adventure

Jet Lagged

I’ve been back a few days now and am slowly getting over jet lag. Starting to feel human again. Trying to adjust back to regular life. Reflecting on all I saw and did.

There were lots of things I liked about my Arctic Cruise and there were some I didn’t. I realized I am not really a cruise person. I kind of knew that already but thought a small ship would be more of an adventure and less of a “cruise”. I was right about that. It was an expedition. You never knew what was going to happen next. You never knew what the schedule would be, would we land, would we go someplace else, would the sun ever come out… The sea was rough and unforgiving. I spent a couple of days confined to my cabin.

This was taken from my second story window

Once I started on my seasickness pills I stayed on them. It saved me. As we went farther north, things calmed down a bit. Even though we had 24 hrs of sun once we passed the Arctic Circle, it was cloudy and kind of gloomy.

We kept going farther north in order to find more ice. We were looking for polar bears and they usually hunt for seal on the ice. Once we crossed 80 degrees north we had to head south again. We did find some cool ice, though. A lot of it was blue.

Svalbard was not what I expected. I thought it would be more flat. It was almost all mountains and fjords. It was difficult to hike around on land because not only was it steep, it was covered in about two feet of snow. This was the closest I got to a wild animal.

Reindeer with their white winter coats on

We were the only people we ever saw. It was empty and cold and kind of eerie. But beautiful and magical. The vistas were definitely awe inspiring. And when the sun finally did come out, it was beyond belief.

So, what didn’t I like? I didn’t care for the Zodiacs. Those rubber motor boats with 8-10 people on them zipping around the icy waters. They were tricky to get in and out of and they went so fast, I had to hold on for dear life. I was sure I was going to fall out of the thing. I thought I was the only one, but once I mentioned it, people acknowledged they would not ride with certain drivers, or they felt uncomfortable as well. However, most people, it seemed to me, were loving every minute. They had been on these tours before and planned to go on the another as soon as possible. Many had been to the Antarctic.

It probably didn’t help that I had just been through the third snowiest winter of Minnesota history. I was kind of sick of cold and snow. So maybe not the best idea to go when I did but this particular organization only does this trip once a year and I wanted to see the Shetlands and the Faroes as well. It was my only option.

So I didn’t like the Zodiacs, much. I didn’t really like being in a confined space looking at water all the time. It was two weeks. The first week was fabulous but it got kind of the same after that. We spent five days wandering around the fjords of Svalbard. Two would have done it for me. Now that I have been to the Arctic, I don’t really see a need to go again. Although I may have to go to Canada to see a polar bear.

But I’m glad I went. I loved the Faroe Islands. I loved the gorgeous views of the snowy shores and mountains and glaciers of Svalbard. I loved being in the middle of nowhere out of touch with civilization. No news, no idea even what day it was. The food was good. The company was generally good. I read two books. I learned a lot about birds, and sea mammals, and ice. And now I have been to the southernmost city in the world and the northernmost city in the world.

Here is a parting shot of Svalbard.

Back on Land

The night before we docked in Longyearbyen, Norway, we all toasted the Captain and crew and thanked them all for a wonderful trip. Earlier in the day I watched about twenty people take the polar plunge. They all survived.

Night or day the views were the same.

Once we docked in Longyearbyen, Norway we boarded a bus that took us to the airport. On the way we passed the entrance to the Svalbard Global Seed Vault.

I had an uneventful overnight in Helsinki and it was on to London the next day. I opted for a slower pace and stayed in Windsor for my last few days abroad. The castle wasn’t open on the days I was there but I managed to see a few sights. It really is a lovely town. With Eton right next door.

Windsor Castle was originally built by William the Conqueror in the 11th century. Eton College was founded in 1440 by Henry VI. You will need $56,000 per year to send your teenage boy there. No girls, please.

Svalbard, Norway

From Jan Mayen we headed north and spent another two days at sea before pulling into Bergerbukta at the southern tip of Svalbard. We took a Zodiac cruise and saw a seal lounging on the ice. The next four days were spent traveling the coast and fjords of the island.

We spent some time enjoying the view of the Fourteenth of July glacier.

We hiked over deep snow in Ny London to an old deserted mining town. They thought they had found a fabulous deposit of beautiful marble and set up shop with about 70 people. When their first shipment arrived in the UK they opened boxes only to find rubble. Because of the climate there were tiny cracks in the marble and so it had disintegrated during transport.

We passed by an old blubber gathering and whaling station. We stopped at an old unsuccessful site where they were looking for gold deposits.

There were sightings of walrus, seals, Orkas, beluga whales, reindeer, lots of glaciers and tons of birds, but no polar bears.

At one point we were headed to the northern edge of Svalbard and came across some beautiful blue ice. On the fourth day we reached 80 degrees North. We were closer to the North Pole than to the Arctic Circle. Six hundred nautical miles to the North Pole and 807 nautical miles to the Arctic Circle.

