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Nelsons Are No Longer In Norway. Elvis has left the building. We departed the ship in rainy Bergen and spent the time organizing ourselves, walking around the city and eating expensive dinners. The latter highlight was pretty unavoidable. The evening we arrived we just ate in the hotel's "Whiskey Bar" -- two 12" skinny crust pizzas a wine and a beer -- for $70. The next night we found a cute Italian restaurant, which had good food. We had two pasta unfancy dishes, beer & wine for $60 -- a much better deal, in my opinion, but come on. The cost of living is high in Norway (housing, cars, gas, clothing, food), and they are heavily taxed (total tax burden of roughly 45% of GDP, more than twice the U.S.).

On the other hand, college tuition is generally free and healthcare is free or requires inexpensive co-pays.
Basic jobs (dishwasher, etc,) get a living wage, maybe $35K. Teachers start in the upper $40's, with experience-based increases into the $70's. Engineer's start around $50-60K. The average CEO makes $200K -- 11 times their average employees’ salary versus 270 times for the U.S.

But I digress…

We walked around buying gifts for back home,



and we went up the funicular.



The track is 2700 feet long and rises almost 1000 feet. At the bottom; note no cable visible.


Have not passed the other car – note one cable visible.


Almost up top – note two cables visible.


The two cars are attached to either end of a cable. They share a single track except where they have to pass each other. They make a couple stops on the way up to drop off the cliff dwellers living on the hill.

Views from the top.  That's the Richard With at dock. 




Francie makes friends with a local.


Norway is tiring.

DAY 14

DAY 14

Another low impact day. There are definitely more excursion opportunities on the trip north compare to the return south. Some people did half – we lost some if Kirkenes and pick some up there as well.


All in all, above the Arctic Circle wasn’t what I think of as arctic cold. But. FYI, locals did say, “Isn’t this warm weather?” And me, wearing long-johns (top and bottom), blue jeans, rain pants, turtle neck, long sleeve shirt, insulated vest, my trusty Scottie Vest, a scarf, “und mine dupplehut” (my term for a knit toque over my L.L.Bean skull cap) and my “Harley Davidson” gloves. Mmm… toasty!


At the Kristiansund stop, about 20 of us piled into a bus for a 40 minute drive to Bergtatt and a tour of a marble mine. About midway we stop for a “photo op”, and I got this shot of our ship heading to its next destination, Molde.



WARNING -- TECHNICAL STUFF, SKIP TO END: Limestone is a sedimentary rock composed of shells and skeletons of marine animals – mainly calcium carbonate + impurities. Submitting limestone to heat, pressure and time causes a recrystallization, which forms marble. If the marble cools slowly without a lot of wiggling around, cracks are minimal and you can cut out big chunks and make Davids, Venuses and Pietas. Therefore, I thought marble would be quarried (open pit), but the marble at this location was too uneconomically deep and was shaft mined. Also, they did not carve out slabs and block, and this despite their claim that theirs was the most pure marble in the world. They blast, collect, pound, crush and grind the marble to a fine powder, which is used in the making of glossy paper (up to 14% marble in National Geographic). Peak production was in the 80’s and 90’s. LCD screens have cramped their style and production dropped to 10%. Then cheap marbles, read more impurities, made them a part time operation. However, they have 40 big, blasted out caverns 750 feet underground connected by 8 miles of tunnels. They have unlimited cooling thanks to a very large underground lake 40 ft deep at 40℉. They are wooing big data companies to put their clouds inside this immune to sunspots mountain with cheap cooling and cheap, green power (hydro/wind). That’s a CEO that thinks out of the box. CONTINUE YOUR REGULAR PROGRAMMING.

We drove up a dirt road replete with a hairpin turn past a couple of resting 65-ton dump trucks and past a couple holes in the mountain. We finally came to our hole and drove in for ¾ mile, coming to a large gallery




This chandelier, and all others, are made of marble from the mine.


We had to don hard hats and life vest before we got on the “boat”. I don’t know why no one (including me) would sit with Francie – it might be that grin which never left her face.


