Lofoten

Oh, my!  I've been VERY behind!  I was out of town from Okt 7-17, and it's taken until now for me to go through the pictures for a good post.

Part of the CoMEM experience in Norway is an excursion up to the Lofoten islands in the northern half od Norway.  That took me north of the Arctic Circle for the first time, and it was amazing.  First we spent Friday and Saturday on Polarlys, a cruise ship with delicious food.

The Ship

Food and Folks.  From Left to right: Shirin, Fitri, Isa, Trisno,
Aline, Bojan, Alex, Saud, Lijie, Ushanth, Rohit, Dimitri

We landed in Svolvaer, a small town on the east side of Lofoten.  That's where I saw the Northern Lights at last!  We stood for over an hour in the windy, 2 C night, watching greens and lavenders pour across the sky.  The aurora is truly surreal, and I can't do it justice.  It's like a rippling ribbon, or a flowing river, or a brush stroke across the whole sky.  It's constantly changing, and it's totally mesmerizing.  If you ever get a chance, go see it!

The next day we went traveled the island, visiting a few museums, coolest of all a Viking Heritage Museum.  The whole thing was in an 83 m Longhouse, shaped like a ship on top.  Everything inside was hewn to look like viking times.  They made lunch for us there in the main hall.  We were given cloaks when we walked in (the place wasn't well insulated) and sat along the walls while they cooked lamb stew over a fire in the center and served mead and tough bread.

Eating at the Viking Table.
It actually has a catch trough carved in for spilled mead and stew.

We went back to the hotel and after a delicious dinner we went to bed because we had to be on a ferry back to the mainland at 6am!  From there (Bodo), we hopped on a train and rode for 10 hours.  It was a comfortable one, and the views were beautiful for stretches of it, but 10 hrs is a LONG time...

My home for 10 hours...

We finally got back to Trondheim, and I slept hard.  The next day was Bojan's birthday, and I had to be well-rested!