Hi, everybody! Okay, so the midnight sun sure does a number on your circadian rhythms. We did actually see it (the midnight sun) once last week, but it’s been cloudy ever since, resulting in a milky brightness all night. We’re exhausted and not sleeping well, even though we have a shade that blocks out much of the light from outside. I think I’m working an awful lot, too; I’m still desperately preparing one class after another in a panic and being an active lecturer in both the Global Perspectives class (the one all passengers have to take) and the “cultural pre-port” lectures. But I’m working at such a high speed here that I’ve had to type up and print out my lectures for only the second time in my life (the first was in Japan, when my interpreter needed the lectures in advance). To print out my lectures on the ship, it has involved running up to the 7th deck to catch the wireless internet and back down to the 6th deck to pick up my lectures from the printer. It is also particularly difficult to get up in the morning. We’ve changed (I think) seven time zones in the last couple of weeks, and now that we’re in Norway we’re officially on European time. Whew. Perhaps I’ll get used to it.

On the bright side, we are all thanking our lucky stars that the Atlantic crossing was so very smooth; not just from Halifax to Reykjavík, but from Reykjavík to Bergen as well. What a happy surprise! We’re guessing and hoping that from now on, since we’re in the port and shipping areas of mainland Europe, that rolling waves will not be a problem! Leaving Reykjavík was beautiful; it’s got a lovely harbor and even though we left at “night,” visibility was not an issue! There were people on shore waving to us as we pulled out, and everyone was abuzz with news of what they did in Reykjavík. The consensus among people we talked to was that we could all live there happily except for those long and dark winters. The natural beauty was so impressive! And that has certainly been the case here in Norway.

The Morgan Report: Today we went to Peppe’s Pizza. It was the best pizza I’ve ever had. We got “Sweet Cherry”(which does not have cherries; it has cherry tomatoes, red onions, and arugula) and “Fawlty Towers” (which has mushrooms, basil, and regular tomatoes). They both are great, although I liked the “Sweet Cherry” better. That was our first and our last meal out in Norway, because this is the last day. We went up to Mt. Fløien on the funicular! When we got there we hiked and had ice cream. Mom had cappuccino chocolate chunk and I had chocolate. They both were good. You could see out of all sides of the funicular, and the floors were tilted so that you could stand vertically while it went diagonally. The weather has been great: all four days! 75 degrees and sunny! We brought it with us, because before that it was basically winter. All of us girls are working on a play. Between parts, we’re going to sing songs that have no relation to the play; it was Rebeccah’s idea. The play is called “Angel on the Square,” and it’s about Russia in the time of the Revolution. We were arguing about the font last night. Rebeccah and I wanted script, and Hannah and Kathryn wanted curly. We’ll see how it goes after Russia. Bye!

So these first couple of days this week were spent on the music of Norway – the hardingfele (a localized fiddle with multiple sympathetic strings that rings and echoes in a beautiful way), the seljefløyte (a willow-bark flute with no holes that plays only the overtone series) and the gorgeous singing. All of the traditional stuff links up closely with the natural world. And, of course, I couldn’t possibly think about Norway with thinking of Grieg. As it turns out, Grieg was a native son of Bergen, where we’re docked this week. I talked about romanticism and nationalism and the philosophical ideas of Johann Herder (that European people could and should draw intellectual, moral, and emotional strength from their own native mythologies), and I gave them the biography of Grieg and played some of his music: Peer Gynt, of course, and the Piano Concerto in A Minor. All the hits! The student response was immediate: “Oh, that guy!” They’d all heard the tunes, but never associated them with the composer or the place or the period or the philosophy. I also lectured about Ole Bull (see below!), and taught them to play a springar (dance tune in 9/8) on the pennywhistle. They surprise me with their ability to pull these tunes off well on the pennywhistle, and there are also (of course) half a dozen who didn’t bring pennywhistles and sit glumly while the others play. I’ve come to like all the students in both classes, particularly now that I’m learning their names better.

