The boat departs at one PM!
Hello from Trondheim! Trondheim is Norway's 2nd largest city of 200,000 people. We arrived here from the north of Norway on Saturday morning August 4.
We had no internet access on the Hurtigruten so here is a day by day summary of our trip:
We had a great time in Bergen during the day on July 25 while waiting to board our ship. Took a ride to the mountain overlooking Bergen on the Fløibanen funicular. It was actually sunny and nice in Bergen which is pretty unusual in this very rainy city. Boarded the ship at 6PM, had a nice dinner and sailed for the north.
July 26. Beautiful day. Cruised into Geiranger fjord, one of the most beautiful fjords in Norway. Check it out at www.geiranger.no/attractions. Waterfalls everywhere, incredible scenery. On the Hurtigruten we are on one of the older ships, 1982 version and somewhat small with about 220 passengers. About 160 are Germans and we are the only Americans. Did meet a couple gals from London who spoke pretty good English. Our assigned table mates are a very nice German couple from Munster where Mickey's family is from. One slight problem is that they spoke no English and our German was limited to Guten Morgen and Auf Weitersen (from Sounds of Music). They were our table mates for 6 days! But using sign language and drawing on lots of napkins, we learned a lot about each other and had a great time! The Norwegian crew included many college students who all spoke great English and were a lot of fun.
July 27. The boat docked briefly in Trondheim (for 4 hours). Ruby's 2nd cousin Åse and her husband Frithjof met us at the dock and had breakfast with us on board ship. To my surprise the restaurant crew of young Norwegians sang me the Norwegian version of Happy Birthday! We also had cake for breakfast. It was a wonderful birthday surprise. Hopefully I can post a picture on the blog when I figure out how to do it on this computer. (As I write this, I am overlooking beautiful Trondheim fjord from cousin Turid's house near Trondheim)
July 28. Crossed the Arctic Circle this morning at 7:15:26. Had a contest to guess the time. We didn't win, the winner guessing within 15 seconds. At the circle is a globe on an island marking the line. Connie explained the ceremony the next morning in her blog posting. It was a lot of fun. The ships captain helped King Neptune and really had a great time pouring ice cubes and icewater down the passengers' backs. We then all got a drink of wine and an official Polar Circle certificate. At 8:30 this morning met at sea by smaller boat to take us to Norway's 2nd largest glacier Svartisen which can be seen from the ocean. It was really nice having cake and coffee at a little restaurant overlooking a lake with the glacier reflecting on its surface.
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