Looking Back: Aalesund, Norway

This is another post from my time on the ship:

On 6/19 we were in Aalesund.  I escorted a morning tour to Giske and Godoy islands.  To get to the islands you travel through a number of submarine tunnels and over a bridge or two. 

One of our stops was to the Giske church built with thick marble walls that are covered with plaster so you would never know there was any marble unless told. 

The next stop was to Alnes Fyr, an historic, wooden lighthouse where we were served coffee, tea and "Scottish pancakes" (pancakes covered in a sprinkling of sugar).  I sat with a woman named Alice, who turned out to be a tour host for American Express.  Her tours allow her to travel for free, with a small expense account, but she does not get paid.  I discussed professional tour escorting/hosting with her, and we agreed that American Express would not be the company for me since I'd like to get paid for doing this.  One of the local farmers had just mowed the grassy fields near the lighthouse and the strong scent of cut hay and grasses reminded me of the Shaker villages I have visited in Maine and Kentucky. 

We arrived back at the ship around lunchtime, and as I was hungry I took myself to an outdoor cafe in town called Cavatelli.  They had a strange arrangement where you had to go inside to order, but your food was delivered to you on the outdoor patio by the waitstaff, as were any additional items you ordered.  I sat having a bowl of fish soup, a cream-based mix of chunks of a nice white fish and sliced vegetables heavy on the leeks, with a nice glass of white wine.  Even though the sun doesn't seem very strong here since Norway is so far north, I was finally forced to apply sunblock as I felt my face and arms starting to singe.  I then wandered the streets gazing at the beautifully decorated Art Nouveau buildings that were built of stone after the great fire of 1904 destroyed most of the wooden structures in town.

One thing I noted about all of our stops in Norway was that the air everywhere seemed so incredibly fresh.  The scent of the air might change in each locale, but the feeling of cool freshness was a constant.  Here it was June, and you really had to wear a light jacket due to the temperature of this air.  Someone wondered at what latitude we were currently standing, so I looked it up.  If you were to draw a line across to North America, Norway would be on par with the middle of Hudson Bay in Canada - pretty far north.  No wonder it was chilly!  I was told that outside one of the fjords there exist cold water coral!  After living in Key West, I feel I know a little about coral, but had never heard of cold water coral.  You learn something new every day!  Back at the ship I finally had a massage.  When you are constantly doing massage, you really need to make sure you take care of yourself, but few of us on the ship really do.  Devorah, one of the Filipina spa attendants, gives an extremely strong, and sometimes painful, massage despite her short stature.  It was a late massage as she doesn't finish work until 9:00 and she had another client before me.  We finished our almost two hour massage around 1:00 am, and as I was leaving the spa I wandered out on deck and was amazed that it was still twilight.  I was told that the sun had actually set for a short time around midnight, but the rest of the night it was quite light.  I wished I could have sat and enjoyed this amazing twilight more, but with too many early morning tours, I was too tired to do so.