PNewL PNewS
Volume 27 Issue 2 "All the pnews that phits.” July 2019
Planes, Trains and the High Seas
The latest adventure was completed in late June: a ferry ride up the coast of Norway (south to north) and a ship trip called “Circumnavigating Svalbard.” Tucked in among these rides was time in Oslo and Bergen. It was good and weird and fun and wow! Norway is gorgeous andexpensive!
Oslo is a very manageable city. We, Betsy and I, walked (close to 20,000 steps each day) and took public transportation and a very small ferry to get around. The architecture is varied and intriguing and creative and sometimes old, the open spaces are frequent, and being on the water is always a plus. The development along the water is relatively recent and there is still plenty of work going on. Norway is under construction. One of my favorite things in Oslo is the Vigeland sculpture collection in Frogner Park. Wikipedia says there are 212 bronze and granite sculptures—it also says he was given a place to live and work and in exchange he gave his work to the city. Lucky them. It is a wonderful collection of statues of humans at various stages of their lives. In the guidebooks I had, it got short mentions. Among the people I talked to who had been there before, it was the first thing I HAD to see. I agree.
One of my other favorite things about the town is the number of outdoor eating-places—in a country where the weather is often not good for eating outside. Most of these places had piles of blankets either as you walked in or at individual seats. I love that. I saw a fair number of things that made me curious about how different it would be in winter. I may have to go back.
Bergen is also very manageable. We took the train from Oslo to Bergen and it was lovely. Great scenery. My motto when traveling is “When in doubt, get on a boat.” I may amend it to add “or a train.” Bergen is a fun place to land. You walk out of the train station into this charming village of colorful buildings and beautiful scenery—mountains, and water, oh and tourists. There is a great market at the waterfront with stalls that sell prepared foods, mostly seafood, and they even provide seating. It was reasonably priced and the people watching was fab. Oh and the funicular that goes up the mountain behind town and the walk down was a good way to pass some town time. Oh and I bought some yarn, just because.
From Bergen, we got on the ferry, which is a hybrid cruise/ferry/cargo delivery ship. First let me say, the food on both ships was fabulous. There were plenty of things I didn’t like but the food was nowhere on that list. Plenty of choices for meat eaters and vegetarians alike.
When they said they would stop in some towns for 5 or 10 minutes they weren’t kidding. With around 35 stops along the way, some in the middle of the night, it was impressive how fast they got things done with no bumping or jerking. I was rarely aware we were on the water—we were only on open water a few times and so there was little rocking and rolling. And the scenery was fabulous. On our first day, we went into the UNESCO listed Geiranger fjord. It was stunning. (There was much jockeying for position to take pictures. There were many people on this ship—too many for my taste.) I heard someone say that they’d heard that after this, the scenery would disappoint. I don’t agree. It got better as we headed north. On Day 4, we crossed the Arctic Circle. The days are long up there just shy of the summer solstice. It was almost hard to remember to go to bed.
I had a cold so hanging out on the ship and watching the world go by was just my speed. I did wander around the towns we stopped in for more than 45 minutes (and bought some more yarn—and a few knitting needles when I discovered a needle tragedy—a kinda fun way to bond with shopkeepers along the route was showing them my sad broken needle). Betsy participated in several “expeditions,” including things like walking tours, bus tours and reindeer broth tasting adventures (cultural stops).
We got off this ship in Kirkennes, near the Russian border and the town where the ship turns around and returns south. We flew back to Oslo only to get on another plane the next day to fly north to Svalbard (a group of islands hanging out NE of Greenland). We went in search of polar bears. Flying in at midnight was incredible—the light was soft, the mountains were pointy and covered in snow, and as we got closer to landing, it looked like art—a woodcut print, I think. Anyway, we were in bed by 2:30 or 3am and the blockout curtains just about did the job. Up for breakfast, we discovered that more than half of our shipmates (and the majority of the English speakers) were part of a tour group. It made for an awkward trip in some respects. Most of these folks had bonded and preferred to hang out with each other. As the trip progressed, we found that folks were almost cult-like about their guides. Now that I think about it, I think awkward kinda sums up my feelings about the trip—the landings were sometimes a little forced and often a little short. Not all of it was anyone’s fault. Mother Nature had her hand in it too.
We spent most of the first day hanging out in Longyearbyen, the major town of 2700 or so in the Svalbard archipelago, and going out to visit some sled dogs and a few other sights. It reminded me a little of the town in the TV show Northern Exposure Oh and there were reindeer!
