Circumspencing the Globe

Hi, loyal readers.  Let me start by thanking those of you who have written me on the blog or sent me emails.  My replies have invariably been bounced back to me undelivered.  I don’t know why.  Maybe I need a cyber passport or cyber visas.  I’m also having all sorts of problems on the computer I’m using right now.  Letters appear in places I haven’t typed and the cursor seems to have a mind of its own.  A worm?  A Trojan horse?  A viking ship?  This is my 3rd attempt to write what I’m now writing, so this entry will be brief and will not include photos.  But let me quickly respond by saying yes, yes, yes, no, yes, thanks, ferry, okay, yes, not “fairy,” yes, a boat, a goat, no, no, rhymes ARE funny, rain, yes, more rain, they didn’ have the Source CD but I did check, yes, yes, the rumors about the parasol were greatly exaggerated, yes, yes, thank you very much, no, puffy eyes, yes, fjords, expensive, not “afjordable,” no, not particularly, I miss you too.  I hope that clears things up.

A quick, picture-less update:  I spent Wed., Sept. 19 in Oslo, tracking down a clinic for the 3rd of 3 hep B vaccinations in the morning and visiting 3 boat museums in the afternoon (Kon-Tiki, Flom, Viking).  I spent the night at the same hostel as the night before, in a room with 5 other guys, including Stephan and Marius.  I had an early morning train to catch, so I said my goodbyes to those 2 before retiring.  (By the way, Megan and Meredith will appreciate the fact that I schooled Stephan in backgammon by beating him both times we played.  Gotta represent, right?)

In the morning, the guy in the bunk above me, an  Austrian, accused me of keeping him up all night with my snoring.  My attempt to make light of the situation by calling him a “girly man” fell flat.  A French guy in the room was catching the same train, so we walked to the station together.  Incidentally, two days before I was sitting on the steps just outside the train station waiting for Marius and Stephan and saw 2 drug deals go down right in front of me.  There are also beggars around and parts of the city just felt seedy.

 The train was headed for Bergen, the second largest city in Norway.  I’m in Bergen now, and it’s incredibly beautiful.  Around every corner is another picturesque scene that just gives pause.  I’ll post pictures next time.  But yesterday–Thursday, Sept. 20–I got off the train before it arrived here.  I stopped at Myrdahl, where a private train company runs a short train down what’s billed as the steepest track in the world to a fjord-adjacent town called Flam.  In Flam I boarded a ferry that traveled through the fjord–the narrowest in all of Norway–then caught a bus back up to the main train line and got back on at a place called Voss.  From there I rode to Bergen and arrived here last night.

Incidentally, I am using a Scanrail pass that entitles me to 21 consecutive days of train travel throughout Scandinavia and provides discounts on some ferries.  As a result, I’m trying to move around a lot.  Think Homer Simpson at an all-you-can-eat buffet and you’ll understand my train travel philosophy for 21 days.

Today I explored Bergen with a Latina I met doing the Myrdahl-Flam-ferry-bus-Voss detour I described above.  She’s from Paraguay, and if I believed in “channeling” I’d swear she had Charo (“coochie coochie”) inhabiting her body.  I’ve been so independent for most of the trip so far it’s been a welcome change having Cynthia tugging at my arm saying, “vamonos aqui, vamonos aqui!”  It’s been a great chance to practice my Spanish, too.  She tugs now, so I will bid you “adios.” 

Tags: Bergen, Norway, Oslo, Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, September 21st, 2007 at 1:01 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.