2 Aussie Nomads

I think I’ve died and gone to Heaven.

We stayed in an AirBNB near Montlevon last night. Not really in Montlevon, but a bit north of it. Condé-en-Brie is also nearby, as is Château-Thierry.

If you type “Les Bories en Champagne” into Google Maps, you will see a photo of the place where we are staying.

We woke this morning at about 7.00am, which is about 4.00pm your time, assuming that you are in Brisbane. I hadn’t slept well, but there are probably a million reasons for that. Sleeping in a strange bed in a building that is probably a few hundred years od is part of that reason.

Echos of MBW screaming out “LOOK OUT! LOOK OUT!!” every time I drifted onto the wrong side of the road is probably a reason too.

45 years in ingrained habits driving on the left side of the road are hard to break, and it all feels wrong … but we will get better. I’m certain we will.

I’ll be driving and honking my horn like a Frenchman in no time.

Because we only arrived here at about 5.30pm last night and had done a super-quick run down to the little supermarket in Condé-en-Brie to get some important supplies, we were not well prepared for breakfast. And breakfast is the most important meal of the day, as I’m sure that you know.

So we found Claude where we had left him last night, fired him up, and did a quick run down to the local boulangerie.

My goodness. Baguettes, croissants, pastries of all kind.

My goodness.

If MBW hadn’t been with me, I’d have asked the lady in the shop to marry me …

We purchased a baguette, a plain croissant and a chocolate croissant for breakfast, and headed home to have breakfast and coffee.

We bought some ground coffee last night, so we fired up the coffee machine and had breakast.

Not the best coffee and croissants that I’ve ever had … actually scratch that. It probably WAS the best coffee and croissants and baguette that I’ve ever had. With French butter and strawberry jam.

Sell my clothes, I think I’ve gone to Heaven.

I didn’t want it to end, it was soooooooooo good 🙂

We gave the house a quick tidy, and filled our little Thermos flasks that we bought cheap in Rovaniemi with boiling water and got some teabags ready to take with us.

We only had one important job to do today – get snow chains. As I’ve discussed before, I have absolutely no intention of using them, but we are required to carry them for some of the places where we will be going. Like Italy, before the middle of April.

I might even bring them home with me when we finally return home … assuming that I don’t run away and hide here in France.

If ever we (you and I) attend the same Christmas function in 2025 and you get an unopened set of snow chains in perfect condition as part of a Secret Santa gift, they will be from me.

Surprise!

I went out to Claude to get the engine started and the seat warmers* going for MBW, and poke some of the buttons on the dashboard to see what they do. I found a few nifty features that will be very handy on our roadtrip.

*Seat warmers are NOT one of those nifty features BTW, but MBW doesn’t need to know that.

We had managed to get Google Maps and Android Auto working, so that makes life a bit easier.

We programmed up “Château-Thierry” into Maps, and off we went. We were looking for a NorAuto – probably a bit like a Repco or Autobarn with a vehicle servicing facility on site.

Parked Claude and went inside, and we quickly established that the guy behind the counter had a better grasp on English than we have on French, and so we struck a deal.

€76.00 was the cheapest price for a set of snow chains that will meet the legal requiement. And they came in a nice carry case.

I’ve never purchased snow chains before, and I suspect I never will again.

To be honest, I expected that the store staff would laugh maniacally at us for buying snow chains in this warm weather, but the guy took it as a very serious transaction and happily took our money.

That was the only thing that we realy needed to do today, as we had decided to just “settle in” a bit and get our bearings.

Across the road from NorAuto was something that looked suspiciously like a shopping centre, and as we had nothing else important to do, we went over.

The place was like CostCo (or Wamart). They sell almost everything, from groceries to clothes to homewares. And alcohol.

But no guns that i saw.

Given that we will be travelling around quite a bit, we purchased some plates and cutlery for those days that we stop and have lunch at the side of the road, plus an esky bag and some other things that we didn’t need.

MBW announced that she hadn’t brought enough short-sleeved tops on holidays (… a likely story …), so she found something in her size and added it to the pile.

BTW the shop is called E.Leclerc if you ever find yourself in Château-Thierry and need to buy some things that you don’t need.

Sorry, that pobably sounded like sarcasm 🙁 I’ll ping myself on my next performance review.

We were going to buy some groceries to put into our new esky bag, but it was only 10.30am and a bit early for lunch, and the things that we wanted to put onto our baguette for lunch are likely to give explosive diarrhea if not refrigerated correctly, and ED was not something that we particularly wanted.

So we went to look at a medieval castle instead.

My tiny brain simply could not appreciate the spectacular beauty of the place, and nor the fact that it was built in the 10th century. A million pictures cannot do it justice, but I’ve included some below anyway.

One of the good things about medieval castles is that they are built at the top of a hill, with sweeping view all around. And from this medieval castle, we could see some street markets just down below, so we hopped back into Claude and went looking.

We found the markets, and then found a parking space, so we got out and went for a walk.

Nothing particularly exciting, and we didn’t buy anything. But it was fun to poke aound.

We listened to people speaking French and wondered what they were talking about. Probably about us.

By this tme we were getting hungry and needed to get some stuff for lunch. MBW found an Aldi (… seriously, it’s like a sixth sense …) and so we bought stuff for lunch and also for dinner tonight.

Everywhere you look around here, all you see is people walking around carrying a baguette. It’s almost like it is a national sport.

So not to be outdone, we bought a baguette and some ham and cheese, plus we got some potatoes, salad and steak for dinner.

Home to Les Bories en Champagne, and we ate lunch like Frenchmen (and Frenchwomen).

And it was good. So good.

I’m not going to bore you will all of the minutia of our lives, because that would be as boring as watching paint dry, but we did repack our suitcases to separate the stuff we will likely not need again from the stuff that we will, and that will make finding things just a bit easier in future.

Well, that’s the theory.

After all of that excitement, we jumped back into Claude and went for a drive down to Condé-en-Brie just for a poke around and take some photos. I mean, it’s not every day that you get to walk through a provincial French village where the houses are hundreds of years old, and you feel like you are on the set of Beauty and the Beast.

Some of the streets are like goat tracks – in fact I suspect that’s exactly what they were once. Tiny, narrow little streets between stone buildings. I’m glad I ddn’t bring the Landcruiser!

We are so lucky to be here doing this. Please reimnd me of that next time I complain about something trivial.

There are many things about this Airbnb that make it fun and interesting, and also cause you to wonder how they got building approval. Like doorways that are seriously low.

You don’t need to understand French to know what “Attention à la tête” means.

But I expect building approvals weren’t an accepted practice 500-1000 years ago when these places were built.

Back home to get ready for dinner and coffee.

Steak tonight and I’m cooking, so I’d best be off.

Ciao

#Europe2025

Yesterday I mentioned that we found the breakfast buffet at the Grand Central Hotel in Helsinki to be a bit unusual.

I actually wondered if I had mistakenly taken the wrong door in the back of our wardrobe, and found ourselves in an alternative universe. So today, I was extra careful.

We are leaving for Paris today on a flight departing at 12.15pm, so we had plenty of time for a leisurely breakast. We got downstairs and found a table, which was a whole different experience to yesterday. Yesterday, we couldn’t find table anywhere.

We sat down, and MBW went off in search of food while I minded our stuff. She came back a few minutes later with a glass of green stuff, and a number of things on a plate that I recognised. I was feeling confident.

