Northern Lights

Three years ago I went on a trip. I flew to St. Petersburg, Russia where I joined a tour group. We took a luxury train north to the border between Russia and Norway and transited through both Russian and Norwegian border control checkpoints into Norway to the little town of Kirkenes. It was a Northern Lights tour with the caveat that the lights might be out or they might be hidden or inactive when we got there, Caveat Lightseeker. There were plenty of other things to do and see in case the Lights were MIA.

Which they were. 

It was cloudy on the night we were most likely to see the lights. I could see nothing and my camera, which is more sensitive to the Northern Lights for some electromagnetic reason, showed a slight green glow against the horizon. Nothing spectacular, sadly.

I always wanted to see the Northern Lights, the rest of the beauty above the 66^th parallel notwithstanding. So I planned another trip. This time I took my daughter and son-in-law with me, Kristin and Seeth. Instead of going through Russia, we flew to Oslo and followed the itinerary of the company I booked the last trip through, Firebird Tours. Unlike my previous tour, which was one organized by the same tour company but for a larger audience, there were cars full of ‘Smithsonian people,’ I was one of an independent group, there just to fill empty births, I imagine. On this trip it was only us three.

When I travel with a tour group I like to go a day or two early. That gives me a chance to recover from the flight, I can’t sleep on a cramped vehicle clumped up carpet bag style in a cloistered seat. Plus I like to get to know a new place without being on a schedule. I’m a back roads and city transport kind of guy. The first time I visited Russia I had a lot of free time to wander around and find hidden treasures. I saw a ballet at the Bolshoi Theater and had dinner at a little restaurant that specialized in locally grown produce. Beet soup and fish. Kvas and vodka. Pancakes and caviar with sour cream and dill weed. Bread as black as night. That makes it an adventure.

We flew from Tampa, FL via Jet Blue airlines to Boston where we switched to Icelandair for the trip to Reykjavik and then to Oslo.

Museum toppling into river.

 

 

The awkwardness of puberty.

 

Sol Invictus?

We spent a day or two exploring Oslo, visited the Edvard Munch Museum, rode the trolleys and subways, took pictures, exchanged dollars for Kroner, ate in a few out of the way restaurants, and enjoyed the noon day glow of the weary sun loitering just barely above the southern sky. We were definitely not in Tampa anymore, Toto.

I was particularly impressed with the Munch Museum. Edvard Munch, pronounced Monk, heretofore only known by me for his dystopic painting, The Scream, was a very prolific artist with an eye to seeing the heart of the human condition, at least the tragic side. Though he did paint beautiful and huge murals of people on beaches and a glorious sun over a valley between mountains. 

The Sun, a mural taking up almost an entire wall, struck me as positively pagan and primitive and breathed raw emotion and worship of nature and the All Father Sun god. Interestingly, Munch said that The Scream was not a person screaming, but Nature, herself screaming. The kids left early and I stayed to view the museum some more.

Munch painted three versions of The Scream, of which the museum displays all of them in their own room. Only one painting is displayed at a time, the other two shuttered to preserve them from the subdued light. They cycle through them so you can see them all if you wait long enough. Eventually they all will be erased by electromagnetic radiation’s photon tipped pencil.

As is the case of most European museums, photography is allowed sans flash. I managed to get pictures of two of them as well as several other works. The third floor is divided into sections titled Death, Naked, Oneself, and includes paintings, woodcuts, photographs, lithographs, and letters and artifacts from Munch’s life and times. Oneself is of self-portraits. Naked is various nudes. Death deals with sickness, death, and dying.

Munch was a very dedicated and prolific artist who had an eye for future art historians. He kept all of his draft works which gives people an idea of his progress on any one project. Most artists would burn all of the earlier iterations of a subject and only keep the final version. This gives a precious insight into the creative process.

View from my hotel.

Key to the City.

Red bike district.

Train tracks through the center of the City.

Is my passport up to date?

Guardian of the City.

Careful...

I said, Watch out!

Hurry up and wait, airport division.

I posted some observations on my trip on my Facebook page in a free form format and in the present tense. I will include these herein in italics along with added reflections.

Day 1 of our trip, officially. Cloudy. Snow on and off. Norway. 

Oslo subway.

Edge of town. Just to see what's there.

Sonja Henie - I wish I had used fill flash.

We've all been there.

Sculptures of Humanity.

Pøl.

The Royal Palace.

A symphonic hall.

City Hall.

A little underexposed.

Swans are a big part of Oslo's heritage.

 

 

 

Oslo's origin myth.

