportation, for one. Busses and
in southern Norway trains run between cities on a regular basis. They're comfortable. The roads are built with plenty of
room at bus stops for the bus to pull out of traffic and with sheltered waiting stations with the bus time schedule printed. I
took the train to Halden because that's the way Egil and I traveled, but I could have taken the bus. I'll probably take the bus
to Arendal, simply because the transfer will be easier. It's still possible to live in Norway without a car, even though most
people have cars now, and the highway system is becoming more and more like that in the US, with limited access
highways. The refrigerators and washing machines I've seen in the homes of family members have features I wish we
could have at home. It's possible to buy a refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom without getting the largest size, or a
good-sized refrigerator, like Elsa's, without a freezer. The washing machines allow one to select the water temperature, in
celcius of course, rather than just cold, warm, or hot. They have lots of other options I haven't become familiar with, simply
because Eva, Stine, and Elsa all mixed my clothes in with theirs and set the dials themselves. I never had enough wash for
a whole load. Then in Bergen, when I really needed to do a wash, I read the instructions and hoped for the best. TV news is
not interrupted between subjects with countless ads, and it's possible to watch an entire movie or segment of a series
without interruptions. The availability on TV of programs from not only the US but from England and other European
countries as well, in the original language with Norwegian subtitles. I don't watch TV at home, but in Harstad I watched not
only the soccer matches and the bicycle race from London to the French Riviera (I guess) that Ivar liked, but a funny series
titled "Hallo Hallo" from the BBC about the interaction of the Nazis and the French underground, and a BBC series about
the fall of the Roman Empire. Too bloody, actually. The news is mostly European, though I did see very brief coverage of
Bush after the most recent vote by Congress to set a date to start bringing troops home and his comment to a press
conference, "We can't afford to fail!" to which I responded in Ivar's living room with a howl: "We have already failed!"
Otherwise it's been a blessed relief from US coverage. The Norwegian coverage has been of bombings, of course, but
short.
Norway is an expensive place to live. I have Egil's family to thank for the wonderful opportunity to spend this much time
here. So especially to Jan Ivar and Eva, to Stine, to Bertil and Sylvia, to Ivar and Elsa, to Leif Arne and Ann Karin, I give my
heartfelt thanks for the time I spent as their guests. I love you all.
Ann
Hi again, family and friends,
I'm now back in Vormsund, an hour north of Oslo, at my nephew Jan Ivar's house. A week ago yesterday I left Harstad on
the Hurtigrutebåt Westerålen, picking it up on its southbound journey from Nord Kapp to Bergen. Under a gray overcast
sky we steamed (actually diesel engines)out of the harbor and around the tip of Trondenes peninsula, where the Adolf
Kanon points harmlessly now toward the island of Grytøy. Beyond it is Bjarkøy, where, according to the history museum
and culture center once lived a Viking chieftain, Tore Hund. Out on deck, I tried to see the big gun but couldn't. The wind
picked up as we came out of the lee of the islands, exposed to the open sea, and the ship rolled in the white-capped sea
so that I had to hang on as I moved about the deck, fighting the cold but unwilling to go below for another layer of warm
clothes. I wrestled with the mixed feelings of the past week: a desire at last to be home again, sadness at leaving Elsa and
Ivar, and excitement at the journey that lay ahead.
The Westerålen is one of the smaller boats in the Hurtigrute fleet, and if I'd chosen it by boat instead of by date, it's the one
I would have selected. Seeing it next to one of the newer, larger boats in some of the ports, I knew I felt most comfortable
there. It's a cruise ship, yes, with cabins, three lounges, a cafeteria, and a dining room but no spa, bar, or gambling casino.
People read, doze, eat, and sit or walk on deck. Someone told me it carries about 350 passengers rather than 500. I heard
much German, some French, Norwegian, and English. Instructions and information about significant places we were
passing were given in all four languages. It also carries cargo, which is loaded and unloaded by forklifts at every port, and
people can take their car or motorcycle, which they drive aboard next to the forklift ramp from which an elevator takes it to
the boatdeck.
After we passed Risøyhamn, the first stop, I watched the coast of Andøy carefully to see if I could spot the house where
Elsa was born, that we had visited earlier. Juggling camera, binoculars, and map of Norway in the wind, I think I saw and
photographed it, but I'm not sure. As we moved back into the lee of islands, the sea calmed, and I explored the upper,
open deck at the stern. Part of it has plastic wind shields on each side, which also hamper vision, and the stern is open all
around. There are picnic tables within the screen, and heavy folding chairs everywhere. You only have to watch the wind
direction to get out of the exhaust pipe above. The Westerålen continued through the Westerålen Islands, for which it is
named, and on to the Lofoten Islands. On the way some passengers disembarked for a special whale and\or sea eagle
watch. The small ship came up along side and put out a railed ramp, and the passengers walked across from boat to boat.
We steamed through an increasingly narrow passage and then turned to port and into Troll Fjord, so narrow it felt as if we
could reach out and touch the rock in the towering mountains on each side. This ship is able to turn around in this narrow
fjord, but I understand that some of the newer, bigger ones cannot. What a loss for more size!