An electric trolling motor moved us through a “maze of twisty little passages, all alike” (a correct identification of this reference will receive a prize).


The water was crystal clear and up to 40 feet deep.


We pulled up to this place where one could eat if everything was not soaking wet.


We all piled out.


They tapped into a cavity collecting the water seeping through the rocks, and we all got a taste. The water was icy cold, but otherwise regular old water.


Back in the boats, and a short cut home. Leaving vests and hats behind, we entered a large hall. Seven hundred fifty feet under ground, we were served vegetable beef soup, as a video of a local rock group played songs in the Elvis style. We kept asking each other, “Is this not strange?”


To this point we had learned almost nothing about the marble mine – including why the hell they were mining it. Happily they showed three videos that were very informative and I was pleased.

This venue receives regular use as a concert hall, seating about 300 people. It always sells out. But really have you been studying my pictures – a nail hammering festival, properly advertised, would sell out.

Day 13

DAY 13

We really didn't do anything today. The bus stopped at Brønnøysun.  We got out to stretch our legs and visit an in-town shopping mall.

We had a special 5 course dinner billed as the 125^th anniversary celebration dinner.  I thought it was good, however it was one data point bolstering my theory that the number of courses a meal contains is inversely proportional to the total mass of food served.

Breakfast and lunch were buffet style. Sit where ever you can find a seat.  For dinner we had assigned seats and times – 6:30, table 4.  We had interesting seat buddies – four ladies from Canada.  They where so interesting that we only talked politics the first night.

This is a waiter.  He must be new, because he is very happy.  These guys work long and hard.  Some double in room service in the mornings.  One of the supervisors said they get 20-30,000 steps a day – according to their fitbits.

A couple days ago we did an interesting thing that adverse weather prevented us from doing on the way north.  We cruised into the Troll Fiord (Trollfjorden, bet you didn’t know that you knew so much Norweeger). 

At it’s narrowest it’s 300 feet.  Mountains on both sides are 3000 feet.  It’s almost 230 feet deep at its deepest.  It was getting near dusk, and it was foggy and rainy.

Entering the fiord.

The fuzzy spots on the photos are rain drops on the lens filter.

I was relieved to hear that this was a power facility and some Norweeger had not chosen to live at the end of this thing.  Although I have plenty of pictures of homes almost as isolated and remote as this.

The sides were very steep and with several water falls.

The ship has side thrusters in the bow so it can pivot around.  Here we are perpendicular to the fiord.  The sides were closer than they appear in this photo.

Heading out

BLOG -- NORTHERN LIGHTS

NORTHERN LIGHTS

   Based on my admittedly very limited experience, I would have to say, in regard to Northern Lights, Aurora Borealis… well, La Dee-Dah.

There is a ship wide announcement whenever Northern Lights are observed.  We were told that things change fast.  Intensities can ramp-up or drop-off over just a couple minutes, so don’t give up right away.

   Research back home in St. Pete indicated manual focus (set at infinity), wide open aperture and exposures of 20-30 seconds (didn’t give an ISO speed) – tripod required of course.  This seemed reasonable – until you factor in the tripod is on the deck of a moving, ocean going vessel.  I met a local photographer who showed me a magnificent picture (he said) he took at 0.2 seconds with a fast f/1.4 lens.  He said he never exposes for more than 6 seconds.

   So, the first night… well the actual first night I didn’t see anything.  Maybe those were clouds, but… actually nothing.  The bow, where a dim show was supposed to be, was packed with unworthy gawkers, unlike the photographically seriousness of myself.

   The next night then (tripod, manual focus set at ∞) I set the ISO (light sensitivity) to a very high 6400.  I set noise reduction to maximum (requires about 10 seconds to process each image).  I opened the aperture to the maximum for my zoom lens, f/3.5, which is not bad for a zoom lens, but it is definitely not f/1.4.  I set the shutter to 30 seconds. Shooty-shoot-shoot.  Noth’n.  Back in the darkroom (Corel Photopaint on my laptop), I boosted color, brightness and contrast to maximum, and got someth’n.

