NORWAY SOLSTICE - 97

Well here goes another one of those trip letters whose initial draft was typed at 35,000 feet or where ever they fly these big airplanes. I'm about 9 hours into a nearly 11 hour flight from Amsterdam to SFO with drinks provided along the way ......

The basis for this outing was two-fold. First the 5th SOHO Workshop would take place in Oslo, Norway a few days prior to the summer solstice and second Friedel would be in Switzerland for her annual visit to a mountain spa and had invited Dawna to come over. An invitation and combination too good to pass up. Meanwhile, work kept getting in the way as we had some TRACE instrument problems. These prevented me from going to Oslo a few days early to tour the west coast of Norway and some fiords but I still managed to make the trip; and we got to some fine fiords later on.

Thursday-1: Dawna flew to Zurich via Heathrow, arriving on Friday morning. She then took the train towards her destination in the mountains, stopping at Bern in the latter part of the afternoon to de-jet-lag a bit in an interesting and not too large city. It worked and she had a good time, even managing to watch people play a local game where they throw steel balls at a marker and/or at the other person's steel balls.

Saturday-1: After sleeping in Bern she toured the city a bit, taking in a street market in the process. She then got on the train and continued to Leukerbad. Splendid scenery. For the next several days she and Friedel had a fine time; which is summed up in her following words.

Leukerbad is a resort area in one of the most picturesque valleys I could imagine. Friedel, in her usual style, had booked an apartment that had a killer view of the out-of-doors off the balcony and we had reasonable to gorgeous weather. Waterfalls and granite mountains in view - wow. I even went to the spa for one session and actually quite enjoyed it; but would never do it daily like Friedel does. We also got in a helicopter flight out of Sion with a young man who had spent lots of time in the US at Friedel's a few years ago while training to be a helicopter pilot. He took us on a 40 minute flight over an area of the Alps that Friedel especially likes and it was beautiful. I did find myself a bit tense on takeoffas this was a new experience! I told myself it would not be cool to scream so I didn't. Instead, I relaxed and really enjoyed.

Gee, brings back all those memories of mine (Jake) of going up and down White Mountain in a helicopter, but that's a different story so I'll get on with the present one.

After a few days she headed northward with Eurorail pass in hand. First she went to Basel for two days with Friedel being tour director since that is her home town. They walked all over this fine old city, saw where Friedel went to college, and took a boat trip on the Rhein River with Friedel telling interesting stories and pointing out things Dawna would have otherwise missed. They then separated and Dawna went to Freiburg to visit with the Seidl's. Wolfgang wasn't in town so she didn't get to see the Schmidt's. Next was north to Copenhagen where she wandered around for a long day, after taking an all night train and thus being tired. Then onward to Stockholm. There she spent a day and night with Norma Rapley, Chris being out of town. A very good time was had. Norma took her to see a huge ship (the Vais) that sunk 300 years ago. It was discovered in quite good condition and they have additionally restored it. Turned out the ship was top heavy and sunk on her maiden voyage a few feet from shore!

Saturday-2: Having been a bachelor for more than a week I gathered myself together and boarded an airplane for Oslo via Amsterdam. I had neither starved nor left the house in a mess I'm happy to report and in fact I even managed to do one load of whites in the washer and figured out how to plug the iron in!

Sunday-2: I arrived Oslo, checked into the hotel, and walked the city. Partially to keep awake in order to fight jet lag and partially to see it. It was a nice night and lots of people were out doing their things. Eventually I ate a light meal (lasagna) at an outdoor sort of cafe in a small park; watching the people go by as I sipped my expensive beer. I then went back to the hotel and killed some time, keeping awake until I would go over to the train station and meet Dawna at 10 PM. Instead she walked into the room around 9. Neither of us could figure out why she was early but it was a nice surprise. Said hello, exchanged some news, and got a good nights sleep.

