The Coast of Norway

Hard to get enough sleep when it's light all the time! At  breakfast this morning, the ship glided through a small inlet to the town of Havoysund.  From the aft dining room, I had a great view as the ship swung around180 degrees to moor at the large dock that dwarfed the entire town.  A skinny bridge arced high above the inlet to connect one side of the inlet with the other and still lets ships as big as the Trollfjord come in.  Another town of picture perfect houses and a church with every road leading to the dock.  The hills behind town are covered with large modern white windmills that are all working.  The Norwegian flag flies on the aft deck with a gold-crown seal in the middle that says “POST”.  Hurtigruten doesn’t carry the mail anymore but keeps the honor of flying the mail flag.
Our next stop was Hammerfest, the northern most city in the world at 70 degrees 39’ 48” N.  It has quite a history—and it’s a wonder that it’s still there.  A hurricane flattened the town in mid 1800s, one of Norway’s worst fires leveled it in 1890 and Hitler ordered “no building left standing” as the Germans retreated  further south in 1945. The only building that still stands from 1945 is the graveyard chapel in the cemetery.  But it has a natural, excellent l harbor, has oil and now the largest liquid gas facility in Norway.  The gas is cooled to -160 degrees causing the total volume to decrease by 600%.  It is then economical to ship the cooled gas to Spain and the US.

Hammerfest was the home to two  major accomplishments in science.  It was the first town in Europe to have electric lights to brighten up the constant dark of a northern winter.   Locals are very proud to point out that while London and Paris were still lighting gas lamps nightly, they had electricity.  Norway’s dark  winters are pretty good motivators!!  The other was the work of  scientists from Norway, Sweden and Russia who conducted a survey  at Hammerfest between 1816 and 1852 that lead to an accurate calculation of the size of the earth.  This is commemorated by the Struve Geodetic Arc that is now one of Norway’s seven  UNESCO sites.

Hammerfest  also has reindeer grazing on the grass in the main city park.  They don't seem bothered by people at all!  The above mom and baby let me walk right up to them.

The weather couldn’t be better—warm and sunny and the days are spent reading, eating, visiting with mostly Norwegians and Germans and watching beautiful scenery.  It’s kinda like the Alaska cruise without the gluttony .  Breakfast and lunch are buffets and you’d better like fish!  I didn’t know there were so many ways to serve pickled herring.  I tried three new ones this morning.  All kinds of meats in addition to more fish prepared in numerous ways, cheeses, cereals, eggs and plenty of good strong Norwegian coffee.  In fact, one of the things that they advertise beforehand and sell on the boat is an barn-red insulated coffee cup that you can refill as much as you want during your time on the ship.  The big surprise was the size—it’s 1/3 the size of my Starbucks mug!  People love their coffee here, carry their mugs around and drink around all day.  I just got back from the bar and many people have both beer or wine and their coffee as they are listening to a lounge singer doing American songs!

The Cruise has Started

First of all, I have a fabulous room!  Instead of choosing and guaranteeing my room prior to the start of the trip, I paid for an “unspecified outside cabin”—much cheaper.   The ship isn’t as busy going south to Bergen as the ship going north from Bergen,  so I got a large stateroom with a big porthole on the promenade deck, starboard side—great for watching sunsets.  Unobstructed—no life vest cabinets or life boats to mar my view!  The room contains a bed, table and a couch that makes into another bed, a large closet, a writing desk and chair, 2 banks of cabinets and two closets in addition to a head with a shower. 

Today was the last day of "Midnight Sun" and tomorrow the sun starts dipping below the horizon for the first time in two months.  It is a beautiful sunny day with a few clouds on the horizon.  I was really tired, but stayed up to watch the last midnight sun of 2011.­­ The sun hid below the horizon clouds and the sky turned vibrant reds, oranges, yellows and every color in between.  As the clouds changed shape, the colors and appearance of the sunset changed.  This went on for about 45 minutes before the sun pulled back up over the clouds. Don’t know if it’s my mind playing a trick on me or not, but within 5 minutes, it looked like sunrise, not sunset!  It was one of the most beautiful sights I’ve ever seen.  If awesome wasn’t so overused, I’d say “totally awesome”!  So as sunrise commenced, I was off to bed.  The top picture is sunset and the one below is sunrise!