Oslo’s origin myths include a story of a pregnant woman who was pursued, naked, by three men who accused her of theft. She ran to the fjord and saw a man in a boat, so she called to him for help. He invited her into his boat to rescue her. When the men approached the shore they shot three arrows at them, killing them both. They buried the woman on the beach, but the man they tied to a millstone and threw him into the water. Then, miraculously, he floated to the surface and revealed their guilt. He became St. Hallvard and the patron saint of Oslo. The three arrows motif and the millstone, along with swans, are seen all around the city.

 

View of Oslo from a medieval castle

  

We started with a walking tour around Oslo. Our guide, Pøl (Paul) was very friendly and knowledgeable. Since we had been here a few days already we had a rough idea of the terrain. We talked about a wide variety of things from history, architecture, mythology, current and recent events, recent past events, and Norwegian oddities.

Norwegians are keenly aware of their culture, their government, and world events. Like many Europeans, Pøl knows more about American politics than Americans know about American politics. He commented on the recent pit fight over the Speaker of the House (Republican Kevin McCarthy.) They are keenly aware of what is going on in the world. I found the same to be true in Russia. The average citizen of Europe is much more of an informed elector than many Americans.

Norwegians are very nationalistic, not very religious, and take pride in their nation, their country, and their culture-and their government and their monarchy, too. Go figure.

And they say, "Hi, hi!" when you meet them!

Oslo has a lot of Teslas and a huge number of incentives to own them (tax incentives, rebates, use of high-occupancy lanes, etc.) Plus one of the most comprehensive mass transit systems I have ever seen, and this includes the systems I have ridden on in New York, Los Angeles, Portland, OR, Israel, Berlin, Paris, Moscow, and London. When I visit a new city, I like to see and ride on their subways, buses, trains, and trolleys. In Oslo there were subways, light rail, buses, trains, and trolleys everywhere. Literally. Outside my hotel I could see tracks for trolleys and the Central train station. And underneath the streets the subways always run.

Plus an army of EV scooters littered by the sides of the sidewalks. Just grab one. Rent it with an app, scoot where you wish, and leave it on the sidewalk when you've arrived at your destination. They are picked up at night and recharged for the next day. Cities that tried something like that in the US ended up fishing them out of the nearest body of water. Portland, OR tried offering money for ones retrieved from the river and returned to the city DOT. They expected this to make it easier to sweep them all back up.

Instead this just led to a cottage industry of scooter dunking for crack money. American ingenuity and exceptionalism at its best!

Pøl was wearing cleats on his shoes when we met him. The temperature kept darting around the freezing mark all day and I slipped and almost fell several times as the thin sheet of water oscillated between merely wet and slushy to a glaze of frozen death. I said I need to get a pair of those ice clenchers before we progress north since my boots were oddly lacking in tread. Pøl said he just bought his and that I could buy them from him if I wanted. He paid 350 Kroner, about 35 dollars American, for them and I could give whatever I wanted. I gave him full price. I figured he tried them out for me.

Pøl showed us the palace and the outside ugly/inside beautiful town hall. Pøl will be married there soon and also become a father, both involving the same woman, even. I'm impressed.

There’s one picture I wish I had taken, but I didn’t. Outside the town hall is a statue of a king of Norway, Olav V. I was impressed by the choice of the sculptor, though missed the opportunity for a photograph. There was a plinth, empty, vacant of a statue, on the lawn beside the sidewalk alongside the city hall. Below it, to the right, our left, on a little platform, stood the statue of a man. (King Olav the Fifth. King of Norway from 1957 to1991.)

The sculptor chose this depiction of the king because he was ‘down to earth.’ He had a reputation of being a man of the people. That reminded me of the king in Denmark who is similarly down to earth. They say you can regularly see his royal highness riding his bicycle around Copenhagen. We need more rulers like that.

Pøl took us by trolley to the Vigeland sculpture park within the Frogner Park of Oslo. It contains over 200 sculptures in bronze, granite, and iron designed by Gustav Vigeland. (The central monolith is 14 meters tall and took three masons 14 years to carve from Vigeland’s clay original.) The statues depict various poses of people. They are all engaged in various activities, of various ages and sexes, all naked, and all doing something from our shared human experience.

Also in the area just outside of the park is a statue of Norwegian Olympic skater, Sonja Henie. Oslo is a city of statues.

Oslo is a charming, beautiful place, its city clean and efficient and its people welcoming. I am glad to know a place like this exists and to have had the privilege to visit it. I will certainly go back during the summer to view it at its best.

From Oslo we flew to Tromsø in the north of Norway. Norway is a big country. From Oslo to the northernmost tip is equal to the distance from Oslo to Southern Italy. Tromsø is 350 kilometers north of the arctic circle and the third largest city in the arctic after Murmansk and Norilsk in Russia.