Once on the ship, we got into the routine of eating and wandering and lectures and sleeping. We went ashore in sweet little red motorboats (not the zodiacs of Antarctica) and we stood on deck and admired the views. The first morning we saw our first, and only, it turned out, polar bear. I thought it was a pretty good sighting. The bear was out on the ice eating. While we watched, s/he caught another seal. I was glad I had binoculars and a relatively good camera, but I was pleased. When I met up with people who had missed the whole thing, I was really grateful I hadn’t.
There was an interesting phenomena that occurred which caused us to miss “Circumnavigate-ing Svalbard,” and to miss some more chances for polar bear sightings. Ice. This is not because it was a late thaw but that the ice in the other part of the world (Alaska, Siberia, etc.) had broken up and come, blocking our way. The Norwegian Meteorological Institute produces an ice map five days a week (“No one works on the weekends in Norway”), which showed us where the ice was, and it was in our way. (Looks better now http://polarview.met.no/highres/svalbard_20190711.png). That was probably part of the reason the trip’s overall feel was a little awkward and that our route kinda zigged and zagged and felt like we’d been places before.
One of my favorite stops was to see a bunch of walruses. (Or is walrus the plural of walrus??) It was a breath takingly beautiful spot. Water, snow-covered mountains everywhere. And a pile of the most ridiculous animals ever at the end of the point. They are right up there with giraffes on the “How the heck did they survive?” list. Pointy tusks, 4000 lbs of blubber, no limbs to speak of. Watching them move around was exhausting. And those tusks look like they would just get in the way. Meanwhile, they were enjoying a bit of a snooze all in a pile with the occasional swim. It looked like a pretty nice way to pass the time.
At the end of trip, it was all about logistics as it usually is when a large group needs to go somewhere else. We were asked to have our luggage by the elevators at 10pm for a midnight departure to the airport. As we arrived at the airport, it started to snow…hard. (June 28th) And here’s how the next 45 hours played out for me:
Longyearbyen to Oslo 02:25 to 05:20
Oslo to Iceland 13:40-15 something
Reykjavik to JFK: can’t remember but landed after 7pm local time
Sky train to Jamaica station to LIRR to Penn Station to Newark Airport to hotel shuttle to mediocre Ramada (7 hours of glorious sleep).
Hotel shuttle to EWR 06:30. Allegiant flight to AVL delayed because of emergency landing from Laguardia
Arrived home around 15:30 ET
Trip Wrap-up…It was a good trip, not a great trip—a solid B, though through no fault of Norway. It is a beautiful country with nice people and cool things to see and do. I was sleep deprived and so not very pleasant to be around. And one of the ever-present kinda nagging concerns was my stewing on the future of travel, the future of mytravel. My travel to fragile destinations that are being trampled by us, visited by ships that are apparently the worst possible way to get around—the most destructive, gigantic carbon footprints-spewing vessels bobbing around in delicate ecosystems. Yeah, I am ranting and mixing rants a bit but it’s all spilling out of my head, like sewage. Travel: this has been my thing for many years and now I am not sure I feel okay about it. Walking around international airports, everybody from 2-80 are wearing t-shirts announcing exotic locations they’ve visited (I’m not judging—I have two drawers full of those shirts). It tells me this is not going to stop any time soon. And we are loving this planet to death. I struggle. I saw an ad in the Oslo train station—an SAS airlines ad (complete with a picture of a handsome rugged greying man who I wouldn’t mind traveling with). The tagline was “Your reason for travel is our reason for making travelling more sustainable.” Thank heavens there are others, that have a bigger impact than I do, struggling with this too! (though I wouldn’t have said “making travelling”—awkward.)
Things I am Learning
& Miscellaneous Observations
• On the list of things I’ve learned or in this case was reminded of in weird columns in newspapers or on the internet: clean the filter on the dishwasher. As I have mentioned, I’m not a cleaner (but I did vacuum this week!) so the idea that a cleaning machine needs cleaning really irritates me, but I did take a look at the filter and all I can say is E-U.
• I was recently reminded of my love of ground chicken. Somehow it fell out of rotation and I was practically giddy when I remembered to get some boneless/skinless chicken thighs, throw em in the Cuisinart (onion, garlic, S&P, egg) and boom, chicken balls or burgers. Love it when I remember a recipe I like that had briefly left the fold.