The weather was cloudy, snowy, foggy, and a bit mysterious until the last day when the sun finally came out.

Jan Mayen

Leaving Funningur, the captain announced rough water ahead. We needed to make sure everything was secured so it wouldn’t move around. I took my pill but not soon enough. I went to bed at six and my pill kicked in about an hour later but it was so rough, I didn’t want to try to walk around. I just stayed in bed until 6 am. From then on it was fairly calm.

From Faroe Islands we went directly north with Iceland to our left. After two days of sailing we arrived at Jan Mayen. During those two days we had lectures on whales, seals, Vikings, birds, as well as nature documentaries about the area.

During our whale lecture an announcement over the loud speaker directed us all to head on deck as Orkas had been spotted. We all rushed out and saw about six Orkas swimming around. Then we went back to our whale lecture. It was kind of magical.

Later that day we crossed the Arctic Circle. We all had a glass of champagne and a short celebration.

We arrived in Jan Mayen in the afternoon. We had hoped to land and take a walk but conditions were such that it was not possible. We were in the middle of nowhere. Jan Mayen was discovered by a Dutch whaler, Jan Jacobsz May, in 1614. It is basically a 7470 ft. high glacier-covered volcano that last erupted in 1985. The volcano is called Beerenberg and is the world’s northernmost sub-aerial active volcano (as opposed to under water or under ground). The island is 34 miles long. In the past it was a major whaling area but is currently a Norwegian military base and weather station.

We sailed all along the coast with lots of photo opportunities.

Unfortunately clouds were covering the summit but otherwise it could not have been a nicer day.

Faroe Islands

Sailing from Fair Isle, Shetlands to the Faroe Islands we came across some nasty weather. People who have been working on ships for 15 years were sick for the first time. I was very sick. It was a very unpleasant night. But by the time we arrived in Torshavn things had calmed down and I was feeling okay. I did contact the doctor, however, and got some pills to carry me through our next leg of the trip.

Torshavn is the capital of the Faroe Islands. Faroe means sheep so they are the sheep islands. We took a walking tour of the old town down by the harbor, Tinganes.

The village of Kirkjubour is an important historic site with a church dating back to the 12th century and an old farmhouse from the 11th century. There is very little wood on this island as well so they relied on shipwrecks and driftwood to build and furnish the farm house.

From October to May the sheep stay in town and in the warmer weather from May to October the sheep go up to the hills to feed. There are about 80,000 sheep and about 50,000 people on the islands.

The next day we sailed to Funningur.

Funningur is the oldest village on the islands. Irish monks arrived in about 625AD. The Norse (Vikings) arrived around 800. Today the Islands belong to Denmark. During WWII Denmark was occupied by Germany and the Faroes were occupied by Britain. So the Faroes had to have their own flag on their ships in order to distinguish them from the Danes.

Funningur is a village of about 40 people on Eystory Island. We took the zodiacs from ship to shore and the whole village came out to show us around, provide some history, feed us fish soup and pancakes, and in the afternoon we all danced traditional dances and sang hymns in the church. Plus they made a promotional film about it all since they are hoping to attract more tourists. Quite a day!

On our way north…

Fair Isle, Shetlands

Fair Isle from the ship.

Arrived at Fair Isle in the morning. A lot of rocking and rolling on the boat overnight. Big swells. Up at 6:45, breakfast at 7 am and then to the zodiacs at 8:15. When it was my turn to board the zodiac there was a huge swell and I ended up to my knees in water. The attempt was aborted and I had to go back and wait for the next boat. I managed to get to land but had to wait for a dry pair of boots.

Since I had such a traumatic experience and had a late start waiting for dry boots, everybody was taking care of me and I ended up in a car that took me to the museum. For most people it was an hour walk. So I had a bit different experience but it was very interesting nonetheless. The woman driving was originally from the Netherlands but lived in England for many years and moved to Fair Isle about 16 years ago.

The museum was in a one room stone building and run by a Fair Isle native who said her family moved to the island in the 1600’s. Since there is no wood on the island much of the furniture was made from or was actually recycled from shipwrecks. There have been a lot of shipwrecks over the past 200 years.

The island has about 70 inhabitants and is known for its knitted woolen sweaters and hats. Sheep were everywhere. It also has a large puffin colony. From the museum we went to the town hall where knitters and artists had displayed their items for sale.

The landscape was stunning.

My Morning Walk

Alyth, Scotland

Enjoyed my time in Alyth. Stayed at the Tigh na Leigh guesthouse on Airlie street. Nice hosts, clean, excellent food. They serve breakfast every day and dinner three nights a week. I ate dinner one night at the Lands of Loyal hotel situated above town on Loyal hill. Nice views of the valley and good food.