    Notice the big dipper

The next night the display was much more apparent, but not what you see in pictures.  There was no structure visible (although some did pop out after post production fiddling).  As one watched the sky, one could detect that the glow had changed, I would be hard pressed to call it movement.

To become a documenter of the Northern Lights Experience, I think you have to live around the Arctic circle (ugh) and work at it some (or, at least, carry your camera at all times).

DAY 12 – 1st DAY SOUTH

DAY 12 – 1^st DAY SOUTH

Not much happening today. Tonight, however, we are going to a midnight concert at the Arctic Cathedral in Tromsø.  This was not a big photo opportunity – it was night and no photos were allowed during the concert.

The front of the cathedral was clear glass.

The back was also clear glass – originally.  The light was so strong coming off the mountain that parishioners wore sunglasses to services.  They installed a stain glass window.  When the architect saw the horrifying results, he left and never came back.  It looked OK to me – better during the day, I understand, from fellow cruisers, who saw it on the way north.

The walls are a series of concrete slabs, propped against one another.

There is an organ loft and choir space opposite the altar (church front).  The organ has 2940 pipes and the bellows are made of reindeer hide.

The acoustics were tremendous – in my talentless, uneducated, can’t-hear-when-the-water’s-running opinion.  There was a singer, a cellist and an organist/pianist.  I don’t think they were miked, and the sound filled the hall, especially the singer.  It was pretty neat.

DAY 11 – 7th DAY NORTH

DAY 11 – 7^th DAY NORTH

Today we are in Kirkenes (pronounced, for some Norweeger reason, as Shir-ken-is), and our excursion is a King Crab fishing/eating experience.

First, we have to get prepared to fall in the water by donning our “Fall In The Water Suits”, and a mini life vest.  The suit will make you float and the vest will help you float heads up – very thoughtful, those Norweegers.

We head to the boats.

We sit two-by-two straddling a (semi) cushioned seat.  Getting ones 70-year-old-leg swaddled in a sink-proof arctic suit over an almost, approximate, estimated 5 foot tall seat is not easy, but can be accomplished with sufficient grunting.

We’re off (that is actually our sister boat),

which had the winch and hauled up the crab trap.  The crabs walk 2-3 miles a day in search of sushi (they love sushi, the less fresh the better), so the traps are moved daily.

The crabs have blue blood (hence the name King Crab), but it looked like gray water to us.  Francie happily drains water (blood) from the crab.  I could not help, but think what this scene would be like if the blood was say, blood red.

We all crowd around for the gruesome spectacle.

Said Spectacle

Waiting for the pot to boil.

Crabbies in.  He thinks he made a pressure cooker.

Three bricks for a HIGH pressure cooker.  We’re excited.

Last minute shell opening instruction.

We’re on our own.

You can tell by the look in my eyes that I am about to enter a feeding frenzy.

Francie in full feeding frenzy mode.

Some of the beautiful scenery in this way-the-hell-far-north town.

The scene of the debacle.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In the late afternoon we stopped at Vardo.  Highlights here where the Vardøhus Fortress and the Witches Memorial.

I went to the fort -- a manly thing to do.  The barracks were interesting.  The grass roof was, no doubt, for hiding from satellite surveillance.

It was protected by a berm.

I wonder if there was a dampness problem with the back wall.

There was a nice statute commemorating the heroic exploits of this guy.

Norway still stands ready to defend all these rocks and what not.

 I could see the Witch Memorial from the fort,

I spotted Mary Frances and her buddy trekking over there.

Norway takes their embarrassment over the treatment of witches more seriously than we do.  They were not selling rubber noses or pointy hats like is available in Salem.

This is a chair, which usually has a flame coming out of the seat, memorializing the manner in which the confessed witches were all executed.  I don’t know how I feel about this symbol.

They had an impressive conviction rate, about 100%.  There were several men in the number proving that even back then, Norway was pretty egalitarian.

The cute section of Vardo is viewed as we leave.