• The other day I looked down and noticed I was drinking water out of a plastic cottage cheese container (or something like that)—it was clean and convenient but I then made myself go over and look at the glass cupboard which for a single person contains a ridiculous number of glasses. (I stopped counting at 40.) I love glassware and some of my glasses are very precious to me. Note to self? Use the glasses, girl!
• Shortly before I left on the adventure mentioned over there, I took two falls. The first one, I actually had that moment of this-would-be-a-really-inconvenient-time-to-get-hurt before I hit the ground. I was pulling up the vines that were strangling the blueberries and had my arms full and got all tangled. I was fine, unsettled but fine. The second one was the result of dog rough housing—Roger’s girlfriend Meeka, a rambunctious beauty, came at me from behind and lo and behold, I found myself flat on my back. (Clipping!?!) After assessing the situation, it seemed that everything was close to okay and I was able to continue on and most importantly go on the trip. My physical therapist said I had whiplash but it was not too bad. This country living is dangerous. (Note post trip: there was an NPR story about the number of elderly who are dying of falls. Oh fer crying out loud, at least I am not elderly! ha)
• An interesting part about living in a place which still feels kinda new since I have no lengthy history here (11 years ain’t much in the south) is how when I move on to different projects, I lose the people I knew on the old ones. I was in a book club and when I decided to leave, a woman I considered a friend said it would be too bad not to see each other any more. Same thing happened when I left Women Build, a group I had worked with for nine years! Who knew? We can only be friends if we go to meetings together? Huh.
• “On average, women do seven years more unpaid work than men over their lifetime. That is about the same amount of time it takes to complete Bachelor and Masters degrees.” From Melinda Gates’ book, The Moment of Lift: How Empowering Women Changes the World.
• It was nice to be in a country that is not always front and center on the international stage.
• The aftermath of a cold is often the same: leftover cough drops and OTC meds, wads of tissues. Coming back from travel with a cold means there are Kleenex in every pocket of clothes, backpack and coat.
• While it was hot in Oslo one day, it was mostly pretty pleasant and in the Arctic, pleasantly cold—we were dressed for it. Coming back to hot and soupy WNC has been a bit of an adjustment.
Things I didn’t say over there.
Because polar bears are dangerous and fast, everyone carries a gun. It’s amazing how fast I got used to it.
More about the trip home…Remember, this was all happening in the middle of the night with little sleep: Sitting next to me on the first flight of the epic return trip was a strange young woman. She boarded last, sat down without taking off her backpack, and brought food on board (hamburger and fries and a coke), wiping her hands on her pants after each bite. She fell asleep almost immediately hanging over the armrest, with a full open coke in her hand. Fortunately, it didn’t spill. I kept thinking this was the outfit I was going to be in for the foreseeable future and it didn’t need to be covered in coke. At some point, she put the coke on my tray table. Upon arrival, I had trouble convincing her to get off the plane. I’m thinking there were drugs involved. From here, we had to go through passport control despite flying from Norway to Norway (something about Russia). When I finally got to a bathroom, it was full of a group of Asian women who had all brought their luggage carts in. Half of the bathroom was cordoned off with other Asian women washing their faces on the other side—very odd. A woman I did not know looked at my face and probably saw the same look of disbelief she had on hers and said, “This is full of s**t.” She went under the rope and one of the women washing her face got all perplexed and was literally fanning herself like she had the vapors or something. The trip from then on was uneventful. Well, except for the weird kinda sleep deprived warbly parts and dragging luggage across Manhattan on a Friday night. [I am including this here for my own record. It felt cinematic…surreal. I have such vivid images of all of this in my head. Guess you had to be there.]
• In the time since I got home, a friend was hit by a car and killed. The first few times I mentioned it, I said my friend’s husband was killed but then I thought, wait, he was my friend too. Chris was coming home from work, stopped to get the mail, boom. He was married for a good long time to Laurie, one of my best friends from high school. We have enjoyed time in Key West and Maine and even Western North Carolina. He was a gatherer of people and an avid volleyball player and musician. Most importantly to me he has been best friend and supporter of my dear friend. And over the years we had some pretty intimate conversations about how one manages the world. He is one of those people I figured would always be there. And now he isn’t. Be careful out there. The world can be a fragile place. RIP Chris.
Service is the rent we pay for being. It is the very purpose of life, and not something you do in your spare time. Marian Wright Edelman