It was in Troll Fjord that I met the most interesting people of the trip. I dropped a book I'd bought in the shop about the
towns and sights of the voyage, and suddenly a voice asked in English if it were mine. That's how I met Lillian Danielsen
and Nikki Pedersen. Their fathers were brothers born in Norway who with their wives emigrated to the states. Lillian
learned Norwegian from her parents and speaks it fluently, but Nikki never did, so we spoke mostly English for his benefit.
We shared our mutual reasons for being on the boat: partly visiting with family and partly seeing the coast of Norway as
tourists. It was through them that I learned how to get out on the narrow, chairless deck on the bow, and about the
panoramic lounge at the top of the boat. They got off the boat Saturday morning at Florø, the last stop before Bergen,
because it was the town where their fathers were born. They would visit an elderly aunt before continuing on to Stavanger
and other towns to visit more family members. We exchanged e-mail and postal addresses and promised further contact.
My cabin was tiny but adequate, with a comfortable single bed made up with a Norwegian summer weight dyne or down
quilt, a couch and shower and toilet. The small window looked out on an outside wall about a foot away and of course
didn't open. Even with cloudy 24 hour daylight, it was dim in there at night. It was at the stern, though, over the engines,
and I fell asleep to their throb and woke when the boat stopped at a port and let down ropes and gangplanks. The food was
fantastic. When I booked the trip, I was offered a choice of paying for food with the ticket or buying it by meal onboard and
told the cost would be the same. Since I've always been addicted to eating three times a day, I bought the package. They
didn't tell me about the cafeteria, but that's OK. I enjoyed the self-serve breakfasts and lunches and the luxury of a
three-course dinner in the quiet elegance of European dining. All three meals, there's no background music, and
conversations are carried on in low voices. All one hears is the click of knife and fork and a low hum. There was no "trendy
mat," though I think it might have been available in the cafeteria. At one lunch and dinner, I sat with a couple from
Australia, on holiday from his job in Kuwait, in the oil business, of course. He works 6 or 7 days a week, 8 to 10 hours a day,
and her activities are limited to her study of piano and the Australian and British women's groups, so every six weeks they
get an escape, and I guess the money to do it. In Kuwait, she has her own driver; taxi drivers and even police can't be
trusted by a woman alone.
On Thursday morning we crossed the Arctic Circle, leaving the area of the midnight sun a couple of days before the sun
begins to dip below the horizon each night in the far north. It's marked by a globe sculpture on a small island south of
Bodø. A bit later we attended a small ceremony in one of the lounges. On the northbound voyage, we were told, everyone
is "baptized" by King Neptune, in a long purple robe, but on the southern voyage it was more symbolic; a child, who
happened to be French. got a bit of water down his neck. We drank a toast, said "Skål," and got a certificate from Captain
Johannsen. The woman who gave all the information over the loudspeaker explained the origin of the word SKÅL. S is for
sunnhet, health; K is for kjærlighet (the most beautiful word in any language for love); Å is for årene, years; and L is for
livet, life.
On Friday morning the ship was in port at Trondheim for four hours, and I took the opportunity to take a tour of the Folk
Museum there, shortened because the four hours began at 6:30 a.m, and the museum opened specially for us at 8. The
most interesting was the stave church from 1170, not the towering building I expected but a small, one-story, windowless
place with round tree-trunk corners (stave), the altar a pile of flat stones in the slightly smaller section. I realized it is the
same design and proportions as the 1250 Trondenes stone church, built over a former wooden church. We also saw farm
buildings from the 16 or 17 hundreds, though not all of them were open. In one that was, a separate building for
celebrations like weddings, there was a decorated wooden bowl, quite large and heavy, from which guests drank the beer.
I imagine that many of them wore rather much of that beer on their clothing during the week that weddings lasted then. All
the guests brought food, the guide said, and one woman was responsible for remembering who brought what so that the
most important guests' food would be served to the bridal couple at the head of the long table with benches. Friday
evening in Molde, an internationally famous jazz festival was going on, much over-amplified however. Finally the sun had
come out, and we wondered if that clear weather might possibly continue in Bergen, famous for rain.
Saturday morning the clear weather brought many people on the upper deck, basking in the sun and watching the rocky
coast, steep mountains, and small farms and fishing villages strung like a necklace along the narrow shores of mainland
and islands. We saw weekend small sail and power boats, probably some of these houses are now vacation cottages. To
the south a white haze appeared, and about noon we were at the line between gray sky and sea and the blue sky and sea
to the north. We entered Våge, Bergen harbor area under a hazy sun, warm enough so people were swimming, and diving
off a board, in the sea. The water is deep enough that close to the shore.
