June 17, 2004 - Stockholm to Oslo to Bodoe, Norway

     This was mostly a travel day.  All in all, it worked out without disaster though we dodged the bullet a couple of times.  The Swedish trains are wonderful (as were the Danish) and whisked us to the airport in 20 minutes.  The central train station, moreover, was just a block from our hotel and delivered us to the basement of the airport terminal.  Check-in at Stockholm Airport was a little dodgey, because, I think, we had a trainee.  She took forever with the people ahead of us (such that everyone behind us moved to another line and they all beat us).  Then she printed three sets of boarding passes for us that she tore up and did over.  However, we had a little time in the SAS Lounge, had our plane delayed ten minutes, and had a smooth (45 minute) flight to Oslo.

     We had been warned in Stockholm that we would have to collect our bags in Oslo and pass through customs.  This turned out to involve (1) picking up our bags from the baggage carousel, (2) walking through the door marked, "Nothing to Declare," and (3) turning them in again on the other side.  I shouldn't complain.  If Ashcroft were in charge, we would have been strip-searched.

The flight out of Oslo was delayed about half an hour, which thrilled everyone, as you can tell.  We got to do some people watching, which wasn't as exciting as you might imagine.      The flight to Bodoe was jammed, mostly with overweight, loud, and pushy passengers.  It was the first flight so far that I didn't actually enjoy.      At Bodoe, we took the bus to town.  Despite being told, "no one takes it," it was jammed with the overweight, loud, and pushy people mentioned above--and their luggage, all of which was heaped up in the back part of the bus.  At the first stop, one of our big bags got rolled out the rear door and was hanging just above the sidewalk.  So I spent the rest of the (reasonably short) trip standing guard over the luggage and looking menacing.

This is our hotel: the red building in the center of the photo on the left.  Although the town of Bodoe reminds me of the TV series, Northern Exposure, the hotel looks to be comfortable and warm.  (It is a tad chilly here, as you can tell from the picture of Sheila in an indoor shopping mall during our exploration of the town.)      Most important of all, the Rica Hotel has wireless internet access, though you have to pay for it.  I did get a little spoiled by the Stockholm Sheraton with 24/7 free wireless access.      These pictures were taken around 6:00 p.m.  Still pretty light, despite overcast, since this is the land of the Midnight Sun.  More dramatically, check out the final set of pictures.

The Land of the Midnight Sun (midnight, June 17, 2004)

     The last two pictures give a good sense of the experience of light that we had.  The picture of Sheila is darker than we experienced due to my shooting into the sun, which closed down the camera's aperture.



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