  I also have a big advantage over most in that if I see something out my porthole that I want to photograph, I just stop everything, pop outside on the promenade deck and take a photo.  I’ve taken so many picture of picturesque, well manicured little villages clinging to the water that I’m sure I’ll find it old hat before it’s over, but for now, I’m enjoying the excitement of seeing the natural beauty of this country and how people have carved out a livable space for themselves.  Even though I’m seeing this on a wonderful sunny day, it’s a harsh and difficult place to actually live or make a living.  We are still far north of the Arctic Circle where winters are long and dark and trees won’t even grow.  Historical data shows that man has lived here for 10,000 years.  The Komsa people (2400-6000 years ago) are gone, but still visible on the rocks at Komsafjell, and used by Norwegian fisherman for navigation, are prehistoric rock carvings of people, animals (particularly reindeer), boats and weapons.  The names of villages translate into some funny names like “miserable place”, and “dead cod”.  It is also a place where Germans in the final days of WWII practiced a “scorched earth” policy as they retreated south from the advancing Russians.  They burned every town, village and even individual farms.  These were rapidly rebuilt post WWII with less attractive houses, churches, and commercial buildings.

The internet works intermittently and slowly on the boat.  There is minimal capacity and many people with smart phones and computers.  Even if one can get on the internet, apparently it’s sslllloooooowwww. 

I am at the Radisson Hotel in Tromso using their wireless.  It's midnight, bright as can be and they have a working internet. 

Land of the Midnight Sun

It truly is the land of the midnight sun and does stay light all night.  It was a bit disorienting to wake up at 2 AM and it's daylight.  As I went for a walk at 11PM, Kirkenes was closed down as you'd expect (see the picture below) , but it's certainly daylight and town looks abandoned.  Strange.  This is also the only place in the world where three borders meet-- just south of town at Treikstroysa (Three Borders) and there are also three time zones. Right now it's 8:00 in Norway, 9:00 in Finland and 6:00 in Russia although they are only feet apart.  For the millineum, the borders of the three countries were opened and a big party commenced to celebrate New Year's 2000 three times in a 4 hour period.  Usually the borders are closed and Russia has an electrified fence running along it's border!

A couple streets away is Andersgrotta.  During WWII Kirkenes was bombed over three hundred times because of it's strategic position next door to Russia.  There are iron ore mines were never bombed because the Germans were running them to send iron back to Germany.  The mines closed briefly in 1969, but have since reopened and are visible on the hills outside of town.  Andersgrotta is a massive bomb shelter in the solid rock that forms this area.  It has 4 entrance at different places and saved many of the people of Kirkenes during the unrelenting bombings. An interesting film shows Kirkenes flattened after the bombing without any buildings standing.

The flight path last night was over Northern Finland.  It is called the land of 10,000 lakes (so much for Minnesotan originalty!)  There is water everywhere in a pattern that makes the land look like it's flooded or suddenly sunk. Driving into town lakes, inlets, and rivers and the massive rock outcropping cover most of the land with small scrub trees-- very green sprinkled with well manicured small towns that look too perfect.

Post Script for the Day

EVERYONE speaks English and can effortlessly switch from one language to the other.  I've been asked questions in Norwegian by a few people--like "is this chair available?",  "are you leaving?" and "where are the gates?".  All it takes is an "excuse me?" and immediate English with the same question.

Norwegian SIM cards for mobile phones are available at every Kiosk.  I bought one.  That gives me a local number on my Blackberry and no bouncing calls back to the US and no roaming charges, so I can call all four people that I know in Norway all I want for cheap.  BUT, all mobile phones are registered via phone or online--no problem since I have my netbook.  Another but, to get phone access, everyone has to enter their 11 digit Norwegian identity number.  Well, that I don't have, so I went back to the Kiosk and the manager had to fill out a form with my passport information, FAX it somewhere, and told me in about an hour I should have phone access.  Kinda big brotherish, but I bet there's not very many illegal aliens here! 

After the attacks and bombing last week, I expected security around the airport to be greatly enhanced.  Not so.  I have not seen a soldier, policeman, or a gun all day. I had to go back through security after clearing Norwegian customs and it is much more lax than the US.  Same inside the airport, no one seems to have a care in the world!  Maybe the news of the attacks was just American propaganda!

This is the only time I am going to mention how expensive Norway is.  A bottle of water was about $6 and a latte was $10.  If something is just too outrageous to go without my comment, I might have to mention it, but otherwise, I'm going to let it go and enjoy spending every kroner!!

