about those fjords…
Today I met a wonderful lady from Santa Barbara named Nancy. There are also some lovely retirees from Vancouver with whom I dine each evening as we have been assigned to the same table at 6:30pm every night. And last night I met a jovial retired goat farmer from Tromso (where I am writing this) so I have talked to a few people. But, as Nancy and I were discussing this morning, there isn’t a ton of interaction between strangers on the boat.
It’s unfortunate I didn’t meet Nancy earlier. She is delightful and celebrated her 75th birthday on the boat. I would have bought her a glass of champagne had I met her in time. She got off the boat in Tromso to visit friends in Denmark so we only had a fleeting conversation.
We were discussing how we both thought we were going through the fjords. I’m glad I’m not the only one who was confused. I am going to end all the Norway posts with my insights in what I would have done had I known more so we won’t get into that yet.
stavros charming passengers and carrying 30 plates at a time!
Hurtigruten is really a cargo ship that goes where it’s good for business. Passengers are an extra. The staff are very pleasant and some are really memorable, like Stavros who discouraged me from buying wine at lunch since there is apparently a special deal tonight. Exciting! I had a lengthy conversation with the staff when I got on board as I didn’t think I needed an entire bottle of wine every day (the much promoted wine package) but I tried the house wine the first night and I am not too sure about the ship’s sommelier…
The hazards of being a wine snob 🙂 But the good news was that I could order a bottle and keep it on the ship, sipping away until it was finished. So I could reduce my cost per glass – and more importantly – choose what would be poured when I had a glass of wine. I realize I look a little nuts carrying around a bottle of wine but I also know I am drinking much better wine than most of the passengers 🙂
There is much to say as I have been on the ship for a few days. There is lots of downtime so I have been typing but mostly catching up on the past, rather than recording the present… so will have to figure out how to frame the experiences on the ship.
But this post is about fjords! Because I really imagined cruising through a bunch of fjords. But I gather the ship is too
into the fjord!
large to do a lot of the fjords so you need to see them on a different ship. And it’s a bit early. May has been fun but the season really starts in June it seems.
scenery near midnight…
All that being said, that made last night extra magical. It was announced if the weather was right, the ship would go into the Trollenfjord around 11pm. You could buy a kitschy souvenir for 84 kroner but I just stuck with taking photos – and trying not have my fingers fall off from frostbite!
We are now in the Arctic Circle. So enjoy the pictures – just appreciate it was around freezing temperature as I was snapping them. But we are also now in the midnight sun so taking photos around midnight while it looks like daytime and the light plays tricks with the mountains and your eyes is pretty extraordinary. Well worth staying up for. And I saw a fjord!!!
life on planetm 