Scandinavian Sea-faring

I was so full of excitement and expectation as I saw the huge, 7-level boat rise above me at the shore of Newcastle. It was about to take me on a cruise from Newcastle England to Kristiansand Norway, after all! The ship was so huge and white and sparkly compared to the gray narrowness of Newcastle. To top it all off, I knew that I would be sailing to Norway, the land of Fjords and trolls. You can imagine my joy! I remembered how nice my cruise between Norway and Sweden had been 2 years ago ... I certainly didn’t have any seasickness then!

Well, that wasn’t the open ocean.
God I was naive when I boasted to everyone that I don’t get seasick. You can’t know if you get seasick until you have been on a giant cruise boat that’s heaving back and forth as it oh so gut-wrenchingly slowly rolls you about in your bed. The worst of it, though, isn’t the nausea. It’s the vertigo. You don’t know whether your upright or upside down or whether you’re going to slip and crack your skull open while you take a shower.

The end result was phenomenal though. Kristiansand is a tiny glittering jewel of a town, right on the water. I spent hours in a little cafe there waiting for my train, and the people were relaxed and social. They didn’t seem to have a care in the world as they stared out the window at the bright, sparkling water and ate their Lefse (yummy norwegian pancake-like things).

On the train ride from Kristiansand to Sandefjord, I saw some of the most beautiful scenery possible. It was worth the sickness, worth the 9 hour layover in Ireland, worth the overweight luggage; worth it all. The sun shone brightly that day, and there was a blanket of crisp white snow that covered mountains and fjords that rose dramatically up from little rivers and valleys. The snowy mountains were covered with traditional little Scandinavian wooden houses in red, yellow, blue, and green. I can’t compare it to anything except to say that the least beautiful leg of that journey was as pretty as the most beautiful area of the Colorado rockies. And that’s saying a lot.

I finally arrived in Sandefjord after an hour long taxi ride on narrow, icy, winding roads with a swede and 2 norwegians. The swede, of course, took that opportunity (mid-taxi-ride) to talk about the bad condition of norwegian roads and the high number of fatalities on those roads. The Norwegians preferred to discuss their favorite show about drag queens, “Queentastic.” Typical.

I can’t wait to see what misadventures will come next!