Norway

First off, I don’t remember all the different ports that we visited this first cruise in Norway, but, since they are all in Norway, they all start to look the same after a while. Our excursion contact for all these ports was wonderful, and even let me go out on excursions as a tour guide. They are grateful for the help, and I am grateful for the opportunity to go on all these wonderful tours for free. (ok, I lied, I do remember the ports now, because I asked Andrea what their names were…)

In Alta, there really wasn’t very much to see, so you really had to go on a tour in order to learn or see anything. There we visited a slate query that produced slate tiles for roofs, floors, etc. There, they demonstrated the process mining and forming the slate, and in every single port since, we’ve begun to see slate EVERYWHERE. We’ll point out the roofs with slate, or the sidewalks with slate tiling, and say ‘hey look, it’s slate!’ to each other wherever we are. :P

The next port was Honningsvad where the North cape was, but we ended up not going off because I wasn’t feeling well. Turns out I was just dehydrated and have been much better about drinking enough water ever since.

In Tromso, we didn’t tour at all, but instead went out hunting down an internet café on our own where we ended up spending most of our day. While in Molde, we drove down the Atlantic Ocean Road that connects the large array of fishing islands there, then going to a fortress built and used by the Germans during World War II. It was all underground and invisible from the ground surface, consisting of many old tunnels and concrete rooms. I loved our tour guide here, an elderly gentleman who couldn’t stop talking. He pointed out all the native wildlife, told us reindeer stories from his neighbors, and even pointed out a stray cat he saw while driving past. ☺

Olden wasn’t too interesting, as we had a tour guide who didn’t talk about the town very much at all. It was still beautiful there, and I did get a few good pictures, but the whole day felt a little too rushed. I did get to have a nice conversation with the elderly woman sitting next to me who was asking me many questions about my life and then telling me stories about hers, and I enjoyed talking with her.

Our last port, Bergen, was really nice, I hear we’ll be there again, so Andrea and I can explore a lot of the places we drove by in greater depth. Here, we actually got to tour together instead of on separate buses, which was really great, and I made a game out of trying to get good pictures through the window on Andrea’s camera. It was quite fun. And that was the quick rundown of our trip so far… more later…