We had a snafu in the airport. Our plane was delayed on the runway and then again in the air and we did not have enough time to call anyone about it. Or access to cell phone service, for that matter. The ride that was supposed to be waiting for us at the airport wasn’t there. I was able to get through to the travel agent at Firebird Tours in Florida, even though we were six hours ahead of them. They don’t have a 24/7 answering service, which can be a bit inconvenient.   

A similar thing happened on our flight here. The flight from Boston to Reykjavik. The plane wasn’t ready for us at the scheduled time (thought that is usually code for something else, like a crewmember is late for work,) and we were about 2 hours delayed. That meant that our flight would land in Reykjavik five minutes before the connecting flight to Oslo. 

I tried calling the 800 number for the tour agency, but they were closed for the day! For a company that deals in travel all around the world, you’d think they would have some contact available 24/7. Luckily, Icelandair managed to speed up our flight and jiggle the schedule of the connecting flight enough so we made our connection. And our luggage, too! We were on time, even.

They were available when I called this time and said they would call the chauffeur. The agent called back and said they were sending another driver. We were no more than 45 minutes late and the driver could certainly have checked if our flight was delayed and waited for us, but he didn’t. 20 minutes later a driver still hadn’t arrived, so the agent asked us to get a cab and they would reimburse us the charge for the chauffeur. Not a big inconvenience but not very professional, either.

Tromsø was also a pretty city, though we didn’t go very far in it. We were only there for two nights and our schedule was pretty packed. We did have an afternoon off and the travel agency got us free admission to an aquarium as a compensation for the ride fail, which was very nice of them. The ride cost 200 Kroner, about 20 dollars American, but the reserved, dedicated driver was more like a hundred dollars, which the company promptly reimbursed us. 

Our other activities included a snowmobiling Northern Lights excursion, a dog sledding trip, and an evening Northern Lights cruise in the fjord. 

All bundled up and ready for snowmobiling!

 

Anybody got a map?

From a parking lot by the side of the road.

Free Seals!

Gentle dogs, start your engines!

Once we're going we can't stop this thing.

Not quite the White Witch of Narnia.

Excuse us. Coming through!

A dog and his girl.

Tromsø

 

The Show Begins

 

 

 

 

 

 

The snowmobiling trek was fun, but the lights were a no-show. I kept an eye on the weather forecast and it kept shifting. Sometimes snow was forecast. Sometimes partly cloudy. Sometimes clear. On the night of the snowmobiling it was forecast to be clear and I had hopes for a good show. Unfortunately, it was not performing that night. The moon was out, as were the stars. The Big Dipper was eerily close to the horizon, much closer than I ever remember as a kid. Orion and the Pleiades were clear, though washed out by the moonlight, which was just past full.

Then on our bus ride back to Tromsø the Lights started to shine. Seeth was the first to notice them outside our window and he pointed them out to me. “Do you think those are Northern Lights?” he asked. I wasn’t sure. At first they looked like wispy clouds to me, but then they started snaking around and dancing. Other people were getting up and positioning themselves for a better view, so we had hit the jackpot.

The bus driver pulled into a parking lot and let us have a few minutes to take some pictures. On the following night, during the cruise, a similar thing happened. For most of the cruise it was partly cloudy and bereft of lights. The dinner was pleasant and there were some Germans on the boat with us, so Seeth could use his German. Mine is much too rudimentary to be of much use at all.

Then, on our way back to the dock the Lights fired up! It was not as dark as it had been during the snowmobiling trip, that being an hour’s drive away from the city in a vast, dark park lit only by moonlight. It would have been nice to have seen them there, but it was still a good show.

Since we were in a fjord surrounded by light pollution from the city of Tromsø, the Northern Lights were a bit washed out, like seeing them projected on a screen and dimly lit. They were still obvious and visible, but not brilliantly displayed. Cameras are more sensitive to the Lights, so they showed them with much more vibrancy in pictures then with the naked eye.

The dog sledding was the most fun activity of the trip. More so than snowmobiling, I think. Though it was during the (arctic) day and the sun was gleaming brightly below the southern horizon, so there was no chance of Light seeing. But we got to play with the dogs and have a meal by a fire in a yurt like structure with a woodstove in the middle. They served us Reindeer stew and a hot drink of Black Cherry juice, sugar, and hot water called Glogg.

 

Flying out of the arctic circle...

...to Medieval Bergen.

Castle by committee. And who is that door supposed to be for?

Bergen from above a cable car on one of it's seven mountains.

Some archeological remains.

Reconstruction. They use original materials, tools, and techniques.

