Tromsø Day

I was shocked to see I’d slept in until eight this morning.  I don’t think I’ve slept in that late since I’ve been in Norway.  It’s nice having a room with no window.  One channel on the TV shows the view from the camera in the front of the boat, so it only takes a second to find out if it’s sunny or not, but telling day from night isn’t possible now since we have entered the land of the midnight sun.  I have to force myself to go to sleep.

They served pancakes with blueberry jam this morning for breakfast.  We were sitting with Tante Aslaug and her roommate, Liv, a wonderful woman from the Philadelphia Church.  I dropped a bit of the blueberry jam on my light blue shirt, and Tante Aslaug moaned, knowing that blueberry stains are nearly impossible to get out of clothes.  Liv piped up and said, “Well, now you have a memory from Harstad” (the city we were near at the time.)  I thought that was a funny way of looking at it.  No need to buy souvenirs from that town, I guess.

After breakfast “King Neptune” arrived on the top deck to present the winner of the Arctic Circle competition a gift.  Along with receiving his free backpack with the Hurtigruten logo, he got “baptized” by having a scooper full of ice cubes and cold water poured down his back.  As compensation for the deed, he was given some kind of hard liquor to drink as a celebration of his entrance to the North Sea.  Any others that wanted to have a stiff drink early in the morning, had to undergo the same treatment, so people were lined up like crazy getting their backsides drenched with ice cubes and cold water. 

I could see that Stuart really wanted a sip of something stronger than coffee, so I stood in line and took the hit for him.  I got the water, he got the booze.  I’m not sure it was the best thing for his diabetes but he sure enjoyed the experience much more than I did.  Fortunately, the sun was shining and I just laid on the back deck and dried off, and fell asleep.  How that’s possible, I don’t know, but I was snoring something good.  So was Kory.

Our big stop for the day was in Tromsø, the largest city in Northern Norway and quite a bit larger than our town of Aalesund (see above photo of the State Church).  I asked ahead where the thrift stores were and was given rough directions, which turned out to be almost correct.  Because we speak Norwegian, we were able to ask more directly once we got in town, but Stu and Judy weren’t keeping the same pace as Kory and I so they got the whole run around.  I’d given them the map the receptionist office on the ship gave me.  They wrote the word FRETEX on it, which is what the Norwegian’s call “Salvation Army.”  When they encountered the same problem we did with the directions, they asked a kid about Kaleb’s age if he knew where the “Salvation Army” was.  He left his friends behind and kindly guided them way across town to the Army surplus store.  They got a good laugh about it afterwards. 

So Stu and Judy spent most of their afternoon walking from one end of town to the other, while Kory and I bee-lined to three different thrift stores, worried they would close early like the ones do in Aalesund.  I bought a lot of pewter stuff which drives Kory nuts because I already have more than I can use and I honestly don’t know what to do with it all, but each piece is different and special and I’m totally addicted to it now so I’m not sure if there is hope in me ever quitting this habit.  I may have to start the first “pewter anonymous” self help group in Norway.  The guy in the last shop looked at me kinda weird when I bought out nearly all he had.  He just said, “You know, this stuff USED to be popular…” like he was trying to talk me out of my purchases.  I know it USED to be popular - that’s why it’s in my price range.  Cousin Kari tried to explain to me today that if I didn’t buy so many small little things, I might actually be able to have one nice big, expensive new thing as a memory from Norway.  But then it would only be one purchase, and not nearly as satisfying as all these small little finds.  It’s not just the destination, it’s the journey that counts!

We also had time to stop into the “Perspective Museum,” which thankfully was free.  It was basically just a bunch of photos with stories attached, showing the lifestyle of the Sami people that live in these parts, up north.  Since global warming is destroying their lifestyle on the ice, this one photojournalist wanted to capture every part of their life and have it documented.  He is sure they will be disappearing in the not too distant future, as the ice continues to melt and the polar bears and other sea life start to disappear.  From my perspective, it was a good place to set down all my shopping bags and take a break, even if the thought of eventual doom was the reason.

I was missing Kaleb pretty badly today but when we called him this evening, he wasn’t missing us too much.  His class at school climbed up a mountain today, so he was glad to not have to do any schoolwork. 

Today was the first warm day we’ve had in a long time in Norway.  Kinda funny it’s happening so far north, but I’m thankful we can see the gorgeous mountains popping up all over the place, no matter which way we look.  I thought it would be flattening out by now, but so far, that’s not the case.

I had to stay up until after midnight since the boat was going to enter a two-hour block of open sea.  It was explained to us on the first day of this trip that the difference between a cruise ship and this ferry is that the ferry stays close to the shore and the cruise ships have to go on the outside of all the islands.  It makes a huge difference as we are always sandwiched in between islands and the mainland and the ride is pretty smooth.  But because of that, the evening sun is nearly always blocked by some landmass to the west of us.  Tonight, however, we had two hours of ocean horizon in which to watch the sun NOT set.  It dipped down, not even close to the horizon, then started going right back up again.  That was cool to watch (see photo taken after midnight).

Kory drew a few new pictures today and I worked more on the Israel photo book.  All the scenery is now new to us since we’ve never been this far north, but I’m afraid once we reach the last stop, I’ll be tempted to take the next flight south.  I’m not having a bad time, but I can’t do a whole lot, and if I were back home in Aalesund, that wouldn’t be the case.