Monday-2: This was the day to be a tourist since my meeting began on Tuesday. We got the one day pass that let's you into basically all museums and onto nearly all public transportation and did a full day's worth and then some. First a short ferry over to the peninsula where the major tourist attractions are; and we hit them all. The Viking Ship Museum, an outdoor Folk Village (where we had something non special for lunch), a museum about an ice breaker (Fram) that made trips to both the north and south pole areas with famous explorers such as Amundsen, the Kon-Tiki and Ra Museum which had the actual rafts that Thor H sailed, and a Maritime museum. The Folk Village wasn't great but all the museums were and the weather was fine as well. My favorite may will have been the Fram. Ferry back to town and then public transportation up the hillside to where there is an enormous ski jump (from the Olympics) and a ski museum. After much, much climbing of stairs we got to the very top of the ski jump and could both stare down at the run and also at the city of Oslo and it's bay/fiord. Great view and experience but I can't imagine how anyone could ski down that thing. Based on the fact that Norma had said there were a couple of good restaurants up near the ski jump we went to one and it was good; even if we were really under dressed. Dawna had medallions of reindeer which were basically the fillet and I had a hunter's combination that had one reindeer fillet, some reindeer sausage, and some hare. It was very good, all in a mushroom sauce. Rather costly but we knew that would be the case. Public transport to home and collapse. You can get in a lot of sight seeing when it never seems to get dark if you try hard enough!

Tuesday-2:1 went to the start of the meeting at Oslo U, which was about 15 minutes by subway, and Dawna began bumming. Actually, she pretty much used the day to catch up on things as she had been running pretty hard and continual for the last 10 days or so. Then she came out to the U for the social/reception. Got to drink some champagne, eat some horsdoeuvres, and say hello to lots of old friends. After that a group of 8 of us went to one of Oslo's top dinner spots. The place was elegant, the service fine, the atmosphere relaxed and the food both well displayed and tasty; but there was very little of it. And it was expensive. A nice social evening, however.

Wednesday-2: Dawna continued her thing(s) and I did mine. We had arranged to have dinner that night with Ester Antonucci and invited the Caturas to come along, which they did. Actually, we started out with drinks in our room. Turns out we had plenty of booze because I had brought over a large bottle of wine and a bottle of mixed Manhattans and Dawna had purchased 3 bottles of wine in Germany .... We went to a restaurant that was fairly near the hotel and it was excellent. Down in a cellar with some charm, Norwegian style cooking, very good. Dawna had veal and I had cod that was done with a sauce that included mussels and bacon. Absolutely excellent and it would be interesting to try and introduce bacon into something with mussels back home.

Thursday-3: Same routine of meetings for me and goofing off for D. In all fairness she used up quite a bit of her time getting our outing for the weekend arranged. Nice to have a travel agent with you. The meeting ended about 5 PM and I came back to freshen up and have one of those Manhattans. Then it was back to the U and onto the bus to take us to the Conference banquet. Turned out to be at a spot back up near the ski jump but not where we had eaten previously. Pretty good meal for a banquet but not great; they never are. Good social time, however. Dinner was over about 9 PM but the buses weren't going to come back until like 11, so we walked 1/3 of the way down the mountain/hill towards town along a cross country ski route. Then caught some public transportation "home."

Friday-3: Routine continued but the meeting ended a bit earlier than on the previous days. Dawna came out and met me and then we went over to the crazy sculpture garden - it is one of the other tourist attractions of Oslo and quite a place. Many, many sculptures by this one fellow (Vigeland) and his helpers. All are people in different poses and activities and phases of life with the majority being adult males and children => none with clothes on. Actually an interesting, as well as amazing, collection/place. We then walked back towards town, saw some neighborhoods, stopped somewhere for pizza that was pretty good, and took public transportation home. Did some organizing so that we could leave much of our clothes at the hotel while we ran around on the weekend and got to bed early for a change.

Saturday-3: Dawna had gotten us tickets to do the "Norway in a Nutshell" loop but instead of doing it in one long day with no time to breath we were going to stay over night at a small fiord town along the path. The drill was to catch the main train from Oslo to Bergen at like 7:40 in the morning and then get off it after about 5 hours. During the trip one saw villages, farm land, and then climbed up to about 5500 feet seeing rushing mountain streams, forests, and eventually barren rocky landscape covered with snow and mountain lakes. The tree line is at like 4500 feet this far north! You get off the main train at a town called Myrdal and then take a special train down to the fiord/valley. It is the steepest train (not cog or tram) in Europe and quite an engineering feat and they stop along the way for good views and to let all the photo crazy people out at a spectacular waterfall. At the valley floor one gets on a boat and out into the fiord. The others kept going but we got off at the first small town, Aurland - population a thousand or so. Checked into our non-fancy but historic accommodations and then hit the tourist booth/room. Turned out they don't have a lot of attractions there and some that we had heard about weren't available; like the high mountain drive to a Stave Church doesn't open until 1 July due to snow, it was the wrong day to tour the hydroelectric plant that provides most of Oslo's electricity, and the week long summer music festival had no performances that particular night. They also had no special solstice activities. On the other hand, it was beautiful and peaceful and not many tourists. Went for a nice walk/hike up a valley with many great views. Back to town for a bit of dinner (nothing special) and then to bed rather early. A combination of clouds and a couple of streetlights prevent me from saying if it ever got dark on this solstice night but I think it basically didn't. Ya, I could have gotten up and explored but preferred to make my judgment looking out the window from my bed. And, happy anniversary, Nathan and Ten. We were at a nice seaside "wild" area a year ago.