 

From Tromsø we flew to Bergen, which is along the west coast of Norway and far out of the arctic circle. Bergen, originally Bjørgvin, is a second largest city in Norway with a lot of history. It was founded in the early 11^th century and was its capital until 1299. Its main commerce was trading fish caught further north for grain from the south. Norway went from being independent to several internecine wars to being a part of Denmark and then a part of Sweden. Then they became a constitutional monarchy in the early 1800’s, which they still are today. They seem very happy with that arrangement and are relieved at their independence.

Bergen is also at the end of a fjord off the North Sea surrounded by mountains. Seven mountains, to be precise. Just like Rome, our guide told us. We had a walking tour the night we stayed there. In the old, medieval section of Bergen there are buildings that are quite old. Dating back to 1702 when the city burned to the ground. Nothing before then survied.

They are wooden buildings. And as you can imagine fire is a problem in any city made of wood and has been since Bergen’s founding in 1066, which was true for just about all cities everywhere until a scant few hundred years ago. 

The city outlawed fire in most of the buildings, the exception being common buildings where people could cook and get warm and which were carefully overseen. Lamps were regulated and open flames of any kind forbidden. Any industry which depended on fire, such as metal working, had to be done on dirt floors and outside of the town. Nevertheless, several fires have plagued Bergen, the last being in 1916.

Edvard Grieg grew up and lived in Bergen. He was a musical composer who drew inspiration from Norwegian folk tales and stories. Most people know him from his piece, “In the Hall of the Mountain King” from his 1875 composition, Peer Gynt, a love-struck young man forbidden from marrying the girl he loves who runs away to the mountains where he is captured by trolls and meets the mountain king.

From Bergen we took a train to the city of Flåm. Two trains, actually. We had to transfer in the city of Myrdal to the Flåm railroad and take it the rest of the way to Flåm. We weren’t there for very long, only one night and an early train to Oslo the next day. Flåm was quite pretty, being on the water like Bergen and Tromsø. The train ride here was through picturesque mountains covered with snow. Myrdal is high up and Bergen and Flåm are at sea level, which gave us a spectacular view. In one place we could look out our window and see four switchbacks through the mountains for the train we were riding on. In places it was like threading a needle.

Why am I standing here?

Train to Flåm.

Myrdal.

Recursive picture... with Mountain.

And the long slog up the mountains.

The Window Image of the Mountain King.

Don't even think it!

What a child.

Train to Oslo.

It's almost the end of the trip. We are mostly traveling from place to place now and again, just stopping for the night and maybe a few hours to sight see. We are sitting in a train station in Myrdal, 866 meters above sea level, which is 864 meters higher than we were this morning in Flåm.

We're awaiting the train to Oslo, which will take five hours and drop us off at the Oslo Sentralstasjon, a few blocks from our hotel and once again only a few meters above sea level. Then up early Saturday and off to Oslo's Gerdermoen airport, Reykjavik, Boston, and some time on Sunday, Tampa, Florida.

It's been a delightful time and reminded me how lovely winter can be. The people of Norway are kind and generous, the cities beautiful and inviting, ancient and historic.

I would gladly visit this wonderland again.

We got to Oslo last night after a 5 hour train ride from Myrdal. We stayed in the same hotel, the Clarion Hub hotel close to the Oslo train station, and had dinner at a TGI Fridays nearby. The city was very busy. I just had a little time to walk around before turning in. The bustle out my window kept up till after 2:00AM when the bars closed.

At 8:30 we checked out and met our driver to the airport for a 1:00 flight to Reykjavik, Iceland that took about 3 hrs. As usual, airports are torture chambers of hurry up and wait, stand in line and wait, check in your luggage and wait, go through this walk-in microwave MRI machine and wait, have your carry-on scrutinized while you wait, then find your gate and wait. International airports excel at violations of the Geneva Convention. Though you can get duty free chocolate and aquavit.

The flight home left Reykjavik at 5:05PM and arrived at Boston at 5:50PM for a flight time of six and a half hours. That's just cruel. Now we are stuck in Boston, our home flight is tomorrow at 6:45AM, which means we have to leave the hotel around 4:30... and wait.

The Picture of Dorian Bored.

Is that one ours? No? Are you going my way? No? Merde! I guess I'll get another airport coffee.

5000 km to the airport by plane. 1 mile to the terminal by bus.

And now. Nothing to do for two hours.

The baggage carousel is here some place...

 

 

Waiting... waiting... waiting, oh, f***. I'll just play a video game.

Um, can I has luggage?

Gotcha!

Now, dunking for long term parking! Ring around the garage!

Our chariot awaits.

 

Welcoming committee, or, "Where have you been?"

No good vacation goes unpunished!

And the obligatory 'back home' shot. With view of memoirs being written...