The big interest I’ve had has been whether Cary and Morgan were going to experience any “Fatherland” feelings upon arriving in Bergen. Cary is half Norwegian-American and Morgan is (obviously) one quarter. Not being Norwegian at all, I’m experiencing only the deep pleasure of seeing it again as an adult and the almost giddy feeling of having arrived by ship! The last time I was there was in 1977 (I was 17), and I remember it as an absolute highlight of that trip. It is certainly one of the prettiest cities in Europe (along with Salzburg and Venice), with its lovely waterfront, market, etc. It is a joy to be here!

It turns out that 800,000 Norwegians emigrated to the United States in the late 19th century; one third of the entire population! No wonder there are so many Norwegian-Americans, and no wonder Garrison Keillor is always talking about Norwegian bachelor farmers who “don’t say much.” Norwegians, generally, don’t talk casually to each other. Our interport lecturer, Baard, said that if you see your neighbor of thirty years at the bus stop, you both wait for the bus, standing silently right next to each other. Can you imagine? They are, evidently, protecting each other’s privacy. (I haven’t found that to be the case, by the way; Norwegians have spoken to us repeatedly.) They also have such a strong egalitarian sensibility that it is considered immodest and unattractive to excel at anything (intellectually, socially, artistically). As a result there are no special classes for gifted children, and excellence is rewarded with indifference (except in the case of the Nobel Prize, which is awarded specifically for people who do things for the benefit of humankind – the collective, not the individual). Taxes here stand at about 50%, and of course social services and support for the arts are outstanding.

Baard (the interport lecturer) was big, brash, and unsubtle. He went on about how all Norwegians speak English, all Norwegians love America (but they all hate George Bush), and all Norwegians hate the Swedes (for being in charge of Norway for so long). And of course the Swedes hate the Norwegians (for being so successful since they discovered oil?). He said you can always spot an American because they wear white socks and tennis shoes. I had just said something about one of the traditional instruments and traditional music and costume in general to the students at the “cultural pre-port” lecture, when Baard got up and said “We all hate traditional music! And you won’t find us in traditional costumes either! All the Norwegian Americans think we walk around in traditional dress all day, but we dress just like you!” He went on and on, not only bluntly refuting the point I was trying to make (which I’m not sure he understood in the first place: that Norway is a very regionally-oriented place, and that the government has taken a regional folk instrument and turned it into a “national” instrument, much to the dismay of a lot of Norwegians), but also getting more and more laughs out of the students as he seemed to grow bigger and boomier with every sentence.

I was having multiple visions of the many previous humiliations of my life flash before my eyes as I played the good sport and laughed along with everyone else, jokingly offering to quit (and the ship’s videographer came up with a blinding light in my face to capture my “spontaneous” response) but I lost a lot of sleep that night wondering about how to respond. The next morning in Global Perspectives class I said that I needed to make some clarifications, that I didn’t think I had said what Baard said I said, and reiterated my main point, offering to arm wrestle Baard over the issue of everyone hating traditional music (though I admitted that I’d need to use both arms – he’s twice my size). I finished with “If everyone hates it so much, why are there thousands of fiddlers lining up to compete in thousands of fiddle contests every year?” Fortunately, lots of people complimented me on the graciousness of my response (whew), and expressed concern over Baard’s blunt style in putting down what I had said. And, surprisingly, he didn’t leap to his feet to contradict me. Later in my classes I pointed out that he lives in the far north of Norway, where folk music is rare (unlike the fiddle-rich southwest, where we are). And, of course, the next day in Bergen, there just happened to be people in traditional costumes playing those same fiddles I had talked about in the town square! So there! And Baard left the ship that day to go back to his home university, armed with a gift of white socks from the dean.