Introduction to Norway

I have an eight hour layover in the Oslo airport and nothing much to do.  I'm quickly learning a bit about the Norwegian mentality.  Even though I paid for a first class ticket, there is no first class on domestic flights, only international, but I was assured that I will receive first class service!  That also means no first class lounges--again, they are only available for international flights, but internet is free to anyone in the airport.  Internet access cards with username and passwords are readily passed out and are good for one hour on the internet.  There are plug-ins available for anyone.  The airport is modern, clean and provides for a myriad of shopping opportunities, banks, and restaurants. 

My ATM card doesn't work here because it doesn't contain a smart chip, so I had to go to a bank to exchange money.  Apparently, E. Europeans were running a credit card scam at ATMs that has been stopped with the smart chips.  The exchange rate was much higher than listed on currencyexchange.com--I got over 6 NOK (Norwegian kroner) for a dollar  instead of the 5.42 listed on internet sites --go figure!

Even flying at 35,000 feet it's obvious that Norway is densely populated with an interior of rugged mountains, snow, ice, and lakes.  We flew over Oslo before landing.  It's a beautiful, sunny day and Oslo is a small, compact city among lots of water and surrounded by dense forest.  The countryside looks like a painting with small, neat farms of white-painted house and all the barns and outbuilding are barn red with white trim.  Kinda like being in a suburban development where you can only paint your house certain colors, but the look is charming. 

You don't go to Norway for the treasure filled cities and the long artistic history of other parts of Europe, but for this spectacular scenery and the great outdoors.  The wooden stave churches built by zealous Lutherans have mostly burned, World War II destroyed many Norwegian towns, but what remains is rugged mountains and glaciers, isolated islands, peaceful fjords and modern cities that are small compared to ours.  Although over a 1000 miles north to south it is rarely more than 60 miles wide and acts as a cap over Sweden and Finland to border with Russia way above the Artic Circle.  That's my destination, Kirkenes.  The entire population of Norway is 4 million with the majority living in the south where the weather is more hospitable.  There are no big cities and Oslo's population is less than half million with the second largest city, Bergen, having 210,000 inhabitants.  Immigration is strictly controlled and Norway does not want to be a melting pot!

Norway is a constitiutional monarchy.  Even though political power is in the Parliament, the royal family is very popular.  Women play a major role in government with 40% of all elected officials being female.  Many industries are state controlled including oil from the North Sea, which is a vital resource.  Most agriculture, fisheries, the Lutheran church and all cultural activities are government subsidized.  Norwegians are among the best educated in the world with 90% of students taking a 3 year course in higher education or vocational school after completing their compulsory education.  90% also belong to the national Lutheran Church which has given Norway excellent records on births, marriages, and death since it displaced the Holy See in Norway with the reformation in 1536. 

There are two official languages and plenty available to read about the language debate that has pretty much died down since the 1980s.  It is a result of Danish rule between 1439 and 1814 when the Danish language was used for government, schools and the church and after independence Norwegian nationalist  tried to create a distinctly Norwegian language from all the dialects.  As my father left Norway in 1928, bokmal ("book language" and Danish) and nynorsk ("new norwegian", but really old Norse language that Nationalist hope would catch on) were recognized as dual official languages.  There has always been a hope that the two languages would merge into one national language.  Instead the regional dialects have grown stronger and people seem to assert their individuality by their dialects. 

I just realize that spell check doesn't work--it thinks almost every word I'm writing is wrong. Obviously, it's geared to Norwegian, not English!  Afraid that my spellling has gone downhill with the  advent of spell-check, so guess I'm on my own again-at least temporarily!

To Norway for my Family Reunion

My father,  Hans Slaattebrekk Davidson, immigrated from Norway when he was a very young man and was the typical immigrant who came to America for a better life. This picture is what my father looked like at 17 years old when he left Norway, unable to speak English.  His mantra was, "speak English, work hard, and you can be anything you want to be in America".  To my dad, there was no such thing as Norwegian-American or “anything-hyphen-American”.  He loved the idea of being an American and he loved his children being Americans, but he never really assimilated or acculturated into America and until the end of his life, he considered himself a “foreigner”.   Any nostalgia for the "old country" was not seen by me.  He naturalized at the beginning of WWII to fight for this country.  Tomorrow, I am taking my first trip to Norway for a family reunion of the descendants of my grandfather, David Slaattebrekk.  I will meet all of my first cousins and many of their children.  My father was the oldest of 5 children.  The attached picture is Dad at 5 years old.  He was one of the original precious children and was a very spoiled, indulged child who was expected to carry on the family name as the oldest son, not immigrate to America!  My father was a very private, quiet man who even in his last years didn’t talk about his life and as a result, I know very little about his life before marrying my mother.