IN SEARCH OF THE NORTHERN LIGHTS
The IGY 1957.*
We loaded up the ’53 Studebaker with Dad and Mom and all four kids and headed out of town to a high hill out of reach of the city lights. Dad was taking us on a special field trip. In 1957 there was a period of extreme solar activity going on, and the Northern Lights were flaring; well not down along the 39th parallel where we were, but the radio announcer said we just might see them on this cold, clear, December 21st night.
This was Ike’s IGY, International Geophysical Year, and everything was possible. Rockets with satellites were shooting off into space and measuring things around the globe. Explorers were diving into the depths of the oceans. Soon, family cars would be flying machines, but in the meantime, the X Rocket Plane with Chuck Yeager at the stick was flying faster than any plane had ever gone. It was a very exciting time to be alive.
It got dark and colder up on the hill. The stars shown brilliantly in the northern sky, and then, around midnight, a blue-green haze rose up along the northern horizon. It wasn’t much, just a degree or two above the line of the earth. “Look! The Northern Lights,” said Dad. It was disappointing. I had expected more. Dad really couldn’t explain what this light was or why it was there, but the IGY was going to find out and report on the phenomena this very year.
Soon, other interesting things took the place of the northern lights. BB guns, fishing, the cabin project at the Lake of the Ozarks, Christmas. The northern lights did not come back, not that year or any year since, at least not in Columbia, Missouri. Our collective knowledge improved through the IGY and subsequent years. In not too much time, we understood how and why the lights appear, and mystery went away. But still, I missed seeing them.
NOVEMBER, 2014
I am sort of retired now and have lots of time for facebook, you know, the world wide social media. Sometime in November, an advertisement started appearing on my facebook feed. Hurtigurten, the Norwegian cruise line was offering Northern Lights cruises in December. One could cruise up and down the Norwegian coast from Bergen to Tromso for six days and have plenty of opportunities to view the northern lights from the upper deck, being as how the entire cruise occurred above the Arctic Circle and the nights were 24 hours long. I thought this might be pretty cool and started sharing the ad with Cheryl.
Now, Cheryl does not like the cold and I have not been successful in persuading her to go on an Alaskan dog sled/igloo adventure, but what the heck. She is a sucker for cruises, and it would fit right in to our annual northern Europe Christmas Shopping Spree. I hinted we could go in search of the Northern Lights, on a ship, then take a short flight to Prague ~ Magical Prague ~ threshold to the underworld Prague. We have fallen in love with Prague in December. That did it. Abruptly, she decided on the trip and started making arrangements.
I should explain that Cheryl makes all the arrangements for our world travel adventures. A while back she discovered airline miles programs, and soon was buying several million dollars’ worth of stuff for her regional construction jobs on ‘ miles’ credit cards. In no time at all, we were flying first class everywhere for free. Hotels are generally free, too, with automatic upgrades to reserved suites. We have become very frequent flyers. So she called Hurtigurten USA to make reservations. Unfortunately, the US rep was an idiot who was only vaguely aware of the cruise line’s existence. Cheryl has very limited patience for booking agent idiots, and after a fruitless day, called the main offices in Norway.
There was still an issue to solve. The cruise line was happy to book us for a 6-day trip for $1699. The ad on fb was a special, however, and the trip was advertised as $879. The cruise line argued, but Cheryl pulled up the ad running at that very minute and strongly hinted that maybe some false advertising was going on here. Hurtigurten suddenly saw the error of their ways and accommodated us. Six days from Bergen to Tromso for two, outside cabin. Cheryl set about getting airline reservations and a hotel in Prague.
We were set. Solid reservations, bags packed and sitting by the back door, a child reserved to drive us to the airport. Plenty of time to get to the airport. We are seldom this prepared. So we loaded up and off we went, heading toward the office to get our driver. On the way, Cheryl got on her phone to verify the air travel. Just as well. Part of the flight was on Lufthansa, our (formerly) favorite airline, and the airline pilots had just gone on strike – again – for the 9th time this year. The entire trip was in jeopardy.
