Day Five on the northbound Finnmarken, sailing above the arctic circle to the northernmost city in Norway – Tromso. Life aboard the ship is relaxed and easy. I blog in the morning in the Panoramic Lounge, lulled by the gentle snores of the folks taking an after-breakfast snooze. Or they could be the folks without cabins – spending the night in the lounge. It’s hard to tell.
The one cause for dissension on board appears to be in the “saving of seats” arena. The lounge has a row of seats that face the window, and a variety of other seats spread around. At time, people seem anxious for a window seat. So much so that that – like a high school lunch table – they save seats for their buddies. So how long is it polite to have a coat save a seat when others would like to sit down. Ten minutes? Half a hour? Two hours? In my opinion – saving someone’s seat that they can run to the washroom is fine. Two hours is rude.
Speaking of rude …. A couple sat down in a few empty seats yesterday. The man sitting beside the empty seats was aghast – and told them – in a very loud voice – that in HIS country it was polite to ask if the seats were free before sitting down. Then he proceeded to give them a very loud and condescending lecture about how they had broken his seat rule by sitting down without clearing it with him first (although he wasn’t even trying to save the seats in question – they were truly empty.) His lecture was so loud, he woke up all the people peacefully snoozing away in the lounge. So my question – what is ruder – boorishly lecturing strangers for half an hour for an infraction that they didn’t actually incur, or sitting in an empty seat in a public lounge. I’m not sure what country he was from – not the US thank goodness. It turned out that he had experienced an “incident” during either breakfast or lunch sometime during the journey. Both meals are buffet style, with open seating. He left his table – saved by the dirty dishes only – and came back with another full plate to find his seat taken. He was aghast! Astounded! Astonished! to find the dirty plates gone (there are waitstaff who continuously clear the tables) and people settled in HIS seat. This story was also delivered in a loud and condescending voice, as if the people who had sat next to him (probably now very much regretting their choice of seats) were personally responsible. I guess there is one in every crowd.
It’s hard to explain how peaceful it is on the ship. We chug along at 14 or 15 knots, weaving our way between scenic islands, stopping occasionally in small towns, and at least once a day for an extended stop where we can get off and explore. At each of the towns a few people disembark, often greeted by friends or family waiting patiently on the dock. Others embark. It truly is a local ferry in addition to a scenic cruise.
On board, people are as relaxed and casual as you would expect on a ferry. (PS – someone just asked if the empty seat next to me is free – which it is – so I don’t have to give her a boorish lecture about taking an empty seat without asking. Phew!) There arearound 480 passengers – give or take – and 77 crew. Announcements are made in Norwegian, English, and German, and written material in those three languages plus French. Information is provided, but you have to be on your game to figure some things out. Such as the changing meal times. They moved dinner up by a half hour one night (I think because of a shore stop) and quite a few people didn’t notice. Not that it really mattered – except to the dining room crew who had to figure out a way to make it all work. Dress is casual. Sneakers and sandals are the dominant footwear; jeans and shorts (it’s pretty hot) are the norm. I’ve noticed more and more people swapping out their fleece coats for Norwegian sweaters. Not that many! The sweaters sold on board are beautiful but woefully expensive. But hey – this is Norway.
Tromso was the main stop on Day 5, and the ship docks right in the center of town. Tromso is a small city of around 70,000 people – that sprawls out long both shores of an inlet with boxy apartment complexes. The core is compact and architecturally eclectic – to say the least – and clearly serves as a regional hub.
It also has a huge university (9,000 students). I think I was struck mainly by the diversity of the people in the town – perhaps because this is a city with a high population of Sami (Lapps or Laplanders in English) people – or the people indigenous to these northern lands (including Russia, Finland, Sweden, and Norway). Or it could have been that the city was filled with people drawn to the Chess Olympiad underway when we were visiting. Public squares were filled with large chessboards – store fronts featured chess pieces, and banners advertised the event. Whatever it was – it was a big deal.
The land is growing more rugged as we head north – the smoothed glacial terrain of the “whalebacks” near the Lofoten Islands has given away to steeper hills, talus slopes, and some mountain top glaciers. It’s hard to imagine living here through the winter – with a scant four hours of twilight type light a day. It’s astonishing to me that there is such a major city this far north, and a small part of me would like to return in the winter to see what it is like here.
Adventures in Europe 2014 