Disembarking was easy; we were told to have our baggage outside our cabin doors by 9 a.m. where it was picked up by the
crew. We disembarked off the upper deck, walked down into the terminal, and picked our baggage off a moving band the
way one does at an airport. A taxi was waiting for me which I had asked for on the boat, and the driver even carried my very
heavy suitcase up the curving iron staircase to Alkoven, the guest house where I had booked a room. Bergen is crammed
between sea and mountains, and houses are jammed together on the narrow, steep streets. The city must be a police and
fire department nightmare, and the early history includes many disastrous fires. One of the tourist attractions is Brygge,
the area where the German Hanseatic League built the side-by-side wooden structures where businessmen lived who
bought fish from the north and grain from the south and traded both, providing markets but controlling prices to their own
benefit. Sunday morning I went on a tour of the area with a very knowledgeable young Norwegian woman in a simple, long,
red, dress. The Hanseatic League, she said, was a celibate society. Wives and families would distract the men from
concentrating on business and profit. Boys as young as 12 or 13 were brought from Germany to do the cooking, water
carrying, washing, and other chores, promoted as they grew to work on the wharves, unloading boats and weighing and
packing the dried fish. They were so paranoid about fires that all cooking was done in a separate building over one long
central fire, and only the owners were allowed to carry a lighted lamp. There was no glass, so the only windows were
covered by leather in the winter; rooms were dark. The young boys slept two to a bed in alcoves with sliding wooden
doors, the older ones one to a bed. The owner slept in a room by himself, with a narrow winding separate stairway for a
possible nocturnal visitor. This "celibate" society winked at indiscretions unless they became public by a woman having a
child. Then he would be fined. If he gave her living space, he would be sent home. Regardless of all the precautions,
Brygge was destroyed by fire and rebuilt many times. The existing buildings date from the 1700s, a row of narrow
structures, now shops, mostly of both tacky and quality souvenirs (all expensive), below and living space above. In one
through lane, they tilt toward each other. In a courtyard behind the row of buildings, I found a small outdoor restaurant
where I ate Saturday and Sunday night suppers.
Sunday afternoon, I took a five-minute ferry ride from Fiske Torvet (the fish market) to the aquarium where the most
interesting exhibits are the trained seals and the penguins. The day was sunny and warm, and I might have been swimming
if I had found the place and time. After supper, it had begun to get hazy again, and I decided to take the Fløyban to Fløyen
before the weather turned worse. It's a short ride on a funicular, a railway in which two cars operate opposite each other,
passing in the middle, up a very steep slope. I've read of one in Quebec. The view from the top is truly impressive from the
newly constructed, wide stone and concrete viewing area. Far below I could see the Hurtigrutebåt waiting to head north
about 8 o'clock. More tourist stuff (much of it junk) and an expensive restaurant. I had thought of hiking around up there,
but my hostess at Alkoven suggested going up in the evening to avoid tourists and to hike down to town again, and I'm
glad she did. The trail is clearly marked and wide with fanciful carved figures in the woods at the top. Norway spruce and
birch woods open up to views of the harbor, and there are frequent benches. As I neared the town, I was looking down on
the angled design of the roofs of the tightly packed houses.
Monday I spent the morning in a part of the Brygge museum I missed on Sunday, had coffee and coffee cake in the
cafeteria and took the bus out of town to Troldhaugen, the home, burial place, concert hall, and museum of Edvard Grieg.
There I had a baguette (with ham, cheese, and lettuce) in the cafeteria before I bought a ticket. The museum itself is mostly
photographs, letters, and facts about his life. I would have appreciated some recorded music. Concerts are Saturday,
Sunday, and Wednesday, and the aquarium had won out. On the long walk back to the bus, I made the acquaintance of a
large orange tiger cat sitting in his driveway. I stopped and spoke to him in his language, and knelt down. He walked to me,
climbed first on one knee and then onto both knees, telling me clearly that he never had enough love. He was settled in
for a long nap, but his ten pounds on my kneeling lap finally convinced me that if I wanted to walk again we had to part. I
lifted him down, told him in Norwegian to go home now, don't follow me, and limped off.
Alkoven guest house was cozy and comfortable. The hostess actually carried the suitcase, which I could barely lift, up the
winding, narrow stairs to Kjysten, which means loft. A comfortable bed, a chair, table, and secretary desk with drawers. The
shared bathrooms are downstairs, off the stone-floored courtyard, on the way to the shared kitchen, which was fine with
me. The building juts out over the courtyard enough so that when it was raining, I could get to the bathroom without
getting wet. When I got home Saturday evening, a family of five were eating dinner in the shared kitchen. Matthew and
Bernadette, their teen-aged children from Australia, living now in Stockholm where he works with an international bank,
and his mother, on holiday from Australia. They shared their wine and we got acquainted. From them I learned lots about
what to see in Bergen, and when I stumbled onto the Brygge tour the next morning, they were already there. The morning I
left, I met a German couple who now live in Madrid where he works as an astronomer in a part of the UN. Monday evening I
unloaded the books and heavy clothing from my suitcase, brought it down the curving wooden stairs, and re-loaded it
downstairs. The taxi driver took it down the outside stairs. It's embarrassing to travel with a suitcase I can't carry, but so it
goes. Thanks, Lynn. It's been wonderful.