We were set to fly to Chicago, then Frankfurt, then Oslo and a jump to Bergen where we were going to meet Sofie (a former AFS student that lived with us) and her grandparents, and then board the ship for the cruise. The timing was very tight. We got to the office and Cheryl got on the phone to re-book and flights and the cruise. After 12 hours she got it done. Only now, we would not fly Lufthansa, but United, and go straight to Oslo and then Bergen, a day later. Then the cruise had to be re-booked which was even harder. Apparently, we could not ship out of Bergen now, but rather Tromso on the north end, and sail south. Cheryl got that done, and then went back to the airline booking to change our route to Olso to Tromso. Got that done, too, so everything was reset, only now we would not be able to meet Sofie and give her Christmas presents to her. We would have to stay a night in Tromso and so booked a room at the Radisson Blue right on the wharf, but would not stay in Bergen.
Oh well. The best laid plans of mice and men gang-aft- agley, as they say in Scotland, or so I have read. Tuesday we had a child, (our children are in their 30’s, so technically they aren’t children, but they still give me the willies driving the car), drive us to the airport, an hour away for us, and got on our way. Cheryl was very satisfied that she had defeated entropy once again. She loves to win, and I think she relishes a fight against entropy. In Chicago we hung out in the first class lounge for a bit and had some snacks for lunch before getting our personalized invitation to join the other first class passengers for the oversees flight. First class is definitely the way to fly if you can manage it. You are treated to a gourmet meal, snacks when you want them, drinks when you want them, newspapers, magazines, TV, and a flat bed with pillows in your little cubicle. If you happen to speak German and are flying Lufthansa 1st Class, the stewardesses will speak German with you. In fact, they have you in their computers that you like to speak German, so they don’t even ask, knowing who you are before you even take your seat. (Welcome aboard Mrs. Obermiller, Willkommen Herr Obermiller, you are seated in Row 12, seats 1 and 2, on the right side. They even know who you are when you enter the boarding area at the gate and quickly escort you to the 1st Class waiting area.) Remarkable. First class makes the long flight a fun preamble to the next adventure.
Some hours later we arrived in Oslo. The sky was clear and the weather temperate, but I had been looking at the forecast for the coastal areas with some angst and wasn’t encouraged. Seemed to be a lot of rain/sleet in the offing. Our transfer time was short, so we did not get to see Sofie, our first foreign exchange student from many years ago. With the change in ship schedule, we also wouldn’t see her in Bergen, but, hey, we had been up here last summer for several days. We boarded our puddle jumper for the short trip to Tromso. I was actually surprised they had an airport in Tromso, way to the north in Norway, way north of the Arctic Circle. We knew, philosophically, that planes fly to Tromso at least once a day, but hey, we were going into the land of the 24 hour midnight. Magnetic compasses don’t work right, and no sun for daytime navigation should the inertial and gps systems fail.
IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY DAY
At two in the afternoon we dropped down to the airport through a thick blanket of clouds. It was pitch black outside. I don’t really remember much about the airport, except the runway was very short, and that we had to run on ice covered pavement through the sleet and rain to get into the terminal, and the part about getting a taxi, the only way to get to town. We secured our luggage with the dozen or so other passengers, and followed the signs, in Norwegian, outside to a covered ramp going down to a drive. Occasionally, a taxi pulled up and loaded up with passengers. It was sleeting and windy. People wasted no time getting into the taxis from the open waiting area. Our cab came. It didn’t take much time to get down the valley driving through a mountain tunnel to the center of town and our hotel, the small Radisson Blu. We took note of a recognizable landmark in the plaza in front of the hotel, a Christmas tree lit up with white lights, in case we wanted to go out for a walk in the rain/sleet. My internal north directional sense had failed entirely, so I could get lost. Cheryl does not have a north compass at all and consequently is always lost so it did not matter to her, but we were in a totally unfamiliar town in the pitch black wet day. I get nervous when my directional sense fails.
The cute Norwegian girls behind the counter checked us in, taking note of our gold card status, and promptly upgraded us to their best corner suit on the top floor; that would be the 7th floor if I recall, with a spectacular view of the fjord right outside our windows. It was typical European eco-friendly cold in the room with typical European unresponsive steam heat. The wind drove the rain/sleet fiercely and loudly against the corner windows, which rattled and leaked air. I opened the curtains for the view of the fjord and saw, right below us, a brilliantly lit up Hurtigurten ship. Looking for the rest of the spectacular view was difficult. At 2:30 in the afternoon, it was black as coal out, with no relieving lights beyond the ship. We seemed to have booked a stay in the Twilight Zone, where the ambient light is swallowed up by the black beast.