Okay, so after we docked on Wednesday (we absolutely could not get up for the 5 am glorious entry into the port) and were cleared for leaving the ship, we strolled up the hill to visit Johanneskirken, the church of St. John. It has a lovely wooden ceiling made of Norwegian pine and was a nice place to sit down and massage Morgan’s sore ankle. I knew the ankle was better when, a short time later, she was running around chasing pigeons by the lake in the center of town! We got some money from an ATM (the smallest denomination for withdrawal was 500 kroner, about $90) and just relaxed in the sun. We headed back to the ship in time for lunch on board before I had to lead the afternoon tour to Troldhaugen, the home estate of Edvard Grieg (“Oh yeah, that guy!”).

Troldhaugen (“Troll’s Hill”) is south of Bergen in a lovely semi-rural area (it was definitely rural when he was composing there!). Luckily the parking lot was not full of tour buses, and we walked along a road through the woods to get to his estate. It’s a rustic Victorian (blue) on a few acres on a point that leads into a sound (which actually looks like a lake, but it’s salt water). We got to see his small “composer’s cabin” by the waterfront, and went through the kitchen, dining room, and living room (with his lovely Steinway piano). It was particularly interesting to see Grieg’s original sheet music, and to see photographs of him as well. One of the photographs was a side view of him standing a couple of paces in front of a side view of a bust of him! The weather was perfect, at last; everyone was saying that it was the first nice weather that they’d had in months. I tried not to be irritated with the students, some of whom didn’t even know (in spite of the tour guide’s best efforts and all the portraits labeled “Edvard Grieg,” for Pete’s sake!) whose house we were visiting. Why did they sign up for the tour? Because the second half was a “city orientation.” So after our beautiful time at Troldhaugen we took off back up north to the city.

The instant we got off the bus, the seven girls in back (who had been chattering loudly while the guide was trying to speak) simply refused to move until I agreed to let them go on their own. “I saw the cutest shoes!” “This is so boring!” “Can’t we just go shopping?” “Do we have to stay with the guide?” Good riddance. I crossed them off my sheet and hoped that they not only got lost, but got blisters from their spindly little high heels. Hmpf. Luckily, rest of the tour went smoothly because they weren’t dragging behind. We visited Bergen’s old town (“Bryggen”), dating from when it was one of four centers of the German Hanseatic League in the 14th century. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and each building has a sprinkler system on the roof in case of fire. The buildings are set back from the harbor and include warrens of alleys in back (one such place was a center for the Norwegian resistance during the War; there was a radio transmission site there). Nowadays there are locally-owned shops selling handcrafted goods and clothes in the old buildings. Not that we could afford anything, as prices in Norway are comparable to those in Iceland ($5 for a regular cup of coffee, $6 for hot chocolate, $50 for lunch). We tried to eat most meals on the ship because the cost was so prohibitive.

After dinner on the ship that night we went back up the hill to Johanneskirken to hear a free organ concert by Asbjørn Myksvoll, a local (Bergen) musician. The acoustics were wonderful. I’ve wanted to hear the great organs of Europe because industrial pollution has started to deteriorate the pipes, and so far no one has the technology to re-do them so they sound as good as they used to. Estimates are that in ten years, none of the pipes will function anymore because they’ll be so corroded. As you can imagine, I have a sense of urgency about hearing all the organs I can! Anyway, he started off with Bach (Prelude and Fugue in A minor), and played works by Mendelsohn, Guilmant, Nielsen (both Ludvig and Carl), Hilding Rosenberg, and Marcel Dupré. Our favorites were the Bach and the two preludes by Carl Nielsen. We sat at the side of the church so we could see the organ and hear well, and it was very gratifying to experience some sternum-shaking moments with the low notes. A number of people from the ship were in the audience, including at least one of the ship’s crew.

On Thursday we went on another tour (this time I wasn’t leading it) to the estate of Ole Bull (“Ole” is pronounced “Oola”) about 45 minutes outside of town. Ole Bull was a flamboyant 19th century violinist who traveled all over Europe and the United States, and (along with his friend Grieg) put Norway on the musical map. He became very wealthy, and his home is an architectural gem that I was eager to see. Our tour guide was perfectly Norwegian looking, but she was born in Detroit and moved here when she was fifteen. Her English and her Norwegian were fluent! We stopped at the ruins of a little monastery – solid green with lots of young raspberry bushes sprouting up and in flower. It was very pretty.

