Fun Times in Norway

This was Tromso, Norway. We were beginning to think that we would never make it to the top of the mountain.

Started the trek where the ship's shuttle bus dropped up off on the other side of the water. Lots of people were looking to take the bus across the bridge, but not us, it didn't look that far, we had all day, and the weather was beautiful. So off we went on foot. The hike across the bridge wasn't bad, a bit windy but that just made it more comfortable walking. It was also nice to see when we reached the top of the bridge that the long side was the part we had just walked up so going back would be very easy.

The first stop was at the Arctic Cathedral (in the picture of Dan above it is the white triangle just behind him). It was a very beautiful church, very simple painted white inside with light stain woodwork. The stained glass window in the rear of the church took up the whole wall and was beautiful.

Now we were in search of an ATM, so asked the clerk working in the gift shop at the Cathedral and he told us we would find one in the shopping center just down the street about 400-600 meters. So we are talking 1/2 mile at the most. To make a semi-long story short we figure it was closer to a mile but we did find it and were able to get some more kroners. Which we needed to be able to take the cable car to the top of the mountain.

Once done with the ATM we had to retrace our steps to the Cathedral and then walk up to the cable cars. Really don't understand why the cable cars start in the middle of the mountain and not at the bottom but that is what these did. Finally made it to the top and it was well worth the hike up to ride the cable car. The view was fantastic.

We had a good time taking these shots. I took the one of Dan and of course I had to ask him to back up a couple of feet because that is what we do. Usually though there is a fence to prevent you from falling off the mountain but here there was nothing just a drop down about 100 feet or so. As I was asking Dan to back a couple walked behind us and just started laughing and the woman told me to be sure I had his wallet before he took his steps back. I was still laughing about it when Dan took my picture.

The picture of us in the snow was another fun one and if anyone was watching I'm sure we provided them with something to talk about for the rest of the day. From the time we got off the cable car and Dan saw there was snow further up the mountainside he wanted to go up to see it. Well the first patches we saw we quite a ways away and I really didn't want to hike up that far. But when we rounded on of the corners on the trail there was a patch. Not to far away but enough of a distance so not everyone was running over there to see it. Dan got there first, I was dragging my feet looking at the flowers along the way and hoping Dan would just look at the snow and walk back to me and we would be done with the patch of snow. But no, he scopes out the area and sits on the rock waiting for me. I get there and he asks me to set up the camera to take a picture of us. The rock that would be the acting tripod was a ways from the rock we would be sitting on, but beggars can't be choosers. I set everything up and hoped that we were at least in the frame. I wasn't going to lie on the ground to check it out. So hit the shutter button and run, well the snow was slippery and hard to run on and of course the camera went of just as I was turning to sit down, viola, the only butt shot of the vacation and I took it of myself. So I told Dan he would have to do it because I wasn't going to make the running on snow trip again. Dan presses the shutter, runs, makes it to the rock, and we wait and wait and wait. Well he didn't push the button hard enough. So back he goes for the third time is a charm shot and what you see above is what we got. We were laughing pretty hard by the end of all this and i guess it was worth hiking up to the snow patch, (but don't tell Dan that).

That was it for the top of the mountain, rode the cable car back down and walked back across the bridge and headed to a museum that everyone was talking about to see if it was the one Dan wanted to see. Well turned out to be more of an aquarium and not the polar exploration we were looking for. This lead to the most expensive bathroom break of the trip. Dan went into a 7-11 type store to use the bathroom and bought a Coke Light, a $5.00 Coke Light. At least it tasted better then the coke light we would get in Spain when we were there.

Back to the shuttle and the ship, this was quite a day and we had lots of fun.