Ship's Cat

You see that gorgeous aerial view of Bergen by night? No, the good one, the one in the middle. I didn’t take that! Photo credit goes to Jesse Walker, photographer, traveller, and kilt-wearer from Florida, who along with intrepid Parisian Grégoire and myself hiked up Mt Fløyen Monday night to go aurora-watching. No lights, but we talked history, saw shooting stars, impersonated bandits, and were welcomed down in Bergen once more at 12:45 am by the finest weiners in town.

GERTRUDE, Queen of Denmark, offers a Royal Apology on behalf of her son, HAMLET, Prince of Denmark, for his regrettable condemning to death of the loyal and lamented courtiers, Miss ROSENCRANTZ and Mr GUILDENSTERN. The Queen hereby dedicates this medieval tower and the adjacent street to their memory, and hopes they will forgive the Royal Family, since all of them are dead now too.

Beasts of Bergen.

On the trail towards Nigardsbreen, a blue, blue arm of Europe’s largest glacier. Why, you ask, are there no closeups of the glacier itself? Because of the rain, my dear, the rain that soaked me to the skin through my well-waxed, water-resistant coat.

It is, indeed, a fearful place. The torrent, swollen by the melting snow, plunges into a tremendous abyss, from which the spray rolls up like the smoke from a burning house… Wait, sorry, thought I was at the Reichenbach Falls for a minute. This is Feigefossen in the Lustrafjord region of Norway, and its noise is not, indeed, a ‘half-human shout’, but the crash of doom.

Eplet Bed & Apple in Solvorn, Norway: there really are places this wonderful.

I tried to get pictures of the Norwegian scenery around us on the ferry, truly I did. In the end, only the selfies came out.

Friends, it’s been a whirlwind tour of various Nordic modes of transportation since Stockholm. A train from Stockholm to Copenhagen via the Malmö-Copenhagen bridge; several different species of bus and train to Roskilde. And in Roskilde… I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves. From Roskilde, trains and busses to Hirtshals in the far tip of Denmark to meet a monstrously large passenger ferry to Bergen, Norway- with hours of highway hiking in between.

Kafemisjonen: the place to be at 9 on a Tuesday morning in Bergen.

Farewell, Hirtshals! I hardly knew ye.

Myself and the excellent Sofia from Sofia on bridges, in tiny tiny alleys, and enjoying some damn good pastry. So glad we met, Sofia!

To access this post, we must travel back in time to Saturday, the day of the Axe-scented exodus of evil memory (see post ‘De profundis’). After the mighty kerfluffle neither I nor Sofia in the next bunk could get back to sleep, so we decided to venture out to find good coffee and some breakfast instead. We set out to find an old covered food market called Östermalms Saluhall through the virtually deserted morning streets in bright sunlight, and find it we did. Not only was it closed for renovations, but its temporary replacement wouldn’t even open for another hour and a half! Back we went… we’d passed a bakery window aglow with rich golden breads and pastries, and hoped against hope it was really open. It was- the only open door in the neighborhood at 8 am in Stockholm! Soon we were savoring our coffees and sharing cinnamon and cardamom bolle- sweet rolls, done right. Sofia, originally from Sofia in Bulgaria, was in town from her current home of London to run the Stockholm half-marathon later that day! We had a lot of fun rambling around Gamla Stan after our treats, and before I had to dash off to catch a ferry to Utö island. Sofia distinguished herself in the half-marathon; perhaps the cardamom bun helped. One way or another, I hope to meet her again some day!

Slept here last night. Well, I say slept… Looks a bit bleak now, but yesterday it was my private sunbathing paradise, complete with a group of paddling swans, and this morning I got to watch dawn change the bay from a dark receptivity to a glass mirror shining back rose, apricot, gold.

Not fancy, I know, but it’s a cappuccino and it’s good. And if there is a messier bagel-with-stuff-in-it anywhere in the world, surely it comes with a swimming pool on the side.

Coffee Cantata, J S Bach

Oh, teenage male roommates. I had forgiven you everything. As Athos, Porthos, and Aramis forgave D'Artagnan his affronts, I had forgiven your inital smelliness and was ready to remember you as amiable, showered creatures. Then, you woke to leave at 5:30 in the morning. Without having done a lick of packing the night before. In which night, none of the somewhat older of us could sleep because of the pounding of the Swedish nightclubs over the harbor. Which packing, you were incapable of accomplishing without great fuss, some panic, and the strewing of your bed-clothes upon the floor over the course of a full 45 minutes. Yet even this I might have forgiven, had you not sprayed yourselves, in the room, with Axe body spray. Which room now smells of this same body spray. Oh, man-cubs, had you left me an actual axe along with this cloud of aerosol funk, your heads, even now, might be resting on your noisily abandoned bunks, and your freshly spritzed bodies in the harbor.

Post the Sixth. In which I apply three coats of lipstick at 7 in the morning to convince myself I am conscious and ambulant of my own free will.