Day 14
Bergen, Norway
We left our sliding glass door open to the deck all night. The boat moved steadily along. Reliable and strong. The sound of waves swishing around in our brains. The White Noise of Eternity. Bringing us back to our literal roots as creatures of the sea from a bazillion years ago. The rain started at some point, and we slept even harder, just to find our carpet pretty wet in the still-dark morning but whatever. It was worth it.
Lots of lights in homes stacked themselves along the shore and one-by-one turned off as sunlight got around to breaking in. I wrote in The Reindeer Lodge (which used to be the Explorer’s Lounge but whose name, for us, had evolved several times throughout the journey) and spent some quality time alternately cursing the internet access and sipping some perfect coffee with whole milk and feeling pretty good about the world.
Mom and Janet went on a few excursions of their own. First to a knitting factory where they learned a lot and came back to the ship just in time to make some sandwiches and wrap them up in linen napkins and poke the sandwiches into their pockets on the sly. Then they hid in the back seat of the bus on their next tour and leaned down behind the seats to take little bites of their stolen linen-covered sandwiches as Tour #2 took them to watch renown pianist Edvard Grieg play in a perfect-acoustic-dream of a Hall. Aunt Terrye and I went on our own bus tour in the rain where the tour guide insisted “There’s no bad weather, Just Bad Clothes.”
Our guide had on a bright red slicker that went to her ankles. Gotta put a pop of color out there, she said, to combat all the grey in the sky.
She took us past white wooden houses with wavy Dutch tiles that have been standing for 400 years. See this building, she pointed, it’s actually wooden, but they re-did the front so you can’t tell. And that one too. And over there – that’s actually wood. So they’re all wood – they just don’t look like it. And I guess they’re not on the very outside anymore. But they are on the inside. I swear.
We were surrounded by sharp mountains so steep there was no way roads could be built on them. Giant Cliffy Things poking up every which way. So the people built tunnels through them all. A Swiss Cheese City of 270,000 people hidden in secret valleys accessible only under the mountain and through. We wound around to the left and right. Through this tunnel and that one and then did a whoopdie-doo and came back around again. We had zero sense of where we were going and where we’d been and My God where was North?
Long, long buildings that used to be an old hemp rope factory. They’d twist and turn the rope and then dunk it in tar to make it stronger while they stretched it out a few blocks. Rivers and waterfalls and lots of hiking and sailing and all 270,000 residents were lithe and strong and perfect pictures of health.
Meanwhile, A Super Sick Woman hacked across from us on the bus. The same one, I think, who refused to give up her seat for us on the train to Berlin and unintentionally kept us from our dream of coffee. I decided to be nice. You poor thing, I said. You sound miserable.
I’ve been really sick since day two, she wheezed between hacks. Her face impossibly red and her eyes blazing with fever. I’ve tried to stay away from people but I didn’t want to miss anything, so I’m here.
Well, I thought. Well. If Terrye gets sick after all this, there will be a special place for you.
I decided to be nice. I hope it passes soon, I said.
Though ungroomed and uncultivated, fruit gardens sprouted up all around the fjord. Here there’s a shorter winter and longer growth season than other parts of Norway. The waterways don’t freeze because the Gulf Stream keeps the water warm. Unfortunately, this drew Hitler to Norway so there would be easy traveling for his troops through the unfrozen waterways.
Bergen started in 1070 and St. Mary’s church was built in 1170 and it’s still kicking. Looking around at all the people. Knowing everybody’s great grandfather 50 times removed.
The Black Death killed off 2/3 of the population in 1349. They said everyone on board one particular ship died, but the ship floated its way into Bergen anyway and as a ghost ship, it brought living, infected rats and fleas. The Germans moved right in and took over the town after everyone kicked the bucket and started major trading in cod. Cod liver oil was used in street lanterns and homes and everybody ate a ton of fish, especially during lent, so the Germans made a lot of cash.
Bergens brag about having 267 days of rain a year. But they also said if it rains for 5 minutes, they count that as a rainy day, so who really knows?
Guide Lady talked a lot about their health care and education being basically free, and if they have ongoing medical issues, even the taxi to the doctor is free. They have maternity and paternity for one year at 80% of income paid, and they start at 5 weeks of paid vacation per year.
We got back to the ship and settled back into The Reindeer Lodge to write and read and get waited upon while we anticipated the return of Mom and Aunt Janet. Thirty-one, Mom said when they got back. We went through thirty-one tunnels in one hour. We win.
I gave Mom a piece of fancy butter cake I’d obtained for her before the waffle and cake place closed. Since it was the last one we could get. Since this was the last day on the boat.
A rainbow showed up. And then another a short while later.
The trip was ending next to a pot of gold. Fitting.
The trip was ending. The trip was ending! But wait. How were we supposed to go back to regular life, doing our own vacuuming and no one turning down our beds in the evening and we have to actually cook? How will we find peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and quesadillas acceptable again? And if we go out to eat, how will we remember we have to wait for a check before we leave? And pay the bill?
How-how-how?
And we all hugged a lot and then packed our stuff and I gently placed all my purchased gifties in there and opened the extend-o-matic zipper and lay down on the bag to get the regular zipper zipped. And I couldn’t figure out why, after all that, my bag was still lighter than when I arrived.
And we put our bags in the hallway, as directed, before 10pm so they could be carried down to the buses that would await us at 3am. To take us back to reality.
And then there was nothing left to do.