The Bergens Banen, along with the Hurtigrute, has always been one of my dreams. Egil and I traveled on it as far as Geilo
back in January 1981 to go skiing there, but the most impressive scenery is between Bergen and Geilo. Strips of snow line
the mountains all around Harstad, Tromsø, and the islands and mainland I saw from the boat, but the snow on the
Hardanger plateau, which I've been told is much higher, covers much larger areas. And one looks not up, but over at it, or
down on it. In one place, we saw two people on bicycles. The road was covered in one place with snow, and one of them
was actually riding the bike through it. The train was quite long; from my seat in the last car, I could see the front of the
train on some of the curves. I was hoping that some of the stops, Myrdal and Finse, we could get off and have maybe 15
minutes to walk about and look around, but no. The stops were quite short. There are hotels, and at one stop, you can get
off, ride a bus down hairpin turns to a ferry on Sognefjord, one of the deepest and most beautiful, they say, in Norway, and
then back to the railroad at another station. They call it "Norway in a nutshell." I'm not sure what you'd do with your
luggage. The seats are comfortable, in the car I was in, in groups of four with folding tables between. There's free coffee
and carts with food go up and down several times. I had brought an apple and bought coffee, a baguette, and an ice cream.
The trip takes 7 hours; I left Bergen at 10:28 and arrived in Oslo at 17:32. One gets used to a 24 hour clock here, especially
when traveling. Heidi met me at the train station; we wrestled the suitcase down the escalators to the underground, and
rode three stops to a 5 minute walk to her and Asle's new apartment. We ate supper and talked more about their wedding
this Saturday in Arendal, where Asle was working and they were living a year ago when they planned it. This summer has
been unbelievably rainy in southern Norway, and we're hoping the rain will hold off so their planned wedding in a park on
an island won't have to be moved inside to the hotel where the reception will be held.
This is my last message from Norway. I leave Vormsund tomorrow for Arendal and after the wedding I return to Vormsund
on Sunday and leave Norway on Monday for Maine. It's going to be a lot frenzied of re-packing. I'll write another from
Maine. What do I like about Norway that makes it so special to me that I've spent almost 10 weeks here? Aside from the
land where Egil grew up and where his family still live, there is much I like, the public transportation, for one. Busses and
in southern Norway trains run between cities on a regular basis. They're comfortable. The roads are built with plenty of
room at bus stops for the bus to pull out of traffic and with sheltered waiting stations with the bus time schedule printed. I
took the train to Halden because that's the way Egil and I traveled, but I could have taken the bus. I'll probably take the bus
to Arendal, simply because the transfer will be easier. It's still possible to live in Norway without a car, even though most
people have cars now, and the highway system is becoming more and more like that in the US, with limited access
highways. The refrigerators and washing machines I've seen in the homes of family members have features I wish we
could have at home. It's possible to buy a refrigerator with the freezer on the bottom without getting the largest size, or a
good-sized refrigerator, like Elsa's, without a freezer. The washing machines allow one to select the water temperature, in
celcius of course, rather than just cold, warm, or hot. They have lots of other options I haven't become familiar with, simply
because Eva, Stine, and Elsa all mixed my clothes in with theirs and set the dials themselves. I never had enough wash for
a whole load. Then in Bergen, when I really needed to do a wash, I read the instructions and hoped for the best. TV news is
not interrupted between subjects with countless ads, and it's possible to watch an entire movie or segment of a series
without interruptions. The availability on TV of programs from not only the US but from England and other European
countries as well, in the original language with Norwegian subtitles. I don't watch TV at home, but in Harstad I watched not
only the soccer matches and the bicycle race from London to the French Riviera (I guess) that Ivar liked, but a funny series
titled "Hallo Hallo" from the BBC about the interaction of the Nazis and the French underground, and a BBC series about
the fall of the Roman Empire. Too bloody, actually. The news is mostly European, though I did see very brief coverage of
Bush after the most recent vote by Congress to set a date to start bringing troops home and his comment to a press
conference, "We can't afford to fail!" to which I responded in Ivar's living room with a howl: "We have already failed!"
Otherwise it's been a blessed relief from US coverage. The Norwegian coverage has been of bombings, of course, but
short.
Norway is an expensive place to live. I have Egil's family to thank for the wonderful opportunity to spend this much time
here. So especially to Jan Ivar and Eva, to Stine, to Bertil and Sylvia, to Ivar and Elsa, to Leif Arne and Ann Karin, I give my
heartfelt thanks for the time I spent as their guests. I love you all.
Ann
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Monroe, Maine.
Hi again, Family and Friends,
I’ve been home now since Tuesday, July 31, except for the week on the annual women’s wilderness canoe trip, this year on
Sebeois Lake, and busy busy gardening, mowing, unpacking and sorting all the stuff I brought back from Norway. I have
one more travel entry to write, about the trip to Arendal to Heidi’s wedding.
The morning after I wrote the last entry, I traveled by bus from Vormsund to Oslo, then took the train to Arendal. Eva had
lent me a small wheeled suitcase, so I was able to pack it for the weekend and leave the enormous one mostly packed for
the trip home. For weeks I had been watching the wet weather in southern Norway and wondering whether the wedding
would actually take place on the island as planned. That morning it looked doubtful, gray with off-and-on showers. When I
bought my train ticket, I learned (too late to change my mind and take the bus) that passengers would be bussed from Oslo
to Drammen (a town west of Oslo) because of work on the railroad. There beside the tracks were several busses and we
had to make sure to get on the correct one. When we got off the bus in Drammen, the skies opened up, drenching us as
we followed directions to the track where the train was waiting.