I went ino the serving area and did a quick scan of the buffet. I saw pickled cranberries, raisin soup, pickles … I kid you not.

Who eats pickled cranberries and raisin soup for breakfast?

I wondered if I had mistakenly found myself on the set of “Candid Camera”?

But there was other stuff there too. Regular stuff like bacon, scrambled eggs, and tomatoes.

And croissants. So all was forgiven 🙂

We had determined that we needed to leave the hotel and be on a train to the airport by 10.00am to allow ouselves plenty of time for the flight, but by shortly after 9.00am we had nothing else remaining for us to do … except eat pickled cranberries, and I’m pretty sure that wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.

So we gave our room a final check over, locked our suitcases, saddled up and checked out of the hotel.

Our room was quite functional in a “restored 1900s building with modern facilities” kind of way.

The train station was downstairs, so we headed out, bought our tickets to the airport and got on the train

Helsinki airport is a pretty bustling little place. We dropped our bags and went through the space-age luggage scanners that don’t require you to take your large electronics out of your bag.

I took the opportunity to remove everything from my pockets, plus my belt … as I had no intention of becoming romantically involved with the security guards again.

Our flight was uneventful. I know that I always say that when I talk about flights, but “uneventful” is alway my preference to “catestrophic engine failure”, or “rapid depressurisation of the cabin resulting in oxygen masks falling from the ceiling”.

The plane was an Embraer 190 which means absolutely nothing to me, except that it had a 2-2 seating configuration.

We landed in Paris about 10 minutes ahead of schedule and because we were on a relatively small plane, it didn’t take long to disembark or get our luggage.

Our next challenge was to collect our vehicle from the people who are supplying us with a new car – Car-2-Europe. We are essentially buying the car tax-free for 39 days and then giving it back.

We were collected from the airport and taken to the car yard where we signed bits of paper, and then watched a nice French gentleman do battle with the car’s menu system in an effort to change everything to English.

So, let me introduce you to Claude la Citroën Argentée. Claude for short.

Claude is a brand new Citroën C4 with 3 (that’s three) kilometres on the clock. He seems to be a hybrid, because the dashoard shows that there is a battery charging, so I’ll have to read the instructions to figure all of that out

So far I’ve managed to adjust the side mirrors and the seat, and I’m pretty pleased with myself.

French drivers are impatient maniacs. That’s the nicest thing I can say. I was desperately trying to stay within the speed limit on the trip from Paris to our Airbnb near Montlevon, and before we had gone 10km, I’d been overtaken with lots of horn honking because I wasn’t going fast enough.

And that’s despite the fact that I am driving a brand new car, on the wrong side of the car, on the wrong side of the road, and trying to interpret road signs in a different language, with speed signs that require the driver to have advanced mental telepathy.

if the speed signs exist at all.

And did I mention that many of the pretty little French backroads are barely wide enough for two cars to pass, yet I’m trying to stay on the road while a bus is barrelling towards me?

But it will get better. I know it will.

We are staying at a very pretty little cottage that seems to be in the middle of nowhere, and set in a lavender farm. A really gorgeous setting, although the cottage itself is probably best described as “quaint”. It is probably typical of houses built 100 years or more ago, and are very different to what you would expect in Australia.

We dropped off our bags and ducked out to a little supermarket about 10 minutes away to get some supplies for dinner. We also found a boulangerie, which will be the first place we go in the morning to get some baguettes and croissants.

After that we are on a mission to get some snow chains. Snow chains are a bit like life insurance – you need to carry them, but you hope never to need them.

That will be tomorrow’s adventure.

Ciao

#Europe2025

We have been staying in an apartment in Rovaniemi, called Apartment Laua A6. I don’t fully understand exactly what that means … maybe the apartment block is called “Apartment Laura” … but I can confirm that we were in apartment A6 on the second floor.

It was very comfortable, warm, and well equipped, including a washer and dryer so we were able to get all of our dirty stuff washed and dried. Goodness knows that we would never have got anything dry by hanging it outside – it would be been frozen and it would have snapped in half.

Of note, it also had a sauna in the bathroom wedged between the washer/dryer, and the shower.

The sauna was big enough for 2 people – actually probably 4 people at a squeeze – but only one of us used it. That will be the younger looking and better rested of the two of us.

I’ll say no more about that, though.

The other thing about the apartment was that the bed was one of those memory cushion affars that seems quite hard, but then moulds to your shape. So you sit on the edge of the bed for a while, and there is a big, bum-shaped indentation in the mattress. When you sleep in the bed on – say – your right side, it leaves that indentation in the mattress so that when you roll over to your left side, you feel like you are lying in a hollow that is the wrong shape.

And sometimes – after you have been lying down, you look at the indentation in the matress and think that maybe a meteorite crashed into the bed, and then you remember that you ate too many croissants in Paris. Or had too many helpings of salmon and potato soup.

I’m sure that some people swear by these matresss, but I’m not a fan.

Today we woke to our last day in Rovaniemi. We are catching the VR train down to Helsinki for a few days before flying back to Paris.

We had done the majority of our packing last night, so we only needed to have our abultions, have breakfast, get dressed and call an Uber to take us to the station.

At 6.57am, the temperature was -12 that felt like -18, and the forecast was snow. We had made some decisions on what we would wear on the train today based on how we felt in the warm environment of our apartment (and after a sauna), but the harsh reality of -18 and snow meant that we needed to pull out our thermals.

Again. Pull out our thermals again.

We had breakfast and got dressed, and by the time we were ready to depart, I was sweating up a storm.

Bags downstairs, and MBW rubbed her magic smartphone to summon the Uber genie while I was putting the key back in the lockbox.

You see some funny things here that you don’t see at home. For example, the cars here are typically plugged into power overnight – I assume – so that the engine block doesn’t freeze solid. You also see people with a snowmobile on the back of their car.

Key safely back in the lockbox, and Uber summoned, MBW and I waited in the snow.

“How long until it arrives?” I asked MBW.

“1 minute”

“Did you get any indication of what type of vehicle we are waiting for?” I asked.

“A black Mercedes C class”.

I would have expected no less. We are Aussies, after all.

So our Mercedes turned up, our bags were loaded, and we set off to the station with a driver from Somalia. Seriously, Rovaniemi is a melting pot of all nationailties living in the one place … although “melting pot” is probably not the best way to describe it.

The fare for the Uber was about €5.50 Euro. A taxi would have cost about €20-30, and the bus would have cost €7.20 and taken about 4 times longer than a car trip.

Go figure.

We chose to travel in Ekstra (Extra) class because it just seemed like a better choice. This class is intended to provide a place where you can sit quietly and watch the world go by … and enjoy the complimentary tea, coffee and water.

Free coffee is always a bonus. Not the best coffee I’ve ever had, but not the worst either.

And they are pretty serious about it being a quiet space because they provide a quiet room at the end of the carriage where you can go to make a phone call.

Very thoughtful and obliging people, these Fins. The lady sitting opposite us – who appeared to be working on her laptop – must have gone up there for a conference call. In fact she was there so long I nearly went to check she was not stuck in the room and needed rescuing!

The train is a 2 level carriage, and we are on the top level. Our seats – 69 and 70 – are unfortunately facing backwards so we get to see what what we have already passed, rather than what’s coming … but that’s not the end of the world.

While we waited to depart the station, we took the opportunity to video call all 4 of our FLP – Elias and Isabel, Teddy and Lili.