We came to a little harbor, where we boarded the “Ole Bull” – a small passenger ferry that took us on a five-minute ride across a sound to a pretty island. On the island was a strange and beautiful wooden home/castle that was reminiscent of the Alhambra in Granada! It had elements from the many places Ole Bull had visited in his life, and was designed to his specifications. There was a striking onion dome, lots of latticework, and the inside had carved Islamic patterns in the wood, columns of wood carved to look like thick ropes intertwined, six and eight-pointed stars and traditional Norwegian rosemaling (folk art carving), chandeliers in three styles, etc. What a dazzling place! There were also four of Ole Bull’s violins, including a Guarneri! After we were finished with the house, we walked around on the island for half an hour. It was in so many ways reminiscent of home, with granite and pine needles underfoot, salt water and pine trees all around, sharp blue sky, special quality of light, small boats, and hiking trails. I kept thinking about Yosemite. And by the way, the students behaved themselves much better this time! I think they definitely wanted to be there! We were delighted to have a little free time to absorb the beauty of the home, the island, the weather, and the birdsong.

The bus brought us back to the ship for lunch, and before we went out again we just had to sack out for half an hour. I fell sound asleep, which is very unlike me in the middle of the day (though I’m so sleep-deprived that I hardly know what’s day or night). In the afternoon we walked to downtown (about a mile and a half, I’m guessing) and made our way toward the funicular railway that goes up to the top of Mt. Fløien, one of Bergen’s seven mountains. On the way we saw Godt Brød (“good bread”), the organic bread shop, where we bought a thick, heavy loaf of seed bread: sunflower seeds and more all throughout a base of whole wheat. After three weeks of seeing nothing more hearty on the ship than Wonder bread, it was a great moment to just tear off a hunk of the real stuff and sink our teeth into it! It reminded me of that rough whole wheat bread that they used to sell at the Renaissance Faire when I was a kid: 25¢ for one fourth of a loaf.

We also stopped at the famous fish and flower market right at the Torget harbor. There were big ol’ slabs of large salmon, halibut, whale meat and many other fish along with rows of shrimp and lobster, crabs, canned and smoked fish, dried fish, reindeer/seal/fox pelts, Norwegian sweaters and mittens and hats, and various tourist goods (multiple variations of ugly trolls, basically). I took pictures of it all, and didn’t even need to ask myself if I wanted to try whale meat. A two-foot slab of almost black meat lying there had absolutely no appeal, and reminded me of krupuk paru paru (water buffalo lung chips) from Indonesia. Ick. I just couldn’t do it. But I loved seeing all the goods lined up, looking so bountiful and healthy.

The funicular ride was fun and quick: it’s about $10 per person roundtrip, and we shot up the side of the mountain in about five minutes, emerging into the brilliant sunshine and fresh air at the top. The view was all the way out to the North Sea! You could really see the presence of the ocean; islands and bridges and ferries and many small boats. With such good weather, lots of people were out enjoying the sun. We watched the view for awhile, then Morgan and I got a taste of Norway’s famous ice cream (evidently they are second only to the US in their per capita consumption of ice cream). I had cappuccino chocolate chip and Morgan had chocolate, in fresh waffle cones. YUM! It cost about $10, but it was delicious and left a strong chocolatey aftertaste and a happy memory. We went for a hike up on top of the mountain, passing by a lake with ducks (all the way up there!) and through lovely pine forests. While we were there we marveled at how so many Euro-Americans look like Norwegians (and vice-versa). I was just saying to Cary that how would anyone know, to look at us, that we weren’t Norwegian, when a woman with a dog began chatting to us in Norwegian. I rest my case! Actually, it was like that in Iceland as well; people spoke to us in Icelandic first. We found the free bus that takes us relatively close to the ship (a ten minute walk), so that got us back in time for dinner. The free bus passes right by the “Tattoo Au! Parlor.” (!)