It was a beautiful day so had a nice walk along the Den of Alyth.

I stopped at a cafe in town for a sandwich at lunchtime. It was the meeting point for the local ladies who lunch group. All with their walkers in tow.

In the center of town there is a small museum only open in the afternoon. The caretaker was very knowledgeable and interested in helping people with any questions they had about the history of the area. He spent some time with me working on genealogy questions.

London to Dundee

I arrived in London at about 8 am after an eight hour plane ride and a six hour time difference. There was a bright moon over the Atlantic. I took the Heathrow Express train from the airport to Paddington Station. Instead of messing with the Tube, I just hopped a taxi on to King’s Cross.

I enjoyed watching the masses of people posing for pictures at Harry Potter’s Platform 9 and 3/4. The line was very long. My train didn’t leave until 2 so I had plenty of time to watch them.

Trains are so much more enjoyable than planes. I had a six hour ride from London to Dundee. I met a woman who told me she had been a guest at the coronation the previous day. They had to be there early and by the time it was over they had been there six hours with nothing to eat or drink or access to toilets. It was kind of grueling but she thought it was very exciting. She saw all kinds of celebrities. She was most excited to see Kenneth Branagh. The railway gave each of us a Coronation Chocolate.

I was in first class and the guy in front of me was enjoying a free beer when the ticket lady came by. Not only did he have the wrong ticket but it was a coach class wrong ticket. She was very nice and tried to convert the ticket so he would only have to pay the difference instead of buying a whole new ticket but his credit card never did go through. Lucky for him he wasn’t going far.

The bright yellow crop growing everywhere is rapeseed which is made into oil. I was told it has an unpleasant odor.

We all took pictures of the Angel of the North. Located at Gateshead, the sculpture was finished in 1998 by Antony Gormley. it is the largest angel in the world. It is 66 ft. tall and has a wingspan of 177 ft. And it can withstand winds of over 100 mph.

There were lots of interesting buildings in Newcastle. Hard to capture them on a train. Immediately past Newcastle we ran into fog.

It was foggy off and on from there but lifted at intervals.

I checked into my hotel in Dundee, had a quick supper, drank a bunch of beer, watched the end of the Coronation Concert with Lionel Richie and Katie Perry and others. And then I passed out. I was up for 32 hours and then I was not. I’m just taking I easy today!

Travel Time

condor airplane on grey concrete airport — Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

I figure I’ve been in about 80 airports around the world. That’s a lot of time spent in airports. I started out at 7 months and just kept going. As a typical TCK, I learned to fly before I walked. By the time I was 11 months old I had been in a car, on a train, on a plane, on a boat and up a funicular. All those “at what age” questions in my baby book were full in no time.

I know some people feel at home in airports, or love being in airports. I hate them. For the most part, they are just boring. I have spent hours zoned out, jet lagged, and sleep deprived on hard benches waiting for the weather to clear or the congestion to ease up or to make up for a lost connection.

Some of my life’s most terrifying experiences happened at airports. When I was 5, my family was in a plane crash in Denver, Colorado. When I was 14, I almost missed my flight from Miami to Bogota. When I was 18, I ended up being wait-listed on a midnight flight from Geneva to Nairobi, not knowing if I would be stranded.

It seems that whenever I was in these kinds of situations, I never had much money and I never had needed contact information. I just got on airplanes and expected everything to go okay and didn’t worry about it. Had I missed that flight to Bogota, all I had was my parent’s address in Bogota. No phone number, no other contact info. I suppose I could have called my brother but I’m not even sure I had his contact info. After all I was 14 years old.

But I was lucky. There were times when things didn’t go that well, but somehow I always managed to get where I was going. Over the years, I learned there were times when you really could depend on the kindness of strangers.

Travel has become more difficult, more crowded, more expensive, more stressful. But I keep doing it. My next trip is to the Arctic via Scotland. Wish me luck!

Travel in Burma and Chinese Exhibit

Kalaw Hotel

In the continuing saga of my mother’s letters from Burma, 1955… The family took a trip from Pyinmana to Kalaw for a mini vacation. Kalaw is in the mountains so cooler than Pyinmana (and of course was where the British spent their holidays in colonial times). Traveling in those days and places was not an easy task.

“We started out from here last Wednesday morning at 7:30 – The Hewitts and Doss, our bearer, in their jeep, and us and Doss’s mother (who lives near Kalaw) in our jeep. Kalaw is about 160 miles northeast of Pyinmana. In true Burma traveling fashion, we had our water, coffee, lunch, soap, and all other necessities right along with us. Hewitts even took an extra 5 gallons of gasoline, but we passed three oil stations between here and Kalaw, so used up the gas and thew the smelly can away. Since our jeeps are new, we did not bother to take extra tires and parts, as people do who travel in older vehicles.

