Circumspencing the Globe

The rain persisted all day and all evening in Bergen on Sunday. After scrounging some dinner, I hiked up a hill to a towering red church with a pointed green roof. Inside, virtuosos performed a fundraising concert to benefit orphans in Kiev. The acoustics were amazing, a massage of the ear drums. After the concert, I hung out in a pub watching soccer and then caught the red-eye train to Oslo.

By the way, the night before I had a late dinner in a little bar that looked like a 1950s American diner. I asked the guy behind the counter if they were still serving food and he said, “Yes. Pancakes” and handed me the “meny” (menu). It listed a variety of specialty “pannekakers.” While I was considering my choices, he pointed to one and said, “We have this one.” So that’s the one I had, an absolutely delicious tomato-cheese-pesto dinner pancake. Isn’t it good, Norwegian food?

Anyway, back to the red-eye train to Oslo. As you might recall, the last couple times I spent the night on a train in a sleeper seat, I didn’t exactly greet the morning singing zippity-doo-dah zippity-ay. But this time things were looking good. I was in a seat comparable to the bulkhead in an airplane except that instead of a wall there were two seats facing me. Although the conductor said the train was full, both of those seats were empty. I had more leg room than I have legs. As I pressed the recline button and contemplated sleep on this train, I was optimistic–“I think I can, I think I can.” And I did.

But this little engine didn’t stay asleep. In the middle of the night, I awoke to the voice of some dimwit trying to persuade a half-asleep Asian lady across the aisle that she was in his seat. She held her ground, shaking her ticket in his face, so he plopped down onto the two empty seats across from me. Apparently nocturnal, he then spent a good deal of time rummaging through his belongings, which sounded like they were individually wrapped in celophane. Dimwit was also afflicted with, shall we say, “sinus issues” and had a cough intense enough to transform the train into a quarantine area. It’s times like these you wish you owned a surgical mask. But I did have my free train blanket and my free train sleep mask, so I buried my nose in the blanket and secured it in place with the mask, creating a sort of protective sleep berka.

I slept in fits and starts after that and in the morning, my oh my, Mr. Bluebird was definitely not on my shoulder. It was now Monday, Day 20, and I was in Oslo again. I was going to spend half the day there and then take a train into Sweden, to a city called Göteborg, four hours away. But it was 6:30 and there was a train leaving for Göteborg at 7:00 and it was supposed to rain in Oslo and I didn’t have the energy to take on Norway’s capitol city, so I stayed in the train station and got on the train to Göteborg and slept like a baby.

We arrived at 11:00 a.m. I’d been riding in a train for roughly 12 hours. I just woke up and I looked like a guy who just woke up. I know this because I made the mistake of looking in a mirror. My eyelids were at half-mast. My eyebrows were splayed. My eyes were so puffy my nose looked like it had been harnessed with saddlebags. The back of my head had assumed the shape of a cube. I had at least four days’ facial hair growth. I dreaded the thought of walking in public like this. It was Monday and this was Göteborg, home of Volvo and Ericsson, the second largest city in Sweden, and everyone in Sweden looks perfect.

And now, enter: the Elephant Man.

I hoisted my pack onto my shoulders and then attached the day pack to the front of the shoulder straps so that it hung over my chest, turning me into an Elephant Man sandwich. And I wondered, “Why am I doing this at my age anyway?” I mean, the many young backpackers threading their way through the cities always look scruffy but bright-eyed and on the verge of personal growth. I just look dangerous and degenerate. As I hobbled out of the train station to the tourist office and then across town toward the hostel, I worked up a profuse sweat, compounding the freakishness of my appearance. And people noticed me. Old men glared at me with disapproval. Mothers pulled their children indoors. Tram drivers strained their necks to take in the sight. The sidewalk accordion player stopped playing.

On the bright side, one uncouth but enterprising fellow offered me a job with the circus.

Eventually, I found the hostel, although it took some doing to hone in on it. I was looking for a small street called Masthuggsterrassen, which I think was the final word in this year’s spelling bee championship. I swore I was standing right where the hostel should be. Silly me, I didn’t realize Masthuggsterrassen was one of those TWO-LEVEL streets (ever so popular in the States), so after I ascended a steep set of stairs, I found the OTHER Mashuggsterrassen and the darn hostel. But I can tell you a shower has never felt so good.

When I went for a walk, I actually left my raincoat behind. This was the first day of the trip there was no rain or threat of rain. I wore my sandals instead of the same shoes I’ve worn every day for the past 19. It was windy, but compared to the cold weather in Norway, it felt balmy. I got lost on the way back, but it didn’t matter. I saw a roadway sign that read “FARTRIDDER” and it made me think of gift ideas and my good friend Perry.

Tags: Bergen, Göteborg, Norway, Oslo, Sweden, trains, Travel

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2007 at 7:27 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.