It was good to see them and talk to them. Our emotional tanks are full 🙂

The trip was uneventful, as you would hope.

Lots of snow. Lots of small townships where there are houses painted all sorts of unusual colours that look really pretty here, but would look a bit strange back in Australia.

As much as I like travelling in trains, you can seriously only look out the window at snow so much, and with a trip that starts at 9.22am and finishes around 5.30pm, you really need a plan B.

MBW has downladed, and been watching episodes of “The Rookie“, while I downloaded an 13 part Netflix true crime thingo called “The Staircase“. I actually quite enjoy the way that Netflix puts these programs together.

But I’m waffling, because I don’t have much of substance to say today. Sorry 🙁

As you would expect, the view out of the train window changed as we went further south, and while there was still snow to be seen, it became less prominent and – in some places – almost non-existent.

We arrived into Helsinki about 5 minutes late … hey, it wouldn’t be a train journey if we didn’t arrive late.

I often think that Australia has a long way to go when it comes to accessibility – making it easy for everyone to get in and out without assistance. But I’ve found that accessibility is almost non-existent in Europe.

I’m sure I’ve spoken previously about the challenges getting suitcases in and out of the subway in Paris.

Even here in Helsinki, I had to manhandle both of our suitcases down a flight of stairs on the VR train, then down another 2 flights of stairs to get out of central station.

I don’t know if there was a ramp or wheelchair option anywhere, but I didn’t see it.

Once we were out of the station, we wheeled our suitcases around the corner to the Grand Central Hotel, a pretty swanky hotel in the city and right above the train station.

And guess what? I had to haul our suitcases up another 2 flights of stairs to get to reception.

We are in room 4079. We took the elevators to L4, then walked down a loooong corridor to get to .. another loooong corridor to eventually find our room. Honestly, I’ll be hitting 10,000 steps a day just getting to and from our room.

We dropped our stuff and went out for a walk to find dinner. MBW has heard of a food market nearby, which turned out to be a supermarket with a selection of hot and cold foods and salads.

Crispy chicken, potato rosti, and a yummy salad with mozzarella, tomatos, grapes, lettuce and cashews.

Then we bought coffee and icecream.

Breakfast is included here, and I’m hoping it will be fancy. Like the hotel.

Tomorrow we have a walking tour then some free time to explore, then Thursday we fly back to Paris.

We’ve both been having some trouble getting used to being on the other side of the road. Cars are left-hand drive so they drive on the right. Down escalators (on the left in Australia) are on the right here, and you need to keep to the right of the footpath.

We keep defaulting to keeping left, because old habits die hard, I guess.

But we are going to have to lift our game pretty soon. In two days we will be back in France and picking up a brand spanking new Citroen C4, and things could get ugly if we start messing up our left from right.

As I’ve said, this is a pretty swanky hotel, so I’ll bet they have a pretty swanky sauna here. I’ll have to go exploring …

Ciao

#Europe2025

I slept like a baby last night. There was probably a couple of reasons for that. Firstly, we only got about 5 hours sleep after chasing the Northern Lights the previous night, and secondly, I had a sauna last night.

After I finally used Google Translate to give me instructions for how to operate the sauna in English.

There are two alleged benefits from a sauna – sleeping well afterwards is one of them, and it certainly worked for me.

The other benefit of the sauna is that it reverses the aging process.

We had a big day planned today. Reindeer riding, husky sledding, lunch. A very exciting day here in the very snowy, and very cold Rovaniemi, Finland.

A couple of months ago – January 2025 to be exact – MBW and I walked into the Anaconda store at Burleigh Heads, when we were holidaying at Tallebudgera in Percy. Percy is our caravan.

If memory serves me correctly, I was wearing a tee-shirt, shorts and thongs.

Anaconda had an “end of season” sale on, and we were having a look to see if they had anything that could be useful for our trip to Europe. This trip.

They had a very small selection of snow boots remaining, and as luck would have it, they had a pair in my size, and a pair in MBW’s size. And they were cheap – about $35 or $40 each.

I have to say that – in the middle of a Queensland summer – I felt pretty silly walking out of Anaconda carrying a pair of snow boots.

But do I feel silly now? No siree.

Not silly at all.

Because of those snow boots, MBW and I have both had dry and warm feet for the last few days here in Rovaniemi. And we have been so grateful.

We got up a bit later than we should have this morning, because we were tired after hunting the lights and not getting enough sleep the previous night.

I woke around 8.00am as MBW was coming out of the bathroom. She greeted me with “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty …” which really just confirms that I am already getting benefits from the sauna. MBW has noticed how much I glow with youthfulness.

We had bought some breakfast goods from the local supermarket and because we have a fully equipped kitchen here in our apartment, we have enjoyed the benefits of a home-made breakfast each day.

Museli with yoghurt, toast with butter and jam, and coffee.

We were to be picked up a few blocks away today for the reindeer and husky activities, and we know (from experience) that activities out of town and in the open air get very cold, so we dressed accordingly.

Seriously, you almost need a project plan to get dressed here.

Undies, thermals, then the first pair of socks. I say the “first pair” because I tuck my thermal pants into those so that they don’t ride up to my knees when I pull my jeans on later.

Tee-shirt, flanny and then jeans. Have a last minute wee, because – believe me – it will be the last time that you can do so easily, and you’ll kick yourself if you don’t.

Tuck everything in to keep the wind out.

Second (warm) pair of socks, and snow shoes. Then scarf, beanie, warm jacket, and gloves.

By the time you have got halfway through that process and stopped for a quick stage gate review to confirm you are on track, you are starting to sweat and dream about being outside in the cold.

By the time you have collected your stuff and got out the door to the apartment, you are having impure thoughts.

And then you get outside, and realise that it was all worthwhile.

We went for a wander around through the city so that we could be at the pick-up location on time, and because we are looking for something that a friend from home asked us to pick up for her.

Sadly, most of the shops here don’t open until about 10.00am, so the hunt was unsuccessful this morning.

Our bus arrived and we headed off to the reindeer farm. We picked up another couple from the Santa Claus Village, and they were a pair of Aussies named Jeff and Cheryl from the Sunny Coast.

It was a fantastic day, filled with “pinch me” moments.

The first activity was to get suited up for the day. The tour company provide overalls, shoes, wollen socks, mittens, and even beanies if needed. It is an exhausting process putting on all of that gear.

I got the socks and boots on, and then realised that I’d made a rookie error of putting on my boots before putting on my overalls – DUH! – so the boots were back off again. And getting those boots on and off is hard work, let me tell you. Exhausting.

Boots off, and I then discovered that the legs of the overalls zip all the way to your hip, which means that you don’t need to take your boots off to put the overalls on.

Bugger.

The overalls probably weigh 6 or 7kg by the way, so there is quite a bit of effort involved in getting into them. And the boors weigh another 3 or 4kg.

Boots back on, mittens, beanie, and we were outside looking at some reindeer.

We did a short ride in a sled being dragged around the circuit by Thumper (really, that was his name) and it was a lot of fun. We then had a snack of a cup of hot juice and a cinnamon bun while we were educated about reindeer. For example:

• There are no wild reindeer in Lapland – they are all owned by somebody.
• They have notches put into their ears to denote who owns them
• There are more reindeer in Lapland than people
• … and so on.

Following the talk, we were taken in for lunch that was provided. Salmon and potato soup with bread and butter, followed by blueberry pie and coffee.

