Thursday, July 19, 2007
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Geirangerfjord, yesterday
rain yesterday, when we could capture this:
Meet our dining table mates!
daughter, Madelyn. I say this not because we haven't mentioned them
previously, but because until now we've been spelling their names
wrong....
Dr. No's vessel
boats (smaller than I thought at first) that I mentioned before.
One-upped
The enormous Cunard liner Costa Magica has just sailed past us into port. As it passed I could see it has a big spiral *water slide* on its top deck. Where's Garrison? How come *we* don't get a water slide?
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
A series of not unfortunate non-events
The anticipated storm turned out to be nothing more - to us, at least - than an opportunity to be rocked to sleep in our stateroom, and as we awoke the walls of the Geirangerfjord were gliding by surprisingly near on either side, the water calm.
It is still raining quite steadily, though, and the prospect of riding a tender to explore the small, sleepy and hilly vacationer's village of Geiranger afoot in the rain appeals less than enjoying the view of said village from behind large windows and perhaps a book or two in the high forward lounge known as the Crow's Nest. And so we have set up camp in advantageous seats with outstanding views. On either side the fjord walls rise nearly sheer around us, and directly aheads lies Geiranger, its most visible feature at this distance - somewhat under a mile through the rain would be my guess - a very broad and curvy boulevard that descends serpentine through the center of town.
Through binoculars the boulevard resolves itself into not a street but a foamingly white and furiously running waterfall whose noise must be astounding in any of the structures within a hundred yards or so. It looks as if there is a tourist hotel built above the falls and through which the falls may in fact pass. That would be someplace to stay, I'm sure.
Abeam of us is an interesting vessel of some sort, festooned with radars and a searchlight, and very functional-looking, whose flag Kristiana thinks signifies a British colony: a marron field with the Union Jack in the upper field. It looks like some kind of research vessel perhaps except that its paintwork is in notably pristine shape, and on its aft deck are a sloop of 30 feet or so and a motorboat of perhaps twice that length, boat looking mostly, though not unambiguously, like pleasure craft.
Alongside the ship, which is titled Lone Ranger - Hamilton at its stern, lies a good-sized inflatable motor dinghy, and on a ridge behind it is an encampment of ten tents, mostly identical.
I'm going to have to google this ship later on, but for now my phone is registering "data connection refused," contributing to the quiet of this rainy day.
It is still raining quite steadily, though, and the prospect of riding a tender to explore the small, sleepy and hilly vacationer's village of Geiranger afoot in the rain appeals less than enjoying the view of said village from behind large windows and perhaps a book or two in the high forward lounge known as the Crow's Nest. And so we have set up camp in advantageous seats with outstanding views. On either side the fjord walls rise nearly sheer around us, and directly aheads lies Geiranger, its most visible feature at this distance - somewhat under a mile through the rain would be my guess - a very broad and curvy boulevard that descends serpentine through the center of town.
Through binoculars the boulevard resolves itself into not a street but a foamingly white and furiously running waterfall whose noise must be astounding in any of the structures within a hundred yards or so. It looks as if there is a tourist hotel built above the falls and through which the falls may in fact pass. That would be someplace to stay, I'm sure.
Abeam of us is an interesting vessel of some sort, festooned with radars and a searchlight, and very functional-looking, whose flag Kristiana thinks signifies a British colony: a marron field with the Union Jack in the upper field. It looks like some kind of research vessel perhaps except that its paintwork is in notably pristine shape, and on its aft deck are a sloop of 30 feet or so and a motorboat of perhaps twice that length, boat looking mostly, though not unambiguously, like pleasure craft.
Alongside the ship, which is titled Lone Ranger - Hamilton at its stern, lies a good-sized inflatable motor dinghy, and on a ridge behind it is an encampment of ten tents, mostly identical.
I'm going to have to google this ship later on, but for now my phone is registering "data connection refused," contributing to the quiet of this rainy day.