After that I was glad I had taken the train, which goes farther inland than the bus through the Telemark area farming and
forested hills. The woods, streams, and lakes looked much like the Maine wilderness I knew I would be paddling through
shortly. The train went on to Kristiansand and then Stavanger, farther along Norway’s south coast, and at Nelaug I changed
trains to the spur line to Arendal. By this time, mid-afternoon, the weather had cleared. At the station I saw no sign of the
city, and the station master told me to walk up the hill and go through the tunnel. I followed the directions rather blindly,
finding the tunnel entrance as he said I would, and walking into the rock wall and along the sidewalk beside the road. On
the left I saw an underground parking area, but the walk way kept on, and finally I came out on a market square with many
booths set up. Behind me the rock wall rose forbiddingly, enfolding the city center within it.
I found a café with tables outside where I had a cup of tea and a sandwich, then wandered on. Finally I saw a sign, Thon
Hotel, where Heidi had made me a reservation. My room on the fifth floor had a very comfortable single bed (Norway
acknowledges single travelers), a desk, a comfortable chair and table, a closet, and bath. The TV screen on the desk
welcomed me by name to the hotel.
Arendal is a seaside town, curved around the harbor and backed by the rock cliff through which I had walked in the tunnel.
I suspect that for much of its existence it was accessible only by sea and that career options for boys were limited to
crewing on fishing or merchant ships . Now it’s a summer resort town, the harbor filled with sailing and motor yachts, and
hotels with parking space for cars with kayaks on their roofs. The Thon Hotel is a short walk to the wharf where the ferry
leaves for offshore islands, and around the harbor are many restaurants, an open fish market, and memorials to the fishing
and shipping industries and the men who had been lost at sea.
This was the weekend of a jazz festival, culminating on Friday and Saturday nights with an outdoor concert. After I ate
dinner in the hotel dining room and retired to my room to read beside my open window, I was assaulted by over-amplified
noise. Not jazz. NOISE! Closing the window didn’t help much and made the room stuffy. Going outside didn’t help at all; the
“concert” was only a block away. A policeman told me it would go on until after midnight. At the hotel a woman gave me a
pair of earplugs that helped me get to sleep. I noticed the next day that for 200 Norwegian kroner, over 30 dollars, I could
have sat in front of the stage and suffered even more.
But Saturday morning, wandering the streets, I found in the market square a group of casually dressed musicians playing
music I could identify and enjoy. They stood in a circle, led by an ebullient man who used his trombone to direct as well as
play, aiming it high and moving it around in ways the musicians seemed to understand. After a while, they left the square
and walked down a street toward the harbor. I joined those following, singing along when I knew the words and walking or
dancing to the beat. We went down one side of the wharf, stopped outside a pub with outdoor tables, moved on, turned
and came back, and ended on the other side of the wharf not far from the Thon Hotel. At one o’clock, while a light rain
shower fell from the clouds that had gathered, they ended their concert, and I returned to the hotel to change for the
wedding.
In the hotel lobby, I passed Heidi, in jeans but fresh from the hair dresser, her straight blond hair attractively arranged and
on her way to get dressed. When I came down, dressed for the wedding myself, I thought I’d walk early to the ferry wharf,
but outside it was pouring. Wedding guests were gathering, some family I knew and others evident by their attire. We
introduced ourselves, and someone with an umbrella went out to check the weather. The rain stopped and the clouds
moved on, and we walked together, carrying umbrellas and rain jackets. Asle, the groom, was there directing, and Heidi’s
father was hauling several cartons of champaign bottles on a furniture dolly. I was glad to see again Heidi’s mother Kari
and her husband and stepson and Bengt’s partner Hilda, whom I had seen in Halden early in the summer. On the way to the
island, Heidi’s father Bengt, an accomplished sailor, showed me several houses on the shore that had given him ideas for
his current house.
My map of Arendal, picked up at the hotel desk, shows two islands, Hisøy and Tromøy, and I think we went to Hisøy, the
nearer one. Both are connected by bridges, but the boat ride was much better than loading us all into cars and driving. We
walked up a narrow road past a museum farm and uphill to a lightly wooded area where we could look out on a beach
where people were swimming and a wooden sailboat was moored. We arranged ourselves facing the water, in a long semi-
circle around the area where Heidi, Asle, their attendants, and the Humanist Society woman who married them would stand.
A long white cloth was laid down for Heidi to walk on. Finally someone said, “She’s coming,” their chosen taped music
began, and we craned around to watch her, on Bengt’s arm, come up the hill and down the white cloth to Asle.
Teryn and Brandy, two of Heidi’s friends from Maine, where she spent a year at Mount View High School in Thorndike, had
come and one of them read a poem in English. One of Heidi’s Norwegian friends displayed in both English and Norwegian,
goals for their marriage, TRUST, COMMUNICATION, LOVE, AFFECTION, etc and spoke further about them in Norwegian.
Voices were soft, and I had difficulty hearing clearly. The clouds kept playing their hide-and-seek game, and at one point
Heidi and Asle were holding umbrellas over their heads but the rain held off. The woman officiating wore an attractive dark
pant suit and looked affectionately at them as she conducted the ceremony. Afterwards we toasted the newlyweds with
champagne or sparkling cider before we walked back to the ferry for the ride back to the reception at the hotel, where I
helped Heidi’s and Asle’s mothers unwrap and record the wedding presents for display.
