We have now come to the part of the world tour where the Minkey boards a big ship.  In her boundless wisdom and lack of financial planning, the Minkey had booked a Norwegian cruise.  Yes, instead of carefully saving her pennies, she briefly lost her mind and booked 7 days on the Hurtigruten to go NORTH.  Past the Arctic Circle kind of NORTH!

The cruise left from Bergen, which meant I had to take a lengthy train ride (7 hours) from Oslo to Bergen.  But this was no ordinary train ride, this is billed as ‘the most beautiful train ride in the world’.  Yep.  To be fair, it was quite lovely and we did climb up into the mountains and I did have a small tiff with another train passenger.  What?!  It’s not as bad as it sounds.  There was a group of chatty senior citizens on this train (Americans all), and sadly I was right smack in the middle of them.  They had a ringleader, (only way to describe this lady), and she was still blond and dressed for the tropics (not exactly smart for Norway weather) and basically the ‘it’ gal for this posse.  Everyone in this tour group stopped to chat with her as they motored down to the snack bar car.

Anyway, a few hours into this trip we had a discussion about how high up we were.  As in how many feet above sea level because we had reached a point where there were no more trees.  Naturally all the displays on board were in meters…   Myself and the lady next to me had politely discussed this when the ringleader swiveled in her seat and took a good look at me.  At that point she decided that I was ‘scum on the bottom of her shoe’, probably because I was smarter, younger, and far more attractive than her (if I do say so myself).  I kid you not, her eyes actually narrowed…  And I decided that she had had one too many facelifts – which quite possibly was conveyed by my facial expression.  Well – let’s just say that we disagreed on how high up we were in feet and I graciously shut up about it once I realized that this poor ‘it’ gal needed to show the posse that she was a smarty-pants.  Thankfully, they de-trained at a much earlier stop than Bergen.

This train ride would have been even more spectacular if there had not been so many tunnels and covered tracks because we’d be oooing and ahhhhing at the scenery and than bam everything goes dark and we’re in a tunnel.  I get it though, they have snow and winter and that sort of thing so in order to keep this line moving they have to cover up the tracks, especially on the top of the mountains.

I made it to Bergen and got to experience how the beyond cheap hotels are managed.  Have you ever gone to check into your hotel and found a sign on the door that says to pick up your key at the bar next door?  Yeahhhh…. It’s like that.  By the way, this is at like 7pm at night – the ‘front desk’ is only open from 10am-3pm.  So I got the key, skipped the beer, and then had the joy of lugging my ass and my crap up four flights of stairs.  I’m finding that elevators are optional in many of these European buildings.  Have I reviewed the baggage situation yet?  Oh, let’s share.  I have one roller duffel type of bag, one decent sized backpack and one small shoulder bag.  Stairs are not my friend.  I don’t know how much the damn backpack weighs, maybe 30 pounds?  And the roller, maybe 40 pounds?  Let’s just say that I can’t really haul myself and all the bags up sets of stairs at the same time.  Except in Copenhagen, more on that later.  I should have done a major weightlifting program before going on this trip.  I think the biceps and triceps are getting stronger – but man do my shoulders hurt!  The constant changing of beds and pillows is not exactly helping with that either!  But I digress.  We were discussing the port town of Bergen.  Gateway to the magnificent Norwegian Fjords!

I spent one night and some time the next day quickly exploring Bergen.  This city has a big university and there was some odd kind of ritual pledge type activity happening everywhere.  Roaming groups of youngsters were congregating on the streets and chanting (loudly) and then moving on.  This happened constantly.  It kept me awake (remember the bar is right next door).  And then of course there was the bathroom situation.  I call it the ‘all-in-one’ design.  Basically the entire bathroom is one big shower and the toilet, sink, and shower head are all within 12 inches of each other.  Based on my later experiences, this bathroom was well-sized; but on the whole kind of grimy.  I was also worried about losing precious items in the toilet.  It was literally right in front of the sink. By that I mean, you could not stand squarely in front of the sink.  Sigh.  The kicker, it was $85 to stay in this crappy place!

The next day I was tired and I had to face the backpack and rolly duffel bag again and lug them down to the Hurtigruten terminal.  Eventually.  First, I needed to purchase a sweater.  I know, I have a storage unit full of sweaters, but you see, I had my first casualty in Oslo and left two sweaters there (don’t ask).  So I’m about to go into the arctic and I really need a damn sweater.  Which was not found before I needed to check-in at the ship terminal and leave my luggage.  Or so I thought.

It turns out that the Hurtigruten world runs in it’s own parallel universe, regardless of time-tables or directions you might have previously received.  For instance, at what time you can check-in and drop-off your luggage.  Any time after 1pm, well, not really.  If you arrive when the ship has just come in, you have to wait.  I waited 45 minutes sitting in the terminal lobby.  At least I was first in line – but, when it came time to drop off my luggage the woman in charge said I should not leave the backpack if there was anything breakable in it, like a computer.  Huh.  I asked her if they were planning to throw luggage on the ground and stomp on it, because what could possibly happen to the backpack otherwise?  Ok, noooo, I did not really ask that, but I did exclaim that I can’t walk around for a few hours with this behemoth on my back, so where can I store the backpack?  She pointed me to some lockers and said they cost 10 krone.  And no, I don’t have any krone, we are basically doing this trip sans cold hard cash.  Where is there an ATM?  Google Maps will know!  Thus began the wild goose chase in search of an ATM while lugging around 30 pounds on my back.  This did nothing to improve my state of mind.

The google found a bank, but not an ATM.  After casing out all sides of the bank, I finally went inside to ask about an ATM.  The bank lady pointed me in the direction of a 7-Eleven – it took me two tries to locate that one.  I am in agony.  I’m fairly positive I will need shoulder replacement surgery in the near future.  Finally, I find the damn ATM and get some cash, maybe $30 worth of krone and watch my bank charge me $5 to get that out.  More fuming.  Now I feel compelled to purchase something.  The cashier speaks to me in Norwegian (I’ve decided I look Nordic, wherever I have gone, people speak to me in their native language).  And he gives me those precious krone coins.

I stumble all the way back to the Hurtigruten terminal, only to discover that the lockers cost 30 krone and I only have 25 krone.  Not 10 krone, like the Hurtigruten harpy had told me….   I think there were some unprintable words that escaped my lips.  It was shoe-throwing time (inside joke).  Should I accost someone and ask to borrow 5 krone?  Well, as it turns out this entire procedure has taken SO long, that you can now get on the boat and leave your stuff there, in a luggage storage area.  Hysterical laughter on my part.

After depositing my luggage – I waltzed back into the city in search of a sweater.  I am now the proud owner of a very green zip-up wool sweater that has the flag of Norway on the sleeve (and now to this ensemble I have added a baseball hat that says Sweden on it – so I can really look like a clueless tourist).  This travel thing – it’s not always so glamourous!

Stay tuned – the big boat ride is coming up next!