Could be an interesting night
We are at sea, between Trondheim and Geiranger. There are 29 knot winds. We are swaying noticeably. There are whitecaps in the swimming pool, which is sorta neat. The elevator is becoming a wiser choice than stairs even for journeys of a single floor. Discreet containers of white sickness bags have begun appearing at the elevator stops.
I'm guessing the captain knows something.
I'm guessing the captain knows something.
Trondheim
It's about noon-thirty and we're in the old part of Trondheim. Kristiana, Kristi and Madelyn are touring the old archbishop's palace, and I'm sitting outside the cathedral resting my legs which are suffering from my not limbering up before hitting the treadmill this morning.
Yesterday's tour of Alesund was a semi-bust, the town too rainy and our guide too quiet to make for an enjoyable, or even educational, walking tour. The sky cleared an hour or two later, and we did get in a little exploring in our damp clothes before returning to the ship and a hot shower.
The hot shower turned into a nap since we'd been up so early. We woke up a half hour into dinner service and rushed upstairs to join Kristi and Madelyn who'd already received their main courses. It was traditional-hat night in the dining room, it seems, and all the women had received little Dutch wimple-like headcovering, and the men had black seamen's caps with brims. If Kristiana hasn't blogged her photo of Madelyn in her wimple-thing admiring her dessert (chocolate mousse in a cup of chocolate), I'll make sure she does.
From dinner we went straight to the line for the night's Prairie Home Companion performance, and were rewarded with superb seats, a couch in the front seating the four of us plus a couple that K+M knew.
The show was pure pleasure as expected, and we kept our seats for the storytelling seminar that followed. That turned out to be a few introductory remarks from Garrison followed by nenbers of the audience being invited to get up and share their own stories, under Garrison's gentle prompting and guidance. It was lots of fun.
When we got out near midnight the sun had gone down but it was still fairly light outside. It's like that here. Not quite the midnight sun, but very much the midnight twilight.
Yesterday's tour of Alesund was a semi-bust, the town too rainy and our guide too quiet to make for an enjoyable, or even educational, walking tour. The sky cleared an hour or two later, and we did get in a little exploring in our damp clothes before returning to the ship and a hot shower.
The hot shower turned into a nap since we'd been up so early. We woke up a half hour into dinner service and rushed upstairs to join Kristi and Madelyn who'd already received their main courses. It was traditional-hat night in the dining room, it seems, and all the women had received little Dutch wimple-like headcovering, and the men had black seamen's caps with brims. If Kristiana hasn't blogged her photo of Madelyn in her wimple-thing admiring her dessert (chocolate mousse in a cup of chocolate), I'll make sure she does.
From dinner we went straight to the line for the night's Prairie Home Companion performance, and were rewarded with superb seats, a couch in the front seating the four of us plus a couple that K+M knew.
The show was pure pleasure as expected, and we kept our seats for the storytelling seminar that followed. That turned out to be a few introductory remarks from Garrison followed by nenbers of the audience being invited to get up and share their own stories, under Garrison's gentle prompting and guidance. It was lots of fun.
When we got out near midnight the sun had gone down but it was still fairly light outside. It's like that here. Not quite the midnight sun, but very much the midnight twilight.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Things I don't do when I'm not on vacation
2. Get up before my husband does
3. Wander around in the early morning, just to see what vistas I can
capture
4. Enjoy the complete solitude of the open ocean
5. Spend time on or near the ocean, period
6. Eat three actual meals per day
7. Go to bed before my husband does
posted by Kristiana, from my iPhone
We returned from our sojourn into Alesund
I hadn't thought that towelephants would be all that plentiful here.
posted by Kristiana, from my iPhone
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Monday morning
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.
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.
The View From Breakfast, Part II
today's port of call. While the pink sky this morning heralded the
likelihood we'd be seeing more rain today, it hasn't made the scenery
any less stunning.
-k
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