Sunday-3: Up pretty early since we had gone to bed early. Walked to the main hotel and had coffee overlooking the town/fjord - quite a scene. Then took a reasonably long walk along the fjord looking at the scenery, farms, streams, waterfalls, etc. The main tourist boat would hit town at 2:15 PM (like we did the prior day) but we caught a ferry at 11:30 AM and took it to a tiny town down the fjord a ways. Had to get them to stop there for us but Rick Steves said they would and they did. Saw a neat old church and got a nice lecture about it from a young lady. Walked the town and along a roaring river. This town has about 90 families and was only reachable by boat until they did a tunnel thing to it a half dozen years ago or so. Bought some local goal cheese and had a picnic with me buying a beer and Dawna finishing of the bottle of wine we had started on the night before. Nice weather, relaxing atmosphere, and in order to get the main tourist boat to come over and pick us up at like 2:30 PM we had to punch a button that started a twirling light. They came and we two boarded and on we went. About an hour cruise along a very spectacular fjord. My best analogy would be to think of Yosemite if it were flooded. High granite cliffs and many, many waterfalls. Neat. At the end of the fjord one transfers to a bus and climbs up the mountain. A quite curvy/spectacular drive including view after view of a couple of very nice waterfalls plus looking back down to the fjord/valley. Upon reaching the top the bus rolled along for about an hour and then dumped us at a train station where you catch the main Bergen-Oslo train. After about a half hour of new territory we were retracing our path back to Oslo. The scenery looked different however and was quite enjoyable although gradually we got tired and were ready to end the trip. Got in some book reading as well.

The whole train experience was a bit mixed in that we had to take fancy first class tickets going out because that was all there was and the views were actually not as good as on the trip back when we were in second class. On the other hand the constant coffee and fruit were enjoyed that first morning and we had a chit for a meal so we had lunch in the dining car and the trout, more like salmon or maybe a steelhead, was excellent. Coming back we had the good, second class views, but seats where we were facing people facing us and that is awkward in my opinion. All in all both were fine rides and right on time but I wonder if the views from a bus might have been better; the train is often looking right into trees along the track.

Anyway, got back about 10:30 and rechecked into the hotel, after a bunch of confusion which resulted in us having two single rooms for the price of our planned double since they had given all the double rooms to people who were part of some tour groups. Did a bunch of repacking for the trip back to the US and got to bed about midnight.

Monday-3: Up at 5 AM and a taxi at 5:45 after some coffee in the lobby. I flew out at 7:20 on Northwest/KLM and Dawna flew out at 8:10 on SAS/British Air. She went through Heathrow but didn't get a nice British bitters given that it was early morning and she's just not a real beer drinker and I flew through Amsterdam and bought one of those huge and excellent aged Gouda cheese rounds. We were flying different airlines because Lockheed makes my reservations, I have to fly a US carrier, and Dawna made hers earlier and through a discount outfit. She flew SFO to Zurich and then OSL to SFO for about half what I did for SFO to Oslo to SFO. My flight was quite good in that I managed to get a window seat by asking for one at Amsterdam and had some great views of icebergs, glaciers, mountains and other good things. Also lucked out in that although the plane was basically full the seat between me and the isle was vacant. This makes such a difference in terms of spreading out, working on stuff, typing a note such as this, etc. Did have a little excitement at Amsterdam where they announced they were going to go through all the luggage in the plane's belly to find two bags that belonged to someone who had not boarded the plane but then about 20 minutes later they said they figured out that this luggage never got put on our plane so all was well and off we went. Other than that we sailed along rather smoothly and arrived basically on time.

Since this meant I was getting in 2 hours before Dawna we had deliberately shipped both our bags home on my ticket. I gathered them up. Did some reading and then picked up a rental car with which I came back and got Dawna. Her trip had been reasonable as well. I stayed home for three days and then went to Bozeman for a meeting; but that's not part of this story. Did get in a 17 mile hike while there, however.