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While in Iceland I thought of the late Bill Holm, author and professor, a giant of a man in many ways who often visited Iceland and hailed from Minneota, MN, where Allan and I, as well as Bill Holm, graduated from high school. Minneota even has an Icelandic church. I also thought of the late Senator Joe Josefson, another Icelander and giant in many ways. While in Stockholm I thought of Swede Prairie, a township just outside Minneota that bears elements of the Swedish countryside, and I also thought of Gary and Sharon Eklund of Victoria. Sharon's parents emigrated from Sweden and she is very involved locally in her Swedish heritage along with Jo Mihelich of Victoria who wrote Andrew Peterson and the Scandia Story. While in Copenhagen I thought of Bent and Joy Lyder of Victoria, who have family and business there, and they also told us about Oslo. In his Danish accent Bent had recommended we stay at the Admiral Hotel in Copenhagen, have dinner at the Skindbuksen, and tour the Royal Palace. We did that and much more. In each of the hotels we stayed over the entire 16 days, we slept with the window open. There were never screens on the windows and never bugs. There was no air conditioning except for an electric oscillating fan tucked inside a closet in most of the rooms. By and large we discovered that an open window was all we needed. Most of the time, temperatures were around 70 degrees; a couple times it hit 80 and a couple times 60. It rained rather often and without warning, but never for long and it wasn't upsetting. Only once did we duck inside because of a sudden downpour. The scenery was outstanding whether the sky was blue or gray. At no time did we suffer in the Scandinavian countries because we didn't know their languages. It seems they all speak or understand English. Most of their menus are subtitled in English, and museums also provide text in English. At the train stations -- we traveled three times by train -- it's easy to translate ingang and utgang. Several Norwegian words are similar to both their German and English counterparts. Bread is brot in German and brod in Norwegian. Cake is kucken in German and kake in Norwegian. Church is kirche is German and kirken in Norwegian. The word 'toilet' seems to be the same in every language. Each of the four countries we visited has its own money (different krone/krona), so we hung out at a money exchange at least four times. We were told that the weak American dollar means everything costs a lot. We learned that it's easiest and best to use Visa, that everybody takes Visa. Some places only take Visa, which we learned the hard way ... Allan accidentally left our Visa at a shop in Oslo, after paying for a purse I fell in love with, and we didn't realize it for a couple hours after the fact, when we promptly retrieved it. Unfortunately, the clerk thought she was doing us a favor by immediately informing Visa that she had our card. Visa thought they were doing us a favor by immediately de-activating the card. Both actions were out of bounds and out of reason. Visa recognized their mistake in not simply placing a temporary hold on the card and shipped a new Visa card to us overnight express ... which actually took two overnights. Let me tell you, in the meantime, cash is better than no cash. As long as I'm on a roll here, I'll tell you that we also got a flat tire at Tyinholmen. New black gravel had been spread on the very long, winding, scenic mountain road around the lake to the hotel. Well, one of the sharp new rocks -- it's totally unlike the gravel spread here in Minnesota -- punctured a tire on our rental car which Allan discovered the next morning. The service station contacted by Marie on our behalf said it was their 5th call to fix a flat tire from the area in the last five days. Everything worked out well and, as the trip progressed, it hardly seemed a blip on the screen. It was always one moment at a time, one day at a time. We always felt that we were on one more adventure of our lifetime and so we accepted the misadventures as part of the good story. This might sound melodramatic to some of you, but on Monday, July 16th, while in Copenhagen, we heard on TV that Kitty Wells died. I'm a country western fan, old country more than new country, and so Allan googled free Kitty Wells music for us to download and listen to as I worked on my laptop for a while that evening. Our window was cranked wide open to catch fresh breezes, this time open to nearby yachts on the harbor, visitors to sand castles across the harbor, and to patrons of the Salt Bar and Restaurant right below us. I wonder if they recognized "Waltz of the Angels" and "Music in My Heart." For me it was a touch of home far from home but, in fact, I had felt a touch of home since we landed in Norway. |
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August 2012 |
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In-Town Auto Repair 952-443-2868 |
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942-443-2078 |
