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The Victoria GAZETTE |
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August 2012 |
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by Sue Orsen It was an adventure that transported us to four old countries of Scandinavia and painted for us, over 16 days, a landscape of memories and experiences that will last a lifetime and perhaps supersede all past and future travels on this magnificent planet. We were visiting Scandinavia for several reasons. It's part of Europe that we hadn't seen, and Norway is part of our heritage. Allan is mostly Norwegian and I am 25% Norwegian. My mother was an Opdahl. Allan's family name in Norway is Aasen. In addition to Norwegians, we know Icelanders, Swedes, and Danes and have personally heard and read their stories. With a stash of over 500 photos downloaded from my camera, and a notebook rather replete with our daily adventures, how do I begin to pick and choose for three little pages in the Gazette? It only becomes possible for me in knowing that I can show all the pictures and tell all of the story in Sue's Album. If you're curious, the album is located at www.VictoriaGazette.com.
KEFLAVIK, ICELAND It was a six-hour flight from Minneapolis and because of the time change we lost a night's sleep. It was still July 3rd in Minnesota but it was July 4th in Keflavik, Iceland. There are no trees, no brush, not even a tumbling tumbleweed nor wildflowers at the roadside, not even ditches, just a vast terrain of rock and lava. Said Allan, "When those Icelanders arrived in Minneota, if they came from this part of Iceland, they must have thought it was God's land." Minneota, MN, is our hometown. Off in the distance we saw white steam rising from the earth, not unlike from the geysers at Yellowstone, and we knew it was the home of the Blue Lagoon. Our taxi driver was a big wrinkled Icelander and he had a bad cough so I tired not to breath deeply. The blue water was not lukewarm like old bathtub water, but fresh like a hot shower coming from below instead of above. It was simply awesome. We each were given a blue bath towel, a thick white terrycloth robe, a buffet lunch ticket, white mud mask, black mud mask, a locker for our street clothes, and a glass of wine poured to us as we experienced the geothermal water. You might call it in-pool service. The sun rose at 3:20 a.m. -- I was awake to see it -- but it was actually light all night long. This time of year Iceland gets four hours of what they call darkness. We now talk about a return trip to the Blue Lagoon as a future destination. We learned there's a hotel and other amenities right on site. Our flight from Iceland landed in Bergen, Norway, a few minutes after 12 noon Norway time. It was two hours earlier in Iceland and seven hours earlier at home in Victoria. We were very tired.
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