The worst part of the road is the first 20 miles north of Pyinmana, and that wasn’t nearly as bad as I had been expecting, so rather enjoyed even that. The roads are only one car width with all passing vehicles putting one set of wheels on the often muddy and always rutty shoulders. One bridge was out, but there was a definite rut around that was passable. This end of the trip is in the arid valley and very dry and hot. Not much vegetation – sort of like scrub-brush land at home. There are no fences along the roads, no road signs to speak of, and certainly no billboards or advertising of any sort. We didn’t see a single real automobile – only jeeps, a few station wagons, many trucks all overloaded and often in a dilapidated condition, pony carts, bullock carts (which often have a separate rut on the shoulder), and lots of pedestrians; besides herds of cattle, ponytailed sheep, goats and water buffalo grazing over the roads. As I say, there were three oil stations – one at Tacon, one at Meiktila and one at Thazi – all without restrooms! We got to Meiktila, about 90 miles from Pyinmana, about 11am and ate our lunch in a sort of park on the highway mid the stares of many local people. Then we headed east toward the Shan States and the mountains. The road starts to rise and we found lush jungle growth on all sides with a big snake slithering across the road once, monkeys chattering, flowering teak trees, and perfectly gorgeous views on occasion. The roads are not so bumpy, but are still without fences or barriers of any kind, and passing one of those big trucks on a sharp mountain curve often made one catch one’s breath! We arrived in Kalaw (rhymes with guffhaw) about 2:30 after making excellent time. (Note: 7 hours to go 160 miles was considered excellent time.)

The main attraction in the hill areas besides the cool weather and lovely scenery is the interesting bazaars where the different hill tribes sell their crops and handicrafts. These hill tribes are very colorful and usually quite friendly. I am always interested in their jewelry which is solid silver usually in the form of heavy bracelets or heavy large earrings. One tribe of interest is the one in which the women wear brass bracelets just below the knee. I’m sure these must be painful at times – especially if the woman has gained weight, for they are soldered on and never taken off. These people make lovely trinkets out of silver which they sell, and also very interesting and pretty baskets of different designs and uses. You may be sure we came home well-stocked with jewelry and baskets – as well as delicious fresh vegetables and a bunch of blue orchids which we hope to grow here.

On Saturday evening we were invited to Kingswood School – a Methodist Mission boarding school, also a day school. A friend of ours, the minister’s wife from Rangoon, was running it for a few months until a regular headmistress arrives from the States, and so she wanted us to see the school and get to know some of the children. We found the school to be a beautiful place with fine brick buildings set in the hillside amid more beautiful flowers. It conforms to government standards for schools and prepares children for entering the University of Rangoon. It’s teachers are all very well qualified and the Christian atmosphere, although most of the children are not Christian, is a very fine influence besides being very pleasant. Pre-war the school was filled to capacity but now with the troubled times there are only 30 boarders but almost 300 in the day school. I feel sure now that the internal trouble in this country is diminishing, Kingswood will regain its former popularity. After dinner that evening we played games with the children and then all sat around the fireplace (with a real fire) and sang songs, ending with a prayer to the tune of Brahms’s Lullaby. It was a lovely evening for all of us.

Most of these bazaars are what we call “a five day bazaar” which means the hill people come into town once every five days, and that is the big bazaar when all the place is full of products for sale. It happened the big day was on Sunday – the day we left to return to Pyinmana – but we got up early and went bazaaring before we started for home. Our trip home was uneventful and we drove in here about 3:30 pm.

There was just one blot on our otherwise delightful holiday – while we were bazaaring in a little village not far from Kalaw one morning, a dog bit Bill on the leg. Since we do not know the dog and have no way of seeing it within a week or ten days to know if it has died of rabies poor Bill will have to take the 14 rabies shots to be sure! They are perfectly terrible to take, but we can’t take the chance, for dogs with rabies are very prevalent in this country and everyone takes the shots if there is any question at all. But I guess we should be glad that such shots are available and that we know enough to take them.“

I wonder if the trip is very different today. They stayed at the Kalaw Heritage Hotel, built in 1903, the second oldest hotel in Myanmar – still there today (pictured above in 1955).

This week I took a trip to the MIA (Minnesota Institute of Arts) museum to see “Eternal Offerings, Chinese Ritual Bronzes”. The bronzes were from the museum collection but the display was what made the show. It was very atmospheric. At first I felt disoriented. It was dark and there were mirrors and “pools” and silks blowing in the wind. Once my eyes adjusted and I figured it all out, it was impressive. The rooms were Setting the Scene, An Animistic World, Temple, Ritual, Banquet, Rule of Propriety, Coming Full Circle.

Temple

Ritual

Banquet

Rule of Propriety

Like I said, atmospheric…

It is kind of snowing, sleeting, slushing today. Winter’s last hurrah.

Expat Alien

foreign in my own country