Chuckles

Fri 22 May, 2009

In the evenings I generally write this message, waiting for the skies to darken a bit. But tonight I decided to check out the lounge and have a cuppa tea. It turned out to be a good move, because I had quite a chuckle. Picture this: It's about 9:30PM and through the windows it's still full daylight. There's a two piece band, piano and electric guitar, with a youngish man and woman performing them. They are clearly Norwegian and are singing American tunes to a room of about 20 people.... my favorite was the very first song, and what I heard was "I juice call, to saaa, I lawv you" and I couldn't stop laughing. It just went on from there, and I tried my best to hide the chuckling. "I beh yaw pahdon. I nevah pamist you a rose gahdon."

Have you been keeping track of our progress? We're at the half way point in this journey and so far we've used a plane, train, automobile, and ship. Today we docked in Trondheim, and we rented a bike for several hours. Guess we can add that to the list of transportation. What another nice city! They just keep coming, and there's so much deep-rooted history in this country, much like all of Europe I'm sure. Trondheim is the city of the Viking King Olav who founded it about a thousand years ago. He's buried under this massive cathedral called the Nidaros Cathedral... which is claimed to be the greatest wonder of Norway. I'm not much for historical facts and such, but I did check out the cathedral and it was really impressive. The gargoyles were very cool too.
Nidaros Cathedral

This ship voyage is mostly about the natural beauty, which doesn't come in spurts, it's absolutely constant. It doesn't matter when you stroll on deck or look out a window, you'll see the same variation of beautiful islands (they can be mammoth or just a speck... but all in all they all look like the tips of a much bigger something under the water), deep (really deep) ocean water, and scattered idyllic homes. I just read that there are 30,000 islands and at least 100,000 skerries, and millions of birds along the Norwegian coastline. What is a skerry? I haven't seen many birds yet, but apparently there are scores of them in colonies on many of these islands. I'm going to make it one of my quests to see some puffins when the ship part of our journey ends in Tromso on Saturday. We weren't able to get to Hell, Norway this time around. Seems there isn't much there anyway but a few homes and a big sign that everyone wants to be photographed in front of. I thought to buy a one-way ticket to Hell, and went to the train station in Trondheim to get it... but evidently I should have gone to the bus depot for that. I suppose you could call that Divine Intervention! They do have some funny names for towns here. Another of my favorites is Molde.

Sneak Peak: Tomorrow we cross over the proverbial line-in-the-sea and enter the Arctic Circle. But we are going much further than that! It's time to get out your winter clothing for an airing, we'll be needing it sometime next week.

Comments

Re: Chuckles

Posted by Jean on Fri 22 May, 2009.

The waterfall video was great! The cathedral is beautiful! Love the boat trip and so very glad we skipped Hell. Don't want to be like everybody else, ya know. Waterfalls, natural beauty, churches, and ligonberries... they all feel like a part of Heaven!
It's just another Friday here, you're not missing anything.
Travel ON Girlfriend!

An Arctic Circle Primer

Posted by Dave, Greg, Dexter & Scoop on Fri 22 May, 2009.

A little refresher on the Arctic Circle. (I looked it up for me, and thought it was interesting enough to share with us...)

The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. In 2009, it is the parallel of latitude that runs approximately 66° 34′03″ (or 66.56756°) north of the Equator. The region north of this circle is known as the Arctic, and the zone just to the south is called the Northern Temperate Zone. The equivalent Polar circle in the Southern Hemisphere is called the Antarctic Circle.

The Arctic Circle marks the southern extremity of the polar day (24-hour sunlit day, often referred to as the "midnight sun") and polar night (24-hour sunless night). North of the Arctic Circle, the sun is above the horizon for 24 continuous hours at least once per year and below the horizon for 24 continuous hours at least once per year. On the Arctic Circle those events occur, in principle, exactly once per year, at the June and December solstices, respectively.

In fact, because of atmospheric refraction and because the sun appears as a disk and not a point, part of the midnight sun may be seen on the night of the summer solstice up to about 50′ (90 kilometres (56 mi)) south of the Arctic Circle; similarly, on the day of the winter solstice, part of the sun may be seen up to about 50′ north of the Arctic Circle. That is true at sea level; those limits increase with elevation above sea level although in mountainous regions, there is often no direct view of the horizon.

The position of the Arctic Circle is not fixed, but directly depends on the Earth's axial tilt, which fluctuates within a margin of 2° over a 40,000 year period,[1] notably due to tidal forces resulting from the orbit of the Moon. The Arctic Circle is currently drifting northwards at a speed of about 15 m (49 ft) per year, see Circle of latitude for more information.

-- This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_Circle

(Really, I'm just looking to get the award for Longest Comment.)

Re: Chuckles

Posted by debra on Sat 23 May, 2009.

Dave, you are not only my great friend, but you are the unofficial and official technical correspondent for blendingtogether. This is a very esteemed position that pays nothing but high regard. Watch your back... there may be those that want your spot!
My friend Karen has supplied the definition of a Skerry, "a term we use to describe a rock in the water"