We freshened up and went back to the lobby to see what we could do here for a day and a half. We had noted bus tours up into the mountains on the way in, and talked briefly with the tour guide about the possibility of finding clear skies away from the coast. He assured us the weather would be only partly cloudy in the higher altitudes. Tromso didn’t have much else to offer, so we went ahead and booked the tour for the afternoon of the following day, and went for a walk in the dark and stormy day/night. It was very strange. After perusing a few shops and dodging children heading home from school, we ducked into a seafood restaurant on the wharf to get out of the sleet. The entrance was guarded by a mounted head of a huge toothy monk fish. It had rows of sharp teeth around the jaws, then a second set of smaller toothy jaws around the large esophagus inside. Just like an alien. Clearly, nothing this fish chose to eat was going to escape that mouth.
Dinner was good. We had some sort of fish, only fish was offered, with caviar, generous portions of caviar. Very tasty, and left to wander around some more, edging past the ugly fish head, but taking some photos this time for a visual record. Outside it was dark, but the rain/sleet had stopped. We had the rest of the evening to get through, so we wandered the streets, eventually finding a movie theater. That might work, so we went to a movie, Fury, with Brad Pitt. All the theaters were underground, I guess to be eco-friendly, or just to get out of the wind. The movie, much ballyhooed by the media, was a horrible WW2 war story about a tank crew. It had no redeeming features and left us feeling ill.
IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHT
It was now late in the evening, and we wandered down the hill to the hotel, shopping along the way. A lot of people were out and about and the shops were all open. In one shop, we admired a reindeer pelt and decided to buy it for our son-in-law for Christmas. Nate is a big deer hunter, but not reindeers. He would love the pelt. Down at the wharf, we had dinner at the same restaurant with the fish head guard, and then retired for the night. Well, that’s not exactly correct. Not only had it been night since we got here, but our internal clocks were still on Kansas City time, where it was just midafternoon. Oh well, we were tired anyway. We bundled up in our cold corner room as the sleet came up again and pounded the windows. The ship that had been tied up below was gone now, so there was simply nothing at all to see outside. Pitch black. Furthermore, North had gone away. I was uncomfortably disoriented.
The next day we hooked up with the northern lights tour bus along with maybe 15 other people and took off for the mountains. We were heading for a way station on the road between Finland and Norway where we would stop and get some fabulous photos and delicious snacks. It took two weary hours to get to the destination on the snow and ice packed roads. It sleeted, snowed and rained, not necessarily in that order all the way. No signs of life along the road, no traffic, just pine forest covered in deep snow. Not a place to have engine trouble. The way station was a small 15’ by 24’ two story shack. The lower level was dug into the rock, the upper level was short wall construction with a steeply pitched roof. A ramp led up to the upper level where we were to enjoy a break in our fruitless search. The ramp was covered with ice and snow and went up on an exciting 45 degree angle. No handy railing. Everyone made it, and we were treated to a short talk about the place, snacks and hot beverages, which were necessary for a foray outside where, we were assured, the northern lights would soon be in evidence.
We all went out, the photophiles getting the settings right on their expensive cameras and setting up tripods. I didn’t bring my tripod, but it didn’t matter. The clouds and snow went on unabated. Soon some kids from the Philippines started a snowball fight. They had never seen snow before. I kept my lens cover on while we hung around a fire behind a wind break. We got cold and went back inside the shack for more cocoa. The group was getting a little surly by this time, so the driver decided we should get back in the bus and keep driving to Finland, where surely we would be blessed by a glimpse of the lights. Finland. It never occurred to me we might go into the land of the frost giants.
We went on up the road for another half an hour and, indeed came to the Finnish border, marked by a stone cairn and a road sign. There was nothing else there. We all got out and took photos of Finland in the driving snow looking for frost giants, the bus driver warning us to not walk around in the road because the traffic would not be able to see us, and not to stray into the pine forest where we would surely get snatched, and don’t whistle because it was stormy enough already, and one of us might have Finnish ancestors. (I do.) We had seen no traffic since we left the way station, but you never know. I did some whistling and wandered off to the forest to answer a call of nature and look for wolves and/or frost giants. It was great fun. I can add another country to my list of countries I have visited. Cheryl had had enough of the snow and stayed in the bus, so can’t claim to have visited Finland and seen the frost giants. Her loss. They were cool….or even cold. I took photos. We started back to Tromso.