On Friday (July 1st already!) we took it relatively easy in the morning, walking around a little bit. Morgan and I walked to the Akvariet (aquarium), about a third the size of anything at home (and far too small for the harbor seals; they had not more than 30 cubic feet to swim in). The big draw for us, though, was the pair of baby penguins (‘pingvin’). Their moms were leaning over them to protect them, and one was sound asleep for half the time we were there, but the other one was struggling to stand and kept begging to be fed. Cute! We also enjoyed seeing the startlingly ugly angler fish (which were also for sale in the market), the large crab, the rays, and the shoal of herring. We have been looking forward to having a nice Norwegian lunch, since we’ve been trying to be so frugal here, but we put it off for another day because we wanted to meet Cary back at the ship. Some of the students are obviously much wealthier than we are; one of them spent $700 just on drinks during our four days in Reykjavík (both in Reykjavík and Bergen, we heard it’s about $10 for a glass of beer; that’s still a lot of beer!). Others were budgeting $1500 or more per port! Anyway, in the afternoon we went out on the bus and visited the art museums; we saw some lovely paintings by Picasso, Klee, Braque, and others, as well as many by the Norwegian masters: pastoral scenes! We found the sole place where we could buy good coffee (“Mr. Bean”) and got half a kilo each of “Blua Java” and Costa Rica.

By the way, we can buy drinkable wine (red or white) on the ship for $2.50 a glass, so a couple of times a week we’ve gone up to the 7th floor faculty/staff lounge for wine and to hang out with colleagues. I often go up there for tea (they have urns with coffee, decaf, and hot water + teabags + sugar + milk all day for free). It is a very pleasant place to spend time, and students aren’t allowed there. The crew and staff spend a lot of time there, particularly late at night. Of course, the students have access to the outside deck on level seven, so they can see us up there, and they say that it’s like looking into the primate house at a zoo. I had heard that this was going to be a “dry ship,” but in fact they sell alcohol tickets to the students for between-port social events. How the students get any work done (since the ports will be coming so fast and quick) is beyond me.

We’ve been fretting about our very limited access to e-mail, our inability to make phone calls, and our inability to check mail at home and at school. I know it’s been only three weeks since we left, but it’s hard to let go of everything for this amount of time. Some of our colleagues are having trouble paying bills online because the computer satellite won’t stay connected even if we do make a connection. I usually manage to clear my account of the week’s spam just before the connection goes dead. Aargh! No wonder we sought out an internet café in Bergen! Actually, our internet system is supposed to undergo a major upgrade between Bergen and St. Petersburg (at which point we’ll be charged 40¢ a minute for e-mail), so we’re waiting to see if things improve. In the meantime, I apologize for not responding to people immediately; it’s been difficult!

On our last day in Bergen we took the public bus out to the Fanholt Stave Church. There were once about 600 stave churches in Norway, built using Viking ship-building technology. However, when the big Christian revival movement swept the country almost all the churches were destroyed because of their incorporation of pagan elements into the architecture. The gables have surprising dragon heads sweeping out on each side with Viking-ship-shaped tongues of wrought-iron fire. And the exterior and interior both have beautifully complicated carved knotwork (that was very much a part of Viking culture). It turns out that the church we visited was originally built in the 12th century, then moved quite a long distance to its present site in the 1880s, then burned to the ground by a Satanist punk rocker in 1992, then lovingly rebuilt. It is still dazzling, in spite of its relative inauthenticity, and it was wonderful to see. We took many photos! [Dad, are you hearing this?] Notice that I say “relative inauthenticity” because after all, the Shinto shrines in Japan are redone every couple of decades with no loss of spiritual power. The only issue for me is that the stave churches were originally placed on the old Viking “power centers” where their pagan rituals were held, and this one seemed to hold no power. Architecturally, however, it was incredible. And for that matter, the glazed tile roofs of Bergen make it positively sparkle in the sunlight. It is a delightful town and we’ve enjoyed our visit here so much!