Now I have to say that I would be unlikely to choose salmon and potato soup off any menu in any restaurant, but it was good. Very good.

The only thing wrong with the lunch was that it was served in the lunch room with a temperature set to something around “the Caribbean” so it was vital that we got out of our overalls again.

One of us (not me) went back for seconds. That’s how good it was.

After a big lunch, we went back into our overalls and back outside for the husky sledding. MBW and I were team 12 (of 12 husky teams) with a 4 dog team pulling us.

Now I need to tell you that the huskys work very hard, pulling a couple of fat Aussies in a sled around a 10km track through the snowy wastelands of Finland.

And when they exert themselves, they fart. They fart a lot. And it stinks.

Never, ever let anyone tell you that husky sledding is a glamourous activity when all you do is breathe dog fart.

And remember, one of us (not me) ate a second helping of salmon and potato soup for lunch, so the poor huskys had to work extra hard (= extra farting).

But it was so much fun. Husky sledding around on a frozen lake in the middle of Finland, looking at fields of pure, unblemished snow was just amazing. It was so Christmas Card-perfect that you found yourself humming “Dashing through the snow, in a …”

We stopped at the halfway point and switched drivers. MBW got out to drive, and I got to sit at about the level of husky bums, and directly behind them.

After the husky sledding, we went back inside and got out of our overalls (again), had a talk on husly breeding and training, and had another cup of hot juice and cookies.

Hot juice is a thing here. It’s a bit weird the first time you are handed a cup of hot blueberry juice, but it is very sweet and certainlty warms you up and keeps you going.

After getting out of their gear and back into our own, we were taken back by bus towards the city, although we opted to be dropped off at the Santa Claus Village, which is the edge of the Arctic Circle.

We shopped for some souvenirs and gifts for the grandkids, and went and saw Santa and got our photo taken. We were going to buy the photo of us with Santa for the grandies, but at 55 Euro each (= about $80), I figured that maybe he isn’t the real Santa either, but just some dude with a beard out to make money off tourists.

But that’s just me being the Grinch.

We wrote some postcards and posted them to the grandies, and marveled at how the Japanese have absolutely no shame in what they wear. There was a Japanese guy – maybe 30-35 years old – with a pair of white fluffy earmuffs with black ears and eyes and a nose … like little pandas on his ears.

My boys would mock me mercilessly if I ever I wore something like that.

After all of that excitement, we were tired and cold, so we caught the Airport Express bus to the airport so that we could come back to the city again. Don’t ask me to explain it .. it was warm in the bus and I was beyond caring.

We hopped off at our usual shopping centre stop, only to discover that there is another whole section of the shopping centre at the back that we hadn’t found yet, with all kinds of cool stores like the Finnish equivalent of Target. We bought some stuff that we didn’t need, and then ended the day with dinner at a cool pace called Friends & Brgrs (ie burgers). You order at the front of the store, and they make it and buzz your buzzer so you can go and collect it.

MBW had a Rudolph burger with chips, while I had a spicy chicken burger with chips, and bottomless cups of post-mix softdrink.

Very nice. Very tasty. Poor Rudolph 🙁

We bought some icecreams and supplies for our train trip to Helsinki tomorrow, then back home by 6.30pm.

I’ve just had another sauna, so I’m feeling extra youthful tonight. And extra sleepy.

That’s 2 saunas I’ve had now, and I’m feeling younger and cleaner already. MBW won’t join me in the sauna because she doesn’t like them … so she doesn’t get the benefits.

When we get home, please make sure that you tell her how much younger than her I look. I’m certain that she will appreciate the feedback. She will probably show you how grateful she is by unfriending you on Facebook.

Another fantastic day in Lapland.

We are off to Helsinki tomorrow by train, departing 9.22am and arriving about 5.00pm, so I’m looking forward to that.

We both feel disappointed that we didn’t really see the Northern Lights, but we are calling this trip a sampler, and next time we will stay longer, and in a few different places to maximise our chances.

The Aussie couple that we met today told us that they are staying in a beautiful little cabin by a frozen and snowy lake, which cost them >$2000 for 3 nights. They also told us that they have no running water, and a “freeze toilet” … you don’t want to know, trust me.

From here they are heading up to Iceland for a week or so. I suspect that MBW and I will do something similar next time we come – maybe a bit earlier in the season when it is colder – and head up to Iceland too.

Without the freeze toilet, that is.

Ciao

#Europe2025

I need to start off tonight with a few points of clarification.

Firstly, I’m not really sure where yesterday finished, and today started. We went out on our Northern Lights tour last night. We were picked up at 7.55pm last night, and dropped back home (after driving all over Finland) at about 3.30am this morning.

Secondly, and because of the above, I’m feeling a little gritty today. Or grotty. Or grumpy. Not enough sleeps makes Geoff grumpy.

And thirdly, I’m concerned that there might be something seriously wrong with me. I’m pretty sure that I said to MBW this morning before we left the apartment that “it’s not too cold today – it’s only -3 degrees.) I think I may be Finnish-ed.

I felt like a cross between a Sara Lee pastry (with multiple layers), and the Michelin Man today. I had so many layers on it was almost impossible to bend over.

We went out on our driving tour last night in search of the Northern Lights. We didn’t actually “see” the Northern Lights, but we photographed them. Yes, I know that sounds a little crazy too.

Our tour guide was a young (25yo?) guy named Alexis, from Uruguay and who has been here 7 months since leaving Poland and Ukraine, and doesn’t speak the local language. He was a lovely young man and he did his very best to give us the best possible chance of seeing the lights, including driving many kilometres all over Finland (and almost into Sweden) and stopping at these remote locations where he has had success before.

One of the things that his company touts as separating them from the others is their “guarantee” of seeing the lights, because they share information across all of their teams and utilise some high-tech satellite system to provide a level of confidence that we will have a successful hunt.

Last night was quoted as 60-70% chance of success.

Unfortunately – and only after we got about 90 minutes drive out of Rovaniemi – he announced that the satellites were overloaded and that the data on his app was incorrect. So he didn’t really know where to find the lights.

Then he announced that the full moon was making it all very difficult, and then later again he was doing a 3-point turn on some frozen road in the middle of absolutely nowhere, and he reversed too far off the road and got us bogged in snow up to our axles … and the front driving wheels could get no traction on the icy road, so we just sat there spinning our wheels.

At one point it looked like we were never going to get it out of the snow, and I really just wanted to start singing “Let it go …”

But we pushed it out. Everyone was standing around contemplating their navels, so I told them to all get behind and start pushing.

Honestly, these people couldn’t organise a bun fight in a bakery.

But the biggest disappointment about the tour was our other guests travelling with us. There were 8 guests and Alexis in our 9 seater Transit van – an Indian couple who live in the UK, a couple of Asian girls, and another couple from Serbia. Honestly, when everyone was chattering away to their respective partners during the drive, it was like being stuck at the Tower of Babel during a smoko break.

The biggest disappointment was that MBW and I were stuck in the back row of the van, in the spot where it is most difficult to get out and look for the lights, and none of the other guests appeared to have any real ongoing interest in getting out and looking for the lights because a) they were too tired or b) they were too cold … which made it extremely difficult for MBW and I to get out.

Our 2 Asian friends spent most of the trip on TikTok, which really just blew my mind. And not in a good way, either.

But there were some funny things that happened too. At our first stop, I set out across a snow-covered field, only to discover that the snow was about knee deep, and it was very difficult to get out.

