At the airport I returned the rental car. Yes, I’ll be picking a rental car back up on Sunday. Next week I will again drop it off on Friday, and pick it up on Sunday. You’d think it’d be cheaper to rent it for a whole month. However, the Avis lady did the calculations at the counter and confirmed it’d be $55 cheaper (+ cost of weekend airport parking) to turn it in on Friday and pick up another car on Sunday evening, and ditto for the following weekend. That’s fine with me, one less thing to worry about on my weeeknds. After a security check of my backpack, I was off to the domestic wing.
The name of my destination literally means “Live Die”, Bodø. Yes, it is quite the black ‘n white name, which fits well with a town that has 24 hr darkness for a month in winter and 24 hr light for a month in the summer. That is the purpose behind my weekend destination… midnight sun. Earlier in the day, I had looked at a map of the town in relation to the airport. It certainly looked like you could walk out of the airport and into town. Great, no bus nor taxi required. However, my flight was getting in at 10:30pm, so I wasn’t sure of the safety factor of walking that late. Wait a minute, … it will be light outside. I should be fine!
The flight was an easy 1h 15m. We were up above the rainy clouds in no time and headed North. The clouds began to scatter as we followed the coastline and I could see snow, glaciers, peaks, green valleys, and fjords. The plane began its decent and came extremely close to some rock cliffs resembling Half Dome (Yosemite) and other rocky peaks. It is certainly a flight path that would rock my nerves if it was foggy. Unfortunately my camera was buried, so I took mental snapshots. We made a hard turn and there was the ocean. The mountainous islands were quite a sight with a colored sky behind them. Very cool.
Upon landing, sure enough the town center was a 1 km (0.6 mile) walk, and it was plenty light out. It may as well have been late afternoon on a cloudy day. The town center is right on a harbor, and there was plenty of activity. I dropped my bags in the hotel room and went back out to grab a glass of vino. There was a guitarist playing in a white tent in a parking lot with some picnic tables hosting some jolly fun folks. I grabbed a glass of red and listened to the music (50% American songs, 50% Norwegian) and watched the action. It was now 11:30pm and there were people eating dinner (all restaurants were open including Subway, Burger King, Peppe’s Pizza, etc.), people had just finished shopping, and there were boats returning to the harbor. It was a surprising level of activity outside of the bars.
At 11:45pm I walked along the harbor for a midnight picture. Unfortunately the sun was still not out so I didn’t get to see the midnight sun, just the midnight light. It was the equivalent of a cloudy summer day at 7-8pm. I was exhausted and my eyes tired (even a little bloodshot). I returned to the hotel a different way, where there was even more activity through an outdoor mall. Once in the room I closed the black-out curtains and had no problems going to sleep for a long, restful time.
The hotel breakfast buffet was open from 7-11am. I can’t remember any other hotel that has had the breakfast open until 11. Might as well consider it lunch! Now that I’ve got a head start on digesting, it’s time to go do some exploring to see what else the town has to offer. My expectations are low!
 |
| From Norway II (Springtime!) |
No comments:
Post a Comment