This was the second wedding in Norway that I’ve attended, the first seven years ago of Egil’s nephew Leif Arne and Ann
Karin in the 13th century stone church in Harstad. One Christian wedding, one Civil, somewhat different. There was much
similarity, though, in the receptions. Dinner at tables arranged in a U or an E with a head table, white table cloths and
napkins, individual service. A male friend or relative of the groom as master of ceremonies and toasts and speeches. The
tradition of tinkling the glassware, requiring the couple to kiss, but at both these Norwegian weddings the couple must
climb onto their chairs to do it. We kept Heidi and Asle busy climbing up and down, and Heidi became adept doing that in
her long white satin gown, as had Ann Karin seven years ago. At this wedding there was another: pounding on the tables
required them to climb under the table, which they did several times, Asle’s arm appearing to announce, I suppose, that
they had indeed kissed.
Teryn and Brandy from Maine sat near me and near Heidi’s sister Stine and her partner, Bengt’s partner Hilda, and others.
Most Norwegians speak English quite well, surrounded by it on the TV and in music and films and studying it since
elementary school, so for their benefit our conversation was in English. And mine, too, perhaps, if Teryn and Brandy hadn’t
been there. One of the men saw me later writing competently in Norwegian in the guest book and expressed his surprise. I
explained to him that I write better than I speak and asked him if he saw any mistakes. He said he didn’t. The toasts, of
course, were all in Norwegian, and I caught some of what they said but not all. Asle had let me read the text of his toast to
Heidi the evening we had dinner at their apartment, a public statement to Heidi of their history as a couple and of his love
and devotion to her. I think that should be a part of weddings here.
With individual service and all the toasts and speeches, dinner took a long time, and it was nearly midnight when Heidi and
Asle cut one of the several cakes (no traditional tiered wedding cake, though) and fed each other a piece. Heidi
introduced me to Sonya, her friend from the University of Bergen, who grew up in England before her family moved to
northern (Nord Kapp!) Norway when she was in her early teens. She’s fluent in both languages and teaches literature in
both in a college in Bergen. We found we have a lot to talk about and wished I could have visited. her when I was there.
Heidi thanked me for coming to her wedding and said she hoped I had a good time. I assured her that I did. I felt at home
with the family and in the country.
Sunday morning I took the bus, a better connection than the train, back to Oslo and then to Vormsund, where I found Eva
preparing roast lamb, a favorite of mine though I think she didn’t know that. That evening and the next morning I repacked,
and Jan Ivar drove me to Gardemon Lufthaven. The Icelandair flight took off on time but was over an hour late loading in
Rekjavik, where I enjoyed wandering around the airport collecting more of the ads based on Icelandic names and their
origins and meanings. After we landed in Boston, I went through customs with no difficulty, changed my remaining
Norwegian kroner to US dollars, and went outside to wait for the bus to Portland, where I would spend the night with my
friend Betty Lou Grant. People waiting with me for the bus to Providence told me they had also been to Norway to a
wedding of their son to a Norwegian woman, and we shared stories. I slept most of the way to Portland and arrived at
midnight Monday, 6:00 Tuesday morning on my Norwegian clock.
Today I realize that at this moment two weeks ago today, the canoe trip crew were on our way home; four weeks ago I was
in Arendal following a band around the harbor; five weeks ago I was on the upper deck of the Hurtigrutebåt Westerålen,
gazing at the rocky coast of Norway, packed and ready to disembark at Bergen; and six weeks ago I was in Harstad,
knowing that after dinner, while Elsa and Ivar took their daily nap, I would cross the road to the beach and take my last icy
dip in Harstad fjord.
Will I ever return to Norway? I have no idea, but if I do, I hope Heidi and Asle will still be living in Oslo, accessible by
underground to the National Theater so I could see an evening performance, perhaps of an Ibsen play. I’d like another
visit to the Folk Museum at Bygdøy, and another visit to the larger than life statues at Vigelund’s Park. And at Elsa’s and
Ivar’s house in Harstad, I know that a pair of rubber boots that Elsa bought but found too small are there for my use on
fishing trips. We all grow older and we change, but what won’t change is that I’m part of the family there.
Several people have told me they’ve enjoyed reading these blog entries, that they liked the detail, and I was glad to hear
that. I know I promised pictures, but I discovered that the new technology of using the camera, the even newer technology
of transfering photos to a computer, and the fact that I was writing on a number of unfamiliar idiosyncratic computers was
more than I could handle. Sorry.
Monroe, Maine.
Hi again, Family and Friends,
I’ve been home now since Tuesday, July 31, except for the week on the annual women’s wilderness canoe trip, this year on
Sebeois Lake, and busy busy gardening, mowing, unpacking and sorting all the stuff I brought back from Norway. I have
one more travel entry to write, about the trip to Arendal to Heidi’s wedding.