The ride back to civilization was long. We napped a bit, but all the cocoa wanted out and we were both squirming. Finally back to the hotel, we found messages for Cheryl. Cheryl conducts business from wherever we happen to be, even though we happened to be a short jump from the North Pole. The issue was a one hundred thirty thousand dollar purchase of two dump trucks. Her bank had to have her signature on the loan documents. The boys couldn’t wait till we returned, so messages and faxes went back and forth from the front desk to Kansas City until all was signed and notarized. The hotel girls were enormously satisfied having assisted an important American woman business owner conduct business with Kansas City, admiring the way she ordered her bankers around. Now, we just had to walk our luggage around the corner to the pier and our next activity. This activity, sponsored by the ship, was a short ride on a bus to an A-frame church on top of the local mountain, and a midnight concert. Hurtigurtin was trying to butter us up. We stuck our luggage in the bus, and along with perhaps 20 other passengers took off. The concert was good, I think. I was so tired by then that my memory fails me. The bus got us back to the ship by 1:30 a.m. and we boarded and found our cabin.
I must describe the ship Polarlyis. It was tiny compared to Caribbean cruise ships. Five decks and a dining room was about it. A car deck in the hold because it doubled as a coastal ferry. It could carry 600 passengers, but on this trip only had 30 or 40. Our cabin was 6 feet by 10 feet. No closet, fold down bunks 20 inches wide and hard as rock, and a toilet/shower/sink cubicle. No place to store your suitcases. The window looked out on the underside of a lifeboat. We tried a bunk to see if we could sleep together spooned up. No go. Cold steel wall on one side and a cold steel curb with a sharp edge on the other. Most of the voyage would wind amongst the coastal islands and fjords’ protected from the Arctic Ocean. Parts of the voyage were not protected, but I will get to that later. This ship had no gyro-stabilizers. I suppose the Viking long boats did not have stabilizers, either. I suppose gyro-stabilizers would just rip right out of their mountings and go careening around the hold. In any case, on this ship, as we would soon find, one gets to experience the sea in all its’ tumultuous glory.
We moved out at 6:00 a.m. and headed down the coast to our first stop and a shore excursion. Apparently, the Norwegian lose all sense of night and day and length of sleeping time during the long winter night. We were taking a bus ride across a peninsula through a village and stopping at the oldest stone church in the north. This excursion would leave promptly at 7:00 a.m. Not much time for sleeping, but who needs it. The ship docked at Harstad on the Trondene Peninsula and let us off with maybe 30 others. We got on a bus and headed for Sortland. On the way we visited the White Church, reputed to be the oldest and farthest north stone church. It was cool. Small, like it was an outpost of the Catholic Church in the land of the midnight sun. It dated to around 1300, and had an interesting feature. The main door was carved with all sorts of graffiti. As opposed to most, this graffiti actually meant something. It seems that land owners in olden times liked to donate property to the church, and when they did, their house sign was carved in the door. There was also an iron ‘Elle’ or yardstick hanging on the door which was the official City measuring device. It was full daylight when we go to the church, but completely dark out. Floodlights had been placed to light the ancient cemetery in the churchyard. A few hundred yards away was a museum with lots of Viking era stuff.
After a nice snack at the museum, we headed on to a ferry crossing the Gullesfjord, and then followed the Sigerfjord on to Sortland. Our tour guide gave us a running account of every small building we passed on the way, and at one point made everyone get out and walk across a short bridge and up a hill to where he parked waiting for us. I somehow missed the point of this forced march, but I am sure it was significant in some way. Somehow, we found the Polarlys at Sortland in the dark and only mildly rainy skies. The ship had gone around the peninsula, venturing out into the Arctic Ocean, perhaps to avoid prematurely shocking the guests. It worked, because on the way southwest along the coast toward Trondheim, we weaved through the fjords in relatively calm water.
