23 Oct - 69.725 Degrees Latitude

Jamie & I made it to Kirkenes. We're a few miles from the Russian border, above the article circle, and the hotel room window is still opened a crack. That didn't stop Jamie from checking in early. He's a bit tuckered out from the traveling of the past 36 hours.

After I finished up work today, we did some exploring of the local swiss cheese hills (swiss cheesed from the silver mine shafts). For lunch we stopped at a cheese farm where they served us a 4-cheese and cracker plate with tea. While eating, we looked down into the cow barn where cows were socially eating, automatic scrapers cleaned the floors, the cows browsed the colder outdoor pen, and the cows voluntarily walking into the milking machine to get milked. Truely happy cows (as opposed to CA CAFOs) and great cheese!

With the spare time we had, we parked in Oslo and took a walk around Oslo hitting the main attractions (marina, palace, stroget, train station, and opera house). Great to stretch the legs, though it turned out with Oslo traffic, the "spare" time was much less than originally thought. We made it to the airport 45 minutes before the flight and were able to return the car, check us in and our 2 checked bags, through security and to the gate with 20 minutes to wait before we boarded. Phew!

Kirkenes is a tiny, one-terminal airport. I had little knowledge of the transportation other than taxis were super expensive, there is a bus in the daytime, and town 15-20 minutes away. Fortunatley, there was a bus idle so I asked the bus driver what time he left (wanted to make sure we didn't miss it!). His response was "until the terminal is empty". Great. It was below freezing with flurries in the air, though barely a dusting on the ground. Looking forward to seeing this place with the sun up... although that might not happen until 10am. We shall see.

Jamie has already started dreaming of our adventure to come in the coming days. If you'd like to follow our ship, click here . Not sure what the internet access will be like on the boat, so that websit may be the only updates you get for a little while. Sails away MS POLARLYS!