And it was cold. To paraphrase Sly Stallone from Rhinestone … “this is cold. This is serious cold.” At one point the “feel like” temperature got down to -17 degrees, and you very quickly lost feeling in your fingers and toes. In fact at one point I was the only one out of the van taking long-exposure shots of the lights on my phone, and I was out for so long that I could barely speak – it was like I’d lost all feeling in my mouth and tongue.

Our final stop – the one where we got bogged – turned out to be the most successful. You don’t actually “see” the lights (… well, we didn’t …), but you see a strange lightening of the sky that looks unusual, and when you photograph it on time delay you get a photo of the lights in colour.

Don’t ask me to explain that, though. Have a look at some of the photos that I managed to capture below.

MBW & I both had a couple of nods in the van while we were travelling, but we didn’t get home to bed until about 3.30 this morning and woke around 9.00am, so we are both feeling a little weary today.

Today we had a snowmobile tour planned with the same tour company, and they were scheduled to pick us up at around 12.00 noon, so we had a couple of hours to kill. Rovaniemi is not a large township, with a population of around 65,000 and we went for a walk around the city.

It’s very strange how everything is covered with snow and ice, and quite treacherous to navigate.

In the middle of town we found Santa’s official office (well, one of many in the Arctic Circle, anyway) and we went in and had a chat with Santa. I determined pretty quickly that he is obviously not the “real” Santa, because he told us quite confidently that we are both on his nice list … and I find that very hard to believe.

Back at the apartment we got ready for snowmobiling, and we were picked up on time and taken into their office to get fitted out with warm winter overalls, before heading about 45 minutes drive from Rovaniemi to a frozen lake.

Here is a fun fact – the lake is frozen with about 50cm of ice which is suitable for snowmobiles, but it must be at least frozen 20cm thick to be allowed to walk on it.

Snowmobiling is fun, although very different from being on a jetski. Very bumpy with no real sense that you have any control over the vehicle as it slides around the ice. And cold.

The snowmobile that MBW and I rode had heated handlebars, and they were set to stun. They were so hot that I honestly couldn’t hold them without burning my hands – despite wearing 2 pairs of gloves.

After snowmobiling around a frozen lake for an hour, we went back to the starting point and had a hotdog and a hot beverage.

Many of the houses around the lake are painted in a deep red/brown colour with white trims, which gives you this surreal feeling that you are stuck in a gingerbread house village and you could bump into Hansel and Gretel at any time.

We were back at our apartment by 3.00pm, so we had coffee and wandered up the road to our local supermarket to buy some stuff that we cannot live without – like reindeer jerky.

We also did some planning for tomorrow – our last full day in Rovaniemi, but with a few things planned anyway.

We plan to head down to the local riverbank (on Santa’s recommendation) to have another crack at seeing the lights again tomorrow night, but today we are just too wrecked.

Our apartment was listed with a sauna in the list of facilities, and it is obviously part of a shared set of facilities for the building.

Wrong!

We have our very own sauna in our bathroom wedged in between the shower, and the washer/drier combo. So this afternoon, I indulged. It took me a while to figure out how to make it work (made just a little more challenging because the instructions were in Finnish), but Google Translate came to the rescue and I got it solved.

I lost about a kilogram of sweat, but alternated sweating with jumping into a cold shower. I feel younger already!

And that’s about it. We have both hit a wall tonight, so it will be an early one.

I hope you are enjoying travelling along.

Ciao

#Europe2025

I had a sauna today.

To be clear, it wasn’t a “sow-na” like the Americans have. In fact, I think that the Europeans also have a “sow-na”.

No, I had a “sore-na”.

And for the purposes of full transparency, it wasn’t one of those “take off all of your clothes and jump into an icy fjord” kind of saunas. Nope, it was a private sauna – all by myself.

I will explain more about that soon.

We also experienced a couple of minor miracles today.

Today we leave Norway for the last time, and head off to Finland. Rovaniemi, specifically. Right up there in Lapland, in the Artic Circle.

Now I know that I have been saying how cold it has been in Bergen and Oslo, but in Rovaniemi it is very cold. Very, very cold.

Our flight from Oslo airport departed 8.45am this morning, and boarding closed at 8.00am. I think I said yesterday that for this to be a success, we needed to be out of the hotel just after 6.00am to be at the train station for the 6.40am express train to the airport, especially if we were to have any hope of having coffee on the way.

We set the alarm for 5.15am and – as tends to happen – I woke a couple of minutes before that. It seems to happen to me nearly every time I set the alarm, but I’m not confident of my ability to wake at a pre-determined time if I don’t set the alarm.

5.15am should have given us enough time to make ourselves beautiful, depart the hotel, get coffee, and make it onto the 6.40am train. The project manager in me allowed plenty of contingency, just in case.

Anyhow, I was already vertical when the alarm went off, so I shut it off and jumped straight into the shower. We’d already packed and organised our stuff, to minimise the mental effort required this morning.

Showered and beautiful, I handed over the bathroom to MBW, who likewise had her abultions. We finalised our bags, double-checked the room, and went downstairs to check out.

And this is where the first miracle occurred. By the time we were walking out of the hotel, it was still only 5.50am, and we had a real chance of catching the 6.20am train. It was about -4 or -5 degrees when we left the Citybox Oslo hotel, so we were well rugged up against the cold air.

MBW bought coffee and cinnamon rolls for breakfast, while I went over and purchased our train tickets.

We were on the platform and ready to board the train with 10 minutes to spare. The train came in, we got onboard with all of our luggage, and off we went.

Toot, toot!

We are finding it very difficult to wear the right amount of warm clothes to be suitable for both the cold air outside, and the heated buildings. The inside of the train – unfortunately – has a temperature setting somewhere around “tropical north Queensland”, so by the time we were 10 minutes into the 28 minute run to the airport, we were starting to swelter.

MBW started peeling off her jacket, scarf, beanie, gloves, etc, and I did the same.

By the time I’d managed to get my jacket, gloves and scarf off, my long-sleeved tee-shirt was absolutely soaked with sweat.

I was having a private sauna all of my own on the way to the airport, and I simply could not cool off. We arrived at the airport around 6.50am, and I simply bundled up all of my warm clothes, put on my backpack, and bundled our suitcases onto the platform and into the frigid air again …

As I’m sure that you know, the very purpose of persperation is to cool you off, so when the cold air hit my sweaty body, I got the shivers and needed to get back into my warm stuff again in a hurry.

We had checked in to our flights last night, so we only needed to print out our baggage tags, put them on our suitcases, and drop them off at the bag drop area to watch them be whisked away, hopefully onto the same planes that we were boarding.

It’s a funny thing, but in Norway everything is fully automated with virtually no human interaction in any of these tasks. Baggage tags, bag drop, and even through customs and immigration, there are a couple of humans observing the flow of travellers, but nobody is actually doing any of these tasks for you.

We got to the security gate and took off our jackets, beanies, scarves, and gloves again, put all of our stuff (including electronics) into plastic trays, then went through the scanner. MBW sailed straight through, and of course when I went through, the scanner started squealing as though I had a sub-machine gun stuffed down my trousers.

So I got pulled aside for a check.

“What’s that in your pocket”? (My handkerchief).

“What’s that? Take it out of your pocket.” (Loose change)

“Take off your money belt and belt. And your watch”

“Go back through the machine.”

Then I got the pat down. I have to say that I haven’t had another guy be that intimate with me since … well, since never.