Perhaps I should mention my susceptibility to seasickness. I avoid going out on the ocean like the plague, particularly on small boats, like fishing boats, or this one. I carry a scopolamine patch in my billfold like teenage boys carry condoms, only in my case I hope to not be in a position to need one. So we ate lunch and dinner in the only restaurant and retired from exhaustion. The food was OK, but just OK. Nothing too savory or unusual. We had a couple of days to Trondheim, plenty of time for the clouds and rain/sleet to break up and see the glorious Northern Lights. After we retired, an announcement was made that the captain had, indeed, seen the lights. So we got up, put on our warmest clothes, and headed for deck 6, the top of the ship.
The clouds had broken some, and we hung around for half an hour freezing our butts off with several other passengers looking at the sky like turkeys looking at rain falling. Cameras all ready, tripods out, and not a glimmer overhead. Looking back north toward the town, lights gleamed along the shoreline, and perhaps there was a break in the cloud cover on the horizon. I took a long exposure telephoto shot of this, holding the camera as still as I could, because someone said one could sometimes see the northern lights only with a camera. After we got home, I reviewed the few shots I took and came to this one. To my great surprise, there were lights, northern lights. Too bad we couldn’t see them at the time, but here they are. We retired again, it now being 1:00 a.m., and went down to try for some sleep on the 4 inch mattress and steel shelf that was bed. Man, are these Norwegians tough people or what. Must be genetic from the Viking days where you just slept on the bottom of the boat with icewater sloshing around your pillow.
The Polarlys made frequent stops along the way at small villages to pick up and drop off commuters. I woke up for these as the docking process in the coal black night was noisy. A cable wench was located right next to our cabin, which had to be operated. The next day/night we were still negotiating the inner coastal waterway, passing lots of dimly seen scenic rocks. We explored the ship, which took about 10 minutes, did not go out on the promenade in the cold and dark sleet, and sat around the bar area fortifying ourselves with some desert while waiting for dinner. This was to be the special cruise dinner welcoming the passengers with fine food and Champaign. At six, we made our way to the dining room. The drinks were passed out as we entered; Cheryl and I taking wine glasses full of sparkling cider, we don’t drink alcohol, and making our way to the stern windows where we had our reserved table for two.
Dinner was being served at the tables this night, as opposed to the cafeteria line. All was well until just as the food arrived, the ship left the protection of the fjords and sailed into the open ocean. The stern abruptly rose up 20 feet and sank 20 feet, and continued to do this. Clearly, I wasn’t going to be eating anything. Quite the opposite. I had to get out of the restaurant quickly. I made my apologies to Cheryl as I turned green as the fabled Northern Lights, and headed for the cabin, lurching about and barely keeping my feet. Once safe on my bunk, I dug a scopolamine patch out of my billfold and stuck it behind my ear. Then I ate an entire bag of candy Cheryl had purchased back in Tromso. Sugar and the patch quelling the sea sickness, I lay there in a drug induced stupor while the ship danced around on the waves. Sometime later Cheryl came in. We may have talked, I don’t know.
In the middle of the night, a gale blew up, causing even more frantic gyrations with the little tin can boat. Have you seen videos of the destroyers escorting convoys across the North Atlantic in December during World War 2? The boats would crash through the gigantic waves, completely burying their bows in every wave, spume sweeping aft, but somehow surviving. That is precisely what we were doing. A sound like distant thunder rumbled through the walls. The hull was flexing and popping. I was, as I mentioned, in a scopolamine induced stupor, so I kind of liked the, to my senses, gentle rocking and friendly background noises. Cheryl, however, was desperately clinging to her padded steel bunk, praying the ship wouldn’t capsize, trying to not get tossed out, and getting bruised in the process. She told me this the next day as I remembered none of it.
I skipped breakfast and lunch the next day while the ship made its’ way into calmer waters. In the afternoon we were going to dock for 3 hours at the town of Svolvor, Lofotan. It was an opportunity to get off the tin can for a while which everyone needed. This stop had an interesting feature, Magic Ice, an ice museum. We elected to go there as it was just down the wharf. The ice museum was a large deep freeze containing several interesting sculptures made entirely of ice, and an ice bar where your drinks are served in glasses made of ice. The temperature inside was 6 degrees, but this didn’t feel too bad since there was no wind chill. We could barely open the door against the gale force winds. We wandered around snapping photos, but my camera phone unfortunately froze up. I had to keep sticking it in my pockets in order to take any shots. We stopped at the bar made of ice to get a drink, diet coke, in the ice glasses, and sat on