The morning after I wrote the last entry, I traveled by bus from Vormsund to Oslo, then took the train to Arendal. Eva had
lent me a small wheeled suitcase, so I was able to pack it for the weekend and leave the enormous one mostly packed for
the trip home. For weeks I had been watching the wet weather in southern Norway and wondering whether the wedding
would actually take place on the island as planned. That morning it looked doubtful, gray with off-and-on showers. When I
bought my train ticket, I learned (too late to change my mind and take the bus) that passengers would be bussed from Oslo
to Drammen (a town west of Oslo) because of work on the railroad. There beside the tracks were several busses and we
had to make sure to get on the correct one. When we got off the bus in Drammen, the skies opened up, drenching us as
we followed directions to the track where the train was waiting.
After that I was glad I had taken the train, which goes farther inland than the bus through the Telemark area farming and
forested hills. The woods, streams, and lakes looked much like the Maine wilderness I knew I would be paddling through
shortly. The train went on to Kristiansand and then Stavanger, farther along Norway’s south coast, and at Nelaug I changed
trains to the spur line to Arendal. By this time, mid-afternoon, the weather had cleared. At the station I saw no sign of the
city, and the station master told me to walk up the hill and go through the tunnel. I followed the directions rather blindly,
finding the tunnel entrance as he said I would, and walking into the rock wall and along the sidewalk beside the road. On
the left I saw an underground parking area, but the walk way kept on, and finally I came out on a market square with many
booths set up. Behind me the rock wall rose forbiddingly, enfolding the city center within it.
I found a café with tables outside where I had a cup of tea and a sandwich, then wandered on. Finally I saw a sign, Thon
Hotel, where Heidi had made me a reservation. My room on the fifth floor had a very comfortable single bed (Norway
acknowledges single travelers), a desk, a comfortable chair and table, a closet, and bath. The TV screen on the desk
welcomed me by name to the hotel.
Arendal is a seaside town, curved around the harbor and backed by the rock cliff through which I had walked in the tunnel.
I suspect that for much of its existence it was accessible only by sea and that career options for boys were limited to
crewing on fishing or merchant ships . Now it’s a summer resort town, the harbor filled with sailing and motor yachts, and
hotels with parking space for cars with kayaks on their roofs. The Thon Hotel is a short walk to the wharf where the ferry
leaves for offshore islands, and around the harbor are many restaurants, an open fish market, and memorials to the fishing
and shipping industries and the men who had been lost at sea.
This was the weekend of a jazz festival, culminating on Friday and Saturday nights with an outdoor concert. After I ate
dinner in the hotel dining room and retired to my room to read beside my open window, I was assaulted by over-amplified
noise. Not jazz. NOISE! Closing the window didn’t help much and made the room stuffy. Going outside didn’t help at all; the
“concert” was only a block away. A policeman told me it would go on until after midnight. At the hotel a woman gave me a
pair of earplugs that helped me get to sleep. I noticed the next day that for 200 Norwegian kroner, over 30 dollars, I could
have sat in front of the stage and suffered even more.
But Saturday morning, wandering the streets, I found in the market square a group of casually dressed musicians playing
music I could identify and enjoy. They stood in a circle, led by an ebullient man who used his trombone to direct as well as
play, aiming it high and moving it around in ways the musicians seemed to understand. After a while, they left the square
and walked down a street toward the harbor. I joined those following, singing along when I knew the words and walking or
dancing to the beat. We went down one side of the wharf, stopped outside a pub with outdoor tables, moved on, turned
and came back, and ended on the other side of the wharf not far from the Thon Hotel. At one o’clock, while a light rain
shower fell from the clouds that had gathered, they ended their concert, and I returned to the hotel to change for the
wedding.
In the hotel lobby, I passed Heidi, in jeans but fresh from the hair dresser, her straight blond hair attractively arranged and
on her way to get dressed. When I came down, dressed for the wedding myself, I thought I’d walk early to the ferry wharf,
but outside it was pouring. Wedding guests were gathering, some family I knew and others evident by their attire. We
introduced ourselves, and someone with an umbrella went out to check the weather. The rain stopped and the clouds
moved on, and we walked together, carrying umbrellas and rain jackets. Asle, the groom, was there directing, and Heidi’s
father was hauling several cartons of champaign bottles on a furniture dolly. I was glad to see again Heidi’s mother Kari
and her husband and stepson and Bengt’s partner Hilda, whom I had seen in Halden early in the summer. On the way to the
island, Heidi’s father Bengt, an accomplished sailor, showed me several houses on the shore that had given him ideas for
his current house.
My map of Arendal, picked up at the hotel desk, shows two islands, Hisøy and Tromøy, and I think we went to Hisøy, the
nearer one. Both are connected by bridges, but the boat ride was much better than loading us all into cars and driving. We
walked up a narrow road past a museum farm and uphill to a lightly wooded area where we could look out on a beach
where people were swimming and a wooden sailboat was moored. We arranged ourselves facing the water, in a long semi-
circle around the area where Heidi, Asle, their attendants, and the Humanist Society woman who married them would stand.
A long white cloth was laid down for Heidi to walk on. Finally someone said, “She’s coming,” their chosen taped music
began, and we craned around to watch her, on Bengt’s arm, come up the hill and down the white cloth to Asle.
