Norway - Part five

      We got into Bergen, on the coast, with lots of cruise ships coming and going. Downtown we had a very hard time finding a place to park, but we finally found a spot in a parking garage. The town was all it was made out to be, and we walked and looked all day. We headed back to the very tall building I had memorized that was only a few hundred yards from our parking garage, but I now had no idea in which direction. Looking proved fruitless, so we found an old man, who had obviously had a stroke, and asked him if he knew where a parking garage was. He got up with great difficulty, and said follow him. As we followed him through building after building, he told us, “Because you have asked me, I must do right by you.” That about summarized the attitude of these nice people. When he, at last, after much difficulty for him, pointed to a parking garage, I knew it was the wrong one. However, we didn't wish to cause him any more agony, which he was obviously in, so we thanked and thanked him, and went back to the tall building, our reference point. We made a number of forays out, all dead ends. On the last one, because we were running out of directions, we found it. Didn't look a thing like we remembered it.

      The way out of town was hard to follow, doubly hard when I realized I was going out the wrong side. But we finally backtracked through town and got on the right road. Oh, but what I would give for just one highway sign I could read. Back at the Guest house, we hooked up with a young woman, 30 something, from Singapore. She was a tour guide by profession, but she takes weeks off each year and travels the world alone, and we soon came to realize she had been about everywhere. But asked if she had been to America, she was horrified. “I wouldn't dare!” I told her the whole world watches too many American movies, all with guns and killing.  And she was watching too much TV. She admitted she might have, but I could see we had not changed her thinking. We have seen this attitude, over and over, on many different sides of the world.

      After we made breakfast, we cleaned our room and headed for Godvagen, where we would board a boat for a fjord trip.

There were a couple of Chinese tour groups around, and, I'm sorry to say, they were still pushy. Barbara was about to pay at a gift shop, when a Chinese woman stepped in front of Barbara, and pushed her out of her way with her head and shoulders. The cashier was as shocked as Barbara, and insisted on waiting on Barbara first. The woman never acknowledged Barbara's presence.

On the boat, they were pretty civil, and some even swapped taking pictures. One guy had a big, top of the line camera, with a whole bag full of lenses, and Barbara, as always, offered to take their picture with it. He looked pretty doubtful, until he saw how well she handled his camera. Like the pro she is. She posed them in detail, and he then got very excited. He just ran up to see the picture when she had finished, and thanked her over and over. It was a good picture.

      The scenery was awesome, the best we have seen. Many little towns along the fjord seemed to be reachable only by boat, and some houses up on the mountains only by helicopter. Rich people. Melting snow still produced waterfalls from everywhere. We were in agreement. Norway was the most beautiful country on Earth. And the most expensive, except, maybe, for Monaco. But we had blended into Monaco society like a sore thumb, sticking straight out. We finished our one way cruise, and got on a bus to go back to Godvagen. Barbara went to sleep, and when I told her it was time to get off, she did not do it gracefully. We had passed Godvagen while she was falling out into the aisle because of a step down she missed, and when it stopped, it was a little past. When she got off, she was in panic mode. “Where's the store!?” I told her, “You were flat on your face when we passed it.”

      After a nice picnic lunch, We headed on north, making a big circle back to Oslo. Soon, we were up on a very high mountain, with very scattered houses, and well above the tree line. Lots of sheep and cattle. We stopped to photograph some sheep, and use the toilet, The Shoestring Traveler's bathroom, beside the road. That never seemed to get routine with Barbara. It was more complicated for her, and it's just something a classy lady never wants to have to do, but it can't be helped.

      We came down the mountain, and got in line at a ferry, a voyage of many miles. We ran onto a couple of other Americans, the first we have seen. They were old also, and were traveling for a month also, but she had every night booked along the way. That sounded nice, with all the time we spent looking. But one just has no flexibility, booking everything ahead. And the cheap places are never mentioned in the travel books. They looked rich, and I doubted if we would ever see them at one of our Poor Man's lodgings. And I was right.               Continued         Thanks for reading!