Circumspencing the Globe

I rode an overnight train from Stockholm to northern Sweden–the Lappland–on September 11.  The sleeper cabin had a triple bunk bed in it, straight out of a Three Stooges episode.  I envisioned my bunkmates and I reaching around and swatting at each other all night trying to stop one another from snoring.  I chose the top bunk, figuring it would provide the most privacy and keep me out of swatting range from at least the guy on the bottom.  When I located my cabin, one man was already in there.  His name is Tuva.  Tuva is a portly fellow.  Think John Candy in “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.”  A very friendly and knowledgable young guy, he was returning home from an interview in Stockholm.  He recently completed his graduate thesis in political science, comparing the constitutions of various Scandinavian countries.  He treated me to a primer on Scandinavian history, explaining that at one point in time, Sweden controlled Norway and that at another point in time, Sweden was a superpower, controlling a vast region, including Finnland and the Baltic countries, until Russia nabbed them away.

After chatting in the cabin, we stumbled our way back through the train to the dining car.  While there, a guy heard my “American accent” and joined the conversation.  That guy looked like Roy Scheider, but with white hair.  He is a bear and moose hunter and also a chef and also an artist and also a Swedish folk dancer and also a former trader of Arabian horses.  If the ride were any longer, I think he also would have been a brain surgeon and an astronaut.  But he sure was interesting, urging me to try to find a place serving a local “delicacy” consisting of rotten kipper filet, potatoes and tomatoes.  Tuva turned away in disgust at the rotten kipper part, and shook his head as a silent warning to me.

At bedtime we returned to the cabin.  No third passenger showed up, so there would be no swatting tonight.  I ascended the bunk wall (quite gingerly, if I must say) and settled in up there with the giddiness of a boy in a home-made fort.  I slept deeply.  Tuva had said he didn’t sleep well in trains, so when I had to get up in the middle of the night, I climbed down slowly, like a sloth alighting from the canopy.  In the morning, Tuva’s stop arrived before mine, and in parting we each vocalized our gratitude for having met.

 My destination was Kiruna, the northernmost town in Sweden, so far north it’s within the Arctic Circle.  It’s home to the famous Ice Hotel.  I’d describe the hotel in detail–how the entire structure is made of ice, how the drinks in the ice bar are served in ice glasses and the food served on ice plates, how the beds are blocks of ice covered with animal hides–but at this time of year the hotel is just a big puddle.

The sight I did see was the LKAB iron-ore mine, which involved descending underground 540 meters.  The not-especially rugged tour guide–whose blonde ponytail dangled from beneath her safety helmet–walked us through a network of huge tunnels, which reminded me of the villain’s lair in a James Bond movie.  I left behind my souvenir baggie of free iron-ore pellets, not wanting to take on the extra weight and, really, having no idea what I’d do with a baggie of iron-ore pellets.

 It rained in Kiruna most of the time I was there, a cold rain accompanied by lip-chapping breezes.  The temperatures are so close to zero degrees Celsius the newspaper includes a “+” or “-” designation to avoid confusion.  It was “+7” when I was there, which is about 44 degrees Farenheit.  I spent the night in the basement of what I would generously classify a one-star hostel, sharing a room with a Swedish businessman named Stig.  That ended Day 8.

On the morning of Day 9, I took a train northwest to Norway.  The sun was out and illuminated dazzling red, green and yellow foliage extending for miles in all directions.  Near the end of the journey, a tremendous fjord 350 km below came into view.  A friendly Australian couple in my train car shared suggestions for traveling in their country and invited me to look them up when in Sydney.

            

Above are a shot of the fall foliage from the train, a shot of the fjord from the train and a shot of the craggy rock islands visible from the boat from Narvik to the Lofoten Islands.

I got off the train in Narvik and got on a small boat to the glacier-carved Lofoten Islands.  During the 3.5 hour journey, we passed by all sorts of islands, rock-cluster tiny and skyscraper massive.  A crew member pointed out 3 sea eagles floating over one rock formation.  He said he sees hundreds of killer whales on this very route in the winter and still gets chills at the sight.  I passed the time joking around with 2 German students, one of whom–the misguided one–begins law school in the fall.  A lady next to me holding a baby who would not stop crying looked at me and said sheepishly, with an accent, “small person, big voice.”

It rained during the boat trip and it remained remaining when we arrived in Svolvær, one of the Lofoten Islands.  It was 7 p.m. and dark, the tourist office was closed and the town center was nearly deserted.  I didn’t have a place to stay, but I did have a guidebook and a cell phone.  A private place called “Skarheim” sounded good and the lady who answered the phone said they had an available guest room.  She seemed unable to direct me there, though, or just didn’t feel like talking.  But the guidebook indicated the house was 1 km from the town center, just off the highway on the way to the airport, and it had a private dock.  Apparently it did not have an address.  Some teenagers pointed me toward the airport, so I marched along the highway with my gear and a new appreciation for the length of a kilometer.  It was still raining, so the temperature was above freezing.  But there was a breeze and it was, literally, Arctic cold, enough for me to wear 6 layers.  The fact that the house had a dock meant it had to be on the right.  I stopped at a gas station on the way, but the guy there hadn’t heard of “Skarheim.”  Eventually, I came upon a sign for a guesthouse called “Rorbuer” and decided this would have to do.  I went inside, dripping wet, and pressed the reception buzzer.  A lady came downstairs and said, “Are you the one who called?”  I said, “Skarheim?”  She said, “Yes.  We changed the name.”  Doh!

She had me provide more information on more paperwork than was customary and told me she didn’t accept credit cards.  Thank God, I’d withdrawn Norwegian cash from an ATM in Narvik.  (I’d only rarely needed cash on the trip so far because credit cards are accepted everywhere in Scandinavia.)  Like a boarding school headmistress, she then informed me of the house rules and showed me to my room.  The room was charming and immaculate, with a little table and chairs, a little sink and stove and refrigerator, and a multi-colored rug and multi-colored curtains.  Clearly decorated by elves.  Goldilocks would have felt at home here.

         A shot of Svolvær and of an elf.

On Day 10 it was still raining.  I had bought groceries the night before, so I made breakfast and hid out in my cozy elf room much of the day, reading a book I’d bought in Iceland.  Later, I hung out at one of the few spots in town that had any human beings inside, a cafe-bar called Bacalao.  Interestingly, bacalao is the name of a popular dried and salted cod stew.  So I was hanging out in a a venue called “Cod Stew.”  No wonder it was empty.  In the evening, I popped into a restaurant for dinner, but it was empty.  I walked the kilometer back to my Goldilocks pad and then back to town a couple hours later, hoping by then a few people might have begun their Friday night.  But when I popped into that restaurant again, it was still empty.  So I went to another spot and it was empty, too.  I went to a third spot and was pleased to discover it wasn’t completely empty.  One table was occupied.  Bingo!  I sat down and asked the waitress where all the people were tonight and she said probably at home watching TV.  So I had a bacalao pizza and went home and watched a Norwegian game show on my little elf TV.

 A word about my recent meals might be of interest.  For dinner the night before, I had bacalao.  For lunch that day, I had whale stew.  The day before, in Kiruna, I had had reindeer for lunch and then reindeer pizza for dinner.  I never believed that saying “you are what you eat,” but I have put on an awful lot of weight and now have a thick, white beard.  Ho, ho, ho!

Today, Day 11, the sun is shining and the sky is blue in parts.  The sunshine couldn’t have come at a better time.  All the rain and sparse human interaction was making me blue.

Tags: Lofoten, Norway, Svolvær, Sweden, Travel

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 15th, 2007 at 6:46 am 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.