What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger.

MBW had already collected her carry-on baggage, but of course – as luck would have it – mine was selected for a special check. My bags got the swab test, every pocked opened and inspected, all sorts of stuff pulled out and looked at, then stuffed back in.

Sigh 🙁

Finally the nightmare was over and I was given my stuff and waved on my way. MBW had already got herself dressed again and was ready to roll, but I needed a few minutes to re-organise myself, get dressed, and do a quick that I had everything …

Backpack – check

Sling pack with all of my valuables – check

Jacket, beanie, gloves, and scarf – check, check, check, and …. where’s my bleeping scarf??

So back I go to the over-enthaustic baggage checking friend and my other handsy mate, but none of them had seen my scarf, and frankly neither of them seemed to care. Which left me with the only option to go back out into the baggage drop area, look for my scarf, and run the gauntlet of the security peeps one more time.

Long story short, my scarf was lost, and the only thing that made MBW happy about this whole adventure was that she still had her scarf.

Bugger.

I made it back through the scanners with minimal intimacy from the pat-down guy, although he did want to feel the hood of my hoodie just to make sure I wasn’t carrying drugs or explosives …

… and there it was. My scarf, sitting in a plastic bucket looking very forlorn and waiting to be claimed. Next to an iPad (not mine) which was also sitting in a plastic bucket and waiting to be claimed.

We still had about NOK168 in cash (approx $24), and as it is a bit of an unusual currency (= hard to convert it back to AUD, and unlikely to find anyone who would be needing any), we decided to spend it on some pastries, potato chips and chocolate. Hardly an investment that would make Warren Buffett happy, but we got rid of all but about NOK3.

Before we leave Norway, here is a couple of fun facts.

Firstly, all of the Scandinavian languages are so close, that someone from Norway can speak with someone from Finland, and they can both understand each other.

Yet someone from Bergen (in Norway) cannot speak with someone from Oslo (also in Norway) without a translator, because the dialects are so different.

Go figure.

The second fun fact is that there is a big push to get electric cars in Norway. From the beginning of this year (2025), all busses and taxis must be electric vehicles, and by 2030 ALL vehicles must be EVs. Yet last winter they had some very cold days (-25 degrees or so), and all of the batteries in all of the EVs couldn’t function at those temperatures, so no EVs were on the road for a few days.

Crazy Norwegians.

We got onto our flight to Helisinki with a minimum of fuss and found that the plane was almost empty. It can’t have had more than 20% of the seats occupied … which made it a very comfortable flight without all of the usual pushing and shoving to get on or off.

The flight was uneventful, and only took a bit under an hour.

We landed at Helsinki, gathered up all of our stuff and headed off to find the gate for our next flight to Ronaniemi. That flight was probably two-thirds full, so a little bit more squishy, but not a bad flight after all.

Again, uneventful.

I’ve noticed that all of the foreigners here (ie those who speak the local language) all listen carefully when announcements are made in their language (that I can’t understand), and then all talk away happily over the English translation so that I can’t hear it. Fortunately I’ve heard the safety talk pre-departure so many times, that I really don’t need to hear it in any language any longer.

When we landed in Rovaniemi there was a bit of a snow storm going on, which was both super-exciting, and a bit disappointing at the same time.

Exciting, because we really don’t have a great deal of life experience with snow. We took the kids skiing many years ago to Mt Buller, and they had their snow machines churning out the fake stuff the whole time we were there.

So it was both fun and exciting to exit the airport and stand there having snow cascade all over you.

But the snow was also disappointing, because that level of cloud cover means that our northern lights tour tonight could be a bust.

The tour company told us that there was a 60-70% chance of seeing the lights, but there are no guarantees. (They also told us that last night had the same chances, and they got to see a spectacular light show.)

So we are going regardless, and with any luck we will be posting some photos of the lights in tomorrow night’s blog!

We caught the Airport express bus to the city, and dragged our suitcases through the snow and ice to our apartment. Got ourselves settled, MBW did a couple of loads of washing, and we headed up to the local supermarket to buy some groceries for dinner.

A hot chicken and some potato au gratin (which turned out to be potato and salmon au gratin) and broccoli, and we are feeling human again.

We are being picked up for the northern lights tour at 7.55pm out the front, so I’d better get this posted, have a hot shower and coffee, and get ready to go.

Wish us luck!!

Ciao.

I think I may have misjudged Oslo, because we really enjoyed our day here today. A few things happened to change my mind.

The first thing that happened was that I slept well last night. I only woke a couple of times and went back to sleep each time. I might have to give MBW some credit for this – she cranked the air conditioning down to make it colder in the room, so I wasn’t so hot all night.

So the doona worked out OK.

The second thing that happened was that we found a nice coffee shop and had a nice coffee and a cinnamon bun each for breakfast. This was the first day of this trip that we didn’t have breakfast included.

The third thing that happened was that we did a walking tour today, and we were shown some really pretty parts of Oslo that we wouldn’t have found by ourselves. Our guide was South African which I just found confusing, but other than her habit of laughing at everything she said, it was a good tour.

Good until the end that is, when she advised everyone that she preferred tips in Euros, and promptly pulled out a card reader to take payments … which is really interesting considering that Euros are not the local currency …

And the final thing that changed my mind was that it was an absolute cracker of a day here in Oslo. Blue skies and sunny weather. It was still very cold, but you have to expect that.

We started the day with a “feels like” temperature of about -8 degrees, which was pretty confronting. We were out of the hotel by about 7.30am and we needed to meet at the bronze tiger at 10.00am for the walking tour, so we had plenty of time to reorient ourselves and get some breakfast.

We went back to the large shopping mall that is connected to the Central train station, and poked around for while, just browsing through the shops. We also figured out when and where we catch the airport express train tomorrow to get to the airport for the next leg of our journey to Rovaniemi via Helsinki.

We also worked backwards to figure out what time we need to be walking out of the hotel tomorrow if we are going to get to the airport in plenty of time, and those numbers don’t look appealing.

At around 9.45am we decided on a quick comfort stop before setting off on the walking tour, and we followed the signs through the shopping mall to find … barrier gates where you pay NOK20 (20 Kroner = approximately $3.00) to use the facilities.

Originally I thought that NOK20 was worth about 30 cents, then I realised it is $3.00. So at $3.00 a time, it’s probably a good economic proposition. I might start charging visitors to our house the same … I’ll just need to install a card reader on the toilet doors …

I wonder if the staff in the shopping centre get to pee for free? Otherwise they have to claim it as a tax deduction.

I did notice that there were toilets out on the street corner that only charged NOK5 (75 cents?), but i imagine they wouldn’t be very hygienic.

The tour was good, and showed us some places that we were keen to go back to and have another look. One of the more interesting things that we saw was floating saunas on the fjord. As I’m sure you realise, the sauna culture is pretty big here, and it’s not just a tourist scam to go into a floating sauna out onto the icy fjord, and jump into the freezing water.

We were told that it is the only scientifically proven method of reversing the aging process … but I think I’d rather get old gracefully that go from an 80 degree sauna into the freezing, icy waters of the fjord.

By the time that the tour finished at 12.00pm, we were getting peckisĥ but decided to do quick tour through Parliament House. Security was pretty tight, but the inside of the building was pretty spectacular with paintings on every surface. Some of the paintings were “interesting”, with images of naked people cavorting beside a river on one main wall. Parliament is an interesting place…

And the best part was that the parliamentary dunnies were free! So we used them.

