Evening and Northern Lights

They present lectures with videos each day along with a program called, The Norwegian Way of Life,  a humorous collection of facts, jokes and a quick language lesson. Today’s was about the three Fram expeditions and was fascinating. Later they presented a preview of Tromso, the port we are visiting today, as well as some beautiful pictures of the snow art by Simon Beck who apparently works in sand in the summer time.

We have the option to turn on the intercom in our cabins through which we receive all sorts of announcements including ports of call at all hours of the day and night. But last night, there was good weather and that promised a possibility of seeing the northern lights since we are officially in the Arctic. This time, I left the intercom on.

Sure enough, around 11:30 PM, they announced northern lights were visible from Deck 7, and they were serving grog which would warm us up. As I had been trying to sleep in my cabin, I quickly put rain pants and long underwear over my pj’s, grabbed my ski parka, and a hat and headed up one deck. It was quite cold but not as crowded as I thought it would be. 

The lights were there as a whiteness in the dark sky (no colors yet), so perhaps I have seen them in Alaska. I thought they were always colorful but I guess that depends on the atmosphere. The grog was tasty - a mixture of cinnamon, sugar and possibly brandy. Betty and I toasted to the night, to the lights and Norway in general. Beautiful Norwegian music played from a speaker. 

Back in the cabin later, I spied a giant wall of rock and a spotlight out my window. I grabbed my over clothes (getting good at this...) remembering that earlier they had said the ship would be traveling through a very narrow fjord and rushed upstairs to Deck 7. It was gorgeous to be outside at that hour and see towering walls of rock on either side of the boat. They must have provided the spot light so we could see and also take pictures. (I don’t think they needed the light to navigate!) I also went down to Deck 5 which is the walking deck to check out the view there. It was much darker and harder to move about, so I returned to Deck 7. Soon, the ship was moving out of the fjord, and so I returned to my cabin and sleep. 

The walls of the fjord.

Spotlight so we could see.

Snow art

More snow art

A slide from a lecture.