We are anchored - at least I think anchored, at any rate not moving much - off Alesund, and have just a little time before our shore excursion departs. So I will do my best to catch up before our next big day.
Sunday started dim and early, 3AM or so when I woke long enough to glance out our window and glimpse the enticing shadows of land masses and glimmers of village lights just becoming visible through the gloom. During my attempts to shoot some snaps through the window I woke Kristiana, and in due course we were bundled up and out on deck with our cameras. We shot until breakfast opened around six, and as we drew near Flam we breakfasted and got ready for our shore excursion.
I have just heard the announcement that we are in fact docked at Alesund, the shore available to us via gangway. This is welcome news, because at Flam we were only anchored, and the business of transferring to shore via ship's tender was tedious as well as being crowded and a bit diesel-scented.
Ashore in Flam we (those of us on our particular optional excursion) were directed to two buses which left promptly for the mountains above town. Our guide described the local area and economy (Flam is a big hydroelectric generating station, all those scenic waterfalls helping to power the country) before, as David Rakoff says, exhausting the subject and nattering on about things generally Norwegian - how populous the country is (4 million), the cost of a house (perhaps 3 million krone or half a million dollars), the VAT (25%), the referenda on EU membership (failed both times). An hour, one scenic overlook and many Norwegian factoids later we arrived at our little mountain hamlet and were ushered inside to our breakfast (seond today if you're counting, but we *had* been up for seven hours) of waffles, jam, sour cream and coffee.
A word about Norwegian waffles: they are served cold, which pretty much negates any chance of their being crisp either. A word about Norwegian sour cream: it has an odd consistency. It is stretchy. Glossy and stretchy, and resistant to being spread or otherwise manipulated in the usual foodlike ways to which Americans are accustomed. There is nothing wrong with the flavor, but its strange texture puts one in mind of a slightly creepy Chem professor demonstrating the faaascinating properties of ultra-long-chain molecules. Since the waffles are fairly soft and the sour cream rather, er, strong, trying to achieve a uniform sour cream-over-waffle layer was a messy business.
On return to the ship we supplemented our breakfasts with some noncarbohydrates from the buffet line - just for variety - then split up, Kristiana for a spa appointment and me for a nap. I awoke to find Kristiana preparing to sleep herself, not feeling too well. (Nothing serious, mostly a cumulative exhaustion thing. She's fine today.) She sent me off to dinner, and as it turned out the rest of the evening, alone though in the delightful company of Kristi and Madelyn.
We had the expected very nice dinner, then Kristi and I spent the evening in the library while Madelyn attended Prairie Home's sound effects impressrio Fred's seminar on how to make funny noises (no grown-ups allowed) before rejoining us. During this time the fjord pilot came aboard as we were enroute, a transfer procedure we could see most of from our vantage point almost directly above, and whose casual acceptance of thumping waves, cold, blinding salt spray and danger added yet another entry to my list of jobs I am not cut out for.
Returning from an 11:30pm reconnaisance mission, Madelyn reported that the dessert buffet was still open, clearly presenting a moral obligation on all our parts to partake. Kristi had some real food, I had one dessert, and Madelyn had, for lack of a more precise word, several: I don't know how to tally two cookies when they become one lemon-frozen-yogurt sandwich, or a cone that becomes its own dessert course while the chocolate sprinkes become another. Unlike the rest of us who might dally with eating this way on vacation, Madelyn doesn't gain weight; just energy. Oh to be a kid again.
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