We have tried very hard to eat well (ie healthy), and local where we can, but we wanted to see the changing of the guards at the King’s Palace at 1.30pm, and we saw a McDonald’s.

It probably won’t surprise you to know that a cheeseburger and fries in Oslo tastes exactly the same as in Australia.

By the time we’d hiked up the hill to the Palace we were feeling a little weary, so we headed back towards home, stopping to look at a couple of stores on the way.

We asked ChatGPT where we could find a shop in Oslo that was similar to Target or KMart in Australia, and it sent us to a place that was probably more like Myer or David Jones, but it had a good food hall and we got some options for dinner.

And we had coffee to keep us going.

Final stop for the day was the library, which is a massive building with all kinds of stuff in it. Far better than the Capalaba library, but I guess it is probably on par with the BCC library in the city.

My biggest complaint about Oslo is that because we are so far north, the sun sits very low on the horizon for most of the day, and it feels like you are always walking and looking into the sun.

But seriously, if that is my biggest complaint …

Before dinner we went back to the Citybox Oslo hotel (AKA home) to repack our bags and have a bit of a rest. We reckon we need to be walking out of the hotel just after 6.00am tomorrow morning, so we need to be able to get up, showered, get dressed and leave in the morning with the least possible decision-making required.

Mornings aren’t our best time of day, especially before the sun comes up. And especially when we need to function without the benefit of caffeine surging through our systems.

Tomorrow we head off to Rovaniemi via Helsinki on Finnair, with our flight departing Oslo at 8.45am. I’ll barely be awake, so I hope that the pilots function better in the morning than we do.

For dinner we went back to the food hall, about 3 blocks away and got there just before closing time. We picked ourselves up a couple of containers of soup and some bread rolls – cauliflower soup for MBW, and sweet potato & peppers for me. MBW reported that she had chosen well (as usual), and my choice was disappointing (also as usual). The “king of bad decisions” is what they call me.

Mine was very hot and spicy, in a not particularly enjoyable way. I’m sure that it will be fun when it makes it’s way through my digestive system … and hopefully that won’t be at 30,000 feet between Oslo and Helsinki.

I’ve mentioned that this hotel doesn’t offer a great deal of facilities in the room, but they do offer a communal kitchen on the ground floor with microwaves, vending machines, and a refrigerator.

They also have a coffee machine that dispenses coffee at NOK20 per cup … which happens to be the same price we paid to use toilets in the shopping centre today.

Coincidence?

Ciao

I had a terrible sleep last night. I must have woken 5 or 6 times.

To be completely accurate, I probably woke 4 or 5 times, and the other time I was woken by what felt like a nasty kick from my sleeping partner. I was snoring, allegedly.

When we have to get up on time for something in the morning, I like to keep the curtains open so that we get some daylight when the sun comes up. But there was a street light outside our window, and I was getting confused because it was so bright in our room all night.

The other reason I kept waking was because I couldn’t regulate my temperature – I was alternatively hot and cold.

I don’t understand the whole European approach to bedding. At home we have a sheet and a blanket on our bed, or when the weather gets really, really cold (less than 20 degrees), we put on a doona.

But here in Europe, you get a bottom (fitted) sheet, and a doona. But no top sheet, which I find unusual because the room is heated, and so you really only want a top sheet and maybe a light blanket, but not a really warm doona over you.

So you either spend the night with no top cover, freezing, or you pull up the doona and sweat like a fat kid in a marathon … which is what happened to me last night.

And when your brain tells you that it’s -10 degrees outside, you feel obligated to pull up the doona to keep warm.

I don’t get it, but I’m wiling to accept that it’s probably user error.

BTW – and just for full transparency – I expect to get a little more mileage yet out of the Norwegian word for speed: fart. I can amuse myself with fart jokes all day 😀

For example, if you get a ticket in Norway for travelling too fast in your car, is that a farting ticket?

We stayed in Flåm last night.

It was very cold – I’m sure I’ve mentioned that already. By 8.00pm last night it was -3 degrees with a forecast low of -9.

I’m not complaining about the cold – I’m merely reporting on it for context.

A lot of things seemed to be closed here in Flåm, like the museum. We had got into Flåm early – about 2.00pm – and found that the museum was closed until April … and of course everybody says you have to visit the Flåm museum. Bummer.

By the time we had done a lap of the CBD and bought provisions for dinner and breakfast, we were back in our apartment by 4.30 and exploring options for TV for the evening.

A new episode of Reacher has been released since we left home, so we signed into Prime and got comfortable on the couch.

Sadly – for reasons we could not understand – Reacher was being streamed in a foreign language, and we really only wanted to watch it in English. In fact there is only one Norwegian word that I know confidently. Fart.

And I was not hopeful that “fart” will be worked into the storyline.

Anyhow, after much jiggery-pokery, MBW got it sorted out and Reacher was speaking English again.

The place where we are staying – the Flåm Station Apartments – are very comfortable, as they should be for $300/night. Not only that, but it has a washer/dryer in the bathroom so we were able to get some of our clothes washed.

Not dried though, because it turns out it was only a washer. So we needed to get a little creative with hanging wet stuff so that it dries overnight. C’est la vie.

It was Sam’s birthday today, so we gave him a video call to wish him a happy birthday, but also to speak with Teddy and Lili.

Today we did part 2 of the Norway in a Nutshell trip.

The first train was only about 100m from our apartment which was handy. The “feels like” temperature was reported as -11, so I decided to be a wimp and I resorted to wearing my thermals.

I was speaking to the guy from Mississippi standing on the platform before the train departed this morning, and he was saying that his wife saw “the lights” for about 10 minutes last night and she was pretty excited.

And then, in his slow, southern drawl, he went on to tell me that he missed it because he was “on the toilet …” Probably more than I needed to know, but good to know anyhow.

And if his wife saw the lights, then I’m hopeful that we might too when we get to Rovaniemi – up in the artic circle – in a few days.

Before we left Flåm station we gave Elias and Isabel a call too, to show them the snow and the train. We got to speak with all 4 of our FLP today, so our emotional tanks are full.

The first train – the Flåmsbana – is some kind of historical train and it was pretty basic. That trip from Flåm to Myrdal was very pretty and only took about an hour but climbed from 2m above sea level to almost 900m.

We jumped off at Myrdal and made the executive decision to upgrade our seats for the next leg to the “Komfort” class. Better seats, more legroom, power outlets, and free coffee.

And a 5 hour train trip needs free coffee. Not the best coffee I’ve ever had, but not the worst either.

It was a very pretty trip, with these cute little villages and picturesque houses with everything covered in snow. Some of these villages only have a handful of houses, so I have no idea how they manage to survive and stay connected to the rest of the world. Or eat fresh fruit and vegetables occasionally.

Sometimes the snow drifts are a couple of metres deep, which is hard for my tiny brain to process. How do they live like this?

Snow covered houses, frozen rivers and waterways … all very pretty. Although I’d imagine that the locals get sick of it pretty quickly.

Much of the trip on the VY train was quite slow and winding down the mountain, but every-so-often the driver put the pedal to the metal and got the train up to 100+km/h … which frankly just made everything more complicated … using the WC, walking down to the Cafe carriage without falling over, and especially carrying cups of that free coffee.

Unfortunately the train lurched violently at one point when I was mid step with 2 coffees, and I spilt some onto some poor guy’s table a couple of seats back.