Teryn and Brandy, two of Heidi’s friends from Maine, where she spent a year at Mount View High School in Thorndike, had
come and one of them read a poem in English. One of Heidi’s Norwegian friends displayed in both English and Norwegian,
goals for their marriage, TRUST, COMMUNICATION, LOVE, AFFECTION, etc and spoke further about them in Norwegian.
Voices were soft, and I had difficulty hearing clearly. The clouds kept playing their hide-and-seek game, and at one point
Heidi and Asle were holding umbrellas over their heads but the rain held off. The woman officiating wore an attractive dark
pant suit and looked affectionately at them as she conducted the ceremony. Afterwards we toasted the newlyweds with
champagne or sparkling cider before we walked back to the ferry for the ride back to the reception at the hotel, where I
helped Heidi’s and Asle’s mothers unwrap and record the wedding presents for display.
This was the second wedding in Norway that I’ve attended, the first seven years ago of Egil’s nephew Leif Arne and Ann
Karin in the 13th century stone church in Harstad. One Christian wedding, one Civil, somewhat different. There was much
similarity, though, in the receptions. Dinner at tables arranged in a U or an E with a head table, white table cloths and
napkins, individual service. A male friend or relative of the groom as master of ceremonies and toasts and speeches. The
tradition of tinkling the glassware, requiring the couple to kiss, but at both these Norwegian weddings the couple must
climb onto their chairs to do it. We kept Heidi and Asle busy climbing up and down, and Heidi became adept doing that in
her long white satin gown, as had Ann Karin seven years ago. At this wedding there was another: pounding on the tables
required them to climb under the table, which they did several times, Asle’s arm appearing to announce, I suppose, that
they had indeed kissed.
Teryn and Brandy from Maine sat near me and near Heidi’s sister Stine and her partner, Bengt’s partner Hilda, and others.
Most Norwegians speak English quite well, surrounded by it on the TV and in music and films and studying it since
elementary school, so for their benefit our conversation was in English. And mine, too, perhaps, if Teryn and Brandy hadn’t
been there. One of the men saw me later writing competently in Norwegian in the guest book and expressed his surprise. I
explained to him that I write better than I speak and asked him if he saw any mistakes. He said he didn’t. The toasts, of
course, were all in Norwegian, and I caught some of what they said but not all. Asle had let me read the text of his toast to
Heidi the evening we had dinner at their apartment, a public statement to Heidi of their history as a couple and of his love
and devotion to her. I think that should be a part of weddings here.
With individual service and all the toasts and speeches, dinner took a long time, and it was nearly midnight when Heidi and
Asle cut one of the several cakes (no traditional tiered wedding cake, though) and fed each other a piece. Heidi
introduced me to Sonya, her friend from the University of Bergen, who grew up in England before her family moved to
northern (Nord Kapp!) Norway when she was in her early teens. She’s fluent in both languages and teaches literature in
both in a college in Bergen. We found we have a lot to talk about and wished I could have visited. her when I was there.
Heidi thanked me for coming to her wedding and said she hoped I had a good time. I assured her that I did. I felt at home
with the family and in the country.
Sunday morning I took the bus, a better connection than the train, back to Oslo and then to Vormsund, where I found Eva
preparing roast lamb, a favorite of mine though I think she didn’t know that. That evening and the next morning I repacked,
and Jan Ivar drove me to Gardemon Lufthaven. The Icelandair flight took off on time but was over an hour late loading in
Rekjavik, where I enjoyed wandering around the airport collecting more of the ads based on Icelandic names and their
origins and meanings. After we landed in Boston, I went through customs with no difficulty, changed my remaining
Norwegian kroner to US dollars, and went outside to wait for the bus to Portland, where I would spend the night with my
friend Betty Lou Grant. People waiting with me for the bus to Providence told me they had also been to Norway to a
wedding of their son to a Norwegian woman, and we shared stories. I slept most of the way to Portland and arrived at
midnight Monday, 6:00 Tuesday morning on my Norwegian clock.
Today I realize that at this moment two weeks ago today, the canoe trip crew were on our way home; four weeks ago I was
in Arendal following a band around the harbor; five weeks ago I was on the upper deck of the Hurtigrutebåt Westerålen,
gazing at the rocky coast of Norway, packed and ready to disembark at Bergen; and six weeks ago I was in Harstad,
knowing that after dinner, while Elsa and Ivar took their daily nap, I would cross the road to the beach and take my last icy
dip in Harstad fjord.
Will I ever return to Norway? I have no idea, but if I do, I hope Heidi and Asle will still be living in Oslo, accessible by
underground to the National Theater so I could see an evening performance, perhaps of an Ibsen play. I’d like another
visit to the Folk Museum at Bygdøy, and another visit to the larger than life statues at Vigelund’s Park. And at Elsa’s and
Ivar’s house in Harstad, I know that a pair of rubber boots that Elsa bought but found too small are there for my use on
fishing trips. We all grow older and we change, but what won’t change is that I’m part of the family there.
Several people have told me they’ve enjoyed reading these blog entries, that they liked the detail, and I was glad to hear
that. I know I promised pictures, but I discovered that the new technology of using the camera, the even newer technology
of transfering photos to a computer, and the fact that I was writing on a number of unfamiliar idiosyncratic computers was
more than I could handle. Sorry.