He didn’t seem particularly concerned, but I felt bad …about losing half a cup of coffee. At least it’s free 😀

We bought a couple of hotdogs from the Cafe carriage for lunch. Not the reindeer ones like we had in Bergen, and in fact I suspect that they probably had no meat in them at all.

I love train trips, but I am a train guy after all. One day I’d like to take MBW on the Spirit of Queensland up to Cairns.

Everything we saw was so pretty and just screamed to be photographed.

But the reality is that you can only take so many photos of pretty, snow covered houses in pretty, snow covered villages. I’ve probably taken about 1000 already, so I should be able to pick a couple of good ones to keep.

With a couple of hours still to go before we arrive in Oslo, MBW got out her Kindle, and I put on my headphones to listen to some music while I get the blog out early for the first time this trip.

We arrived into Oslo at about 3.30pm, about 30 minutes behind schedule. Put all of our warm clothes back on, picked up our backpacks, and we headed back out into the cold to find our home for the next couple of nights – Citybox Oslo.

It’s not the most welcoming place, with no reception desk and just a touch screen for a “check yourself in” adventure.

I’m not getting a good feeling about the hotel … while I know that we booked a “small double” room, the reality is that use of the word “small” is a serious exaggeration. The room is tiny.

In fact, to move around our room, we need to keep moving our suitcases. It is a very budget affair because you don’t even get a drinking glass in your room.

We dropped off our stuff and went straight out for a walk around the city.

Oslo is a very dirty city with lots of beggars. The cars are filthy (I assume from spray from melting snow and salted roads). Sadly, it doesn’t feel very clean or welcoming like Bergen or Flåm.

We wandered over to the Opera house and did a lap of the city to get our bearings, and find something for dinner. A slice of pizza and a bagel with sandwich filling will be dinner for tonight, and we will go in search of coffee shortly.

That hotdog I had for lunch is playing havoc with my digestive system because I’ve been speeding all afternoon.

Tomorrow we have another walking tour, and hopefully we will get the gossip on where to get good hot food and coffee.

Just two nights here in Oslo, although to be frank I suspect that will be enough for us.

Ciao

#Europe2025

Some things are the same the world over.

John Deere green and yellow tractors, Kelloggs Corn Flakes, and entitled people. And trains that don’t seem to run on time.

But I will come to those things later.

It was very cold this morning. My phone’s weather app said that Bergen was -1 degree, but felt like -3 degrees. Brrrrr.

We have to catch the train from Bergen to Voss, then a bus to Gudvangen, then a boat on the fjord to Flåm. The train was scheduled to leave at 8.30 am, and we only had to go across the road from the Zander K hotel to the train station.

We were up early, showered, and ready to head down to breakfast when we got a Messenger video call from 2 of our FLP. That’s Favourite Little People – Elias and Isabel. So we had a nice chat with the kids and caught up on all of the goss from home.

Breakfast was a repeat of yesterday, with bacon and eggs followed by croissants. We also picked up a “to go” lunch bag so that we wouldn’t starve on the trip today.

We got our bags, checked out of the hotel, and wandered acoss the road to the train station to board. Carriage 4, seats 148 and 149 were our reserved seats. On a side note, it appears that the VY trains in Norway are made by the same people who made QR’s Next Generation Rollingstock (NGR) … although I expect that fact will only be of interest to a very small group of people.

Or maybe only to me. Occupational hazzard.

It seems that a popular pasttime in Norway is to go skiing, and the train was absolutely packed. It’s certainly cold enough to go skiing, but why none of these people are at work and paying taxes is beyond me.

We found our seats, and found two people sitting in them – a couple of young dudes on their way to the ski fields. With just a little bit of encouragement, they took the hint and found themselves a nice seat on the floor. We had paid for reserved seats, after all.

There were people everywhere. In fact, one person tried to get through from one carriage to the next and gave up – there were too many bags, and bodies, and ski gear in the way.

I couldn’t help but wonder how this was a safe or acceptable situation, but what do I know … ? While I did work for QR, I was in ICT, not operations.

There were about 5 or 6 stops between Bergen and our destination (Voss). We got to the first stop and the train stopped, with an announcement that the train was overloaded, and wouldn’t be going anywhere. A new, longer train was coming.

Which was all a little concerning, because our Norway in a Nutshell trip only had about a 30 minute break between the arrival of the train and the departure of the next bus, and we had already lost 20 minutes with another 20 minutes until the next train arrived.

All of the people going skiing poured out of the original train and surged forward onto the new train to claim a seat.

Fortunately we still had reserved seats, and we were able to claim our seats and continue the journey. Despite the electronic “seat reserved” signs above our seats, there were – once again – people sitting in our seats but we moved them along.

There were a couple from Mississippi sitting opposite us, and we had a nice chat with them – he is a retired law enforecement officer of 30 years. They come from a place near New Orleans where we stayed on a previous trip to the USA.

They say that you should never discuss politics or religion, but our new American friend used the words “Donald Trump” and “that idiot” interchangeably, so I have a fairly good idea of his political views.

Despite the delay with the trains, the busses waited at Voss and we got onboard and headed towards Gudvangen. There was some very pretty little villages on the way, snow covered mountains, long tunnels, and frozen lakes.

Also some roadworks, with a warning sign that said “Din fart”.

Did you know that Google Translate has a feature where you can point your phone’s camera at some text, and it will convert it to english? Or any other language of your choice if English is not your first choice.

“Din fart” translates to “Your speed” (with a display showing your actual speed in numbers), so in future I’ll be telling MBW that I’m not farting (speeding). I’m sure that she will think that is hilarious. Maybe only for the first hundred times or so.

You can all teach your kids a Norwegean word!!

We got to Gudvangen and boarded the boat. Apparently it is only 20 minutes by road to Flåm, but 2 hours on the boat through the fjords. And what a pretty and relaxing boat trip it was!!

Bitterly cold outside in the wind, but we stayed inside and drank a couple of $12.50 cups of coffee. I’m glad that we didn’t have a brass monkey with us, because it would have been in trouble.

Did I mention it is expensive in Norway? I’m told that a “reasonable” bottle of wine is $100 or so …

We arrived in Flåm just after 2.00pm and discovered that our apartment has both a coffee machine, and coffee supplied, so we made ourselves a brew. At almost $300/night, this is probably the most expensive place that we are staying on this trip.

Not much more to report for today. I’ve mentioned that it is cold here (you can see that from the photos), and I’ve mentioned that it is expensive.

We wanted to look at the Flåm museum, but it seems to be closed until April. So instead we wandered over to the grocery store and spent almost $40 on some dried pasta and chicken for dinner, and museli and yoghurt for breakfast.

No croissants for me tomorrow, I’m afraid. There goes that winning streak 🙁

According to the InterGoogle, Flåm has a population of 288 people, and I think we have seen most of them already. Some of them are obviously locals because while I am wearing nearly every piece of clothing that I packed (and I’m still cold), some of them are walking around in tee-shirts and jeans.

Crazy Norwegians.

Tomorrow we catch our next train – the Flåmsbana – to Myrdal, and then another train from Myrdal to Oslo, arriving at Oslo just after 3.00pm local time, or just after midnight Brisbane time.

I’ve just got a notification that our luggage has been delivered to our Oslo hotel already, so that’s a bonus!

Anyhow, it’s time to boil some water and cook up some pasta for dinner, and we can do it all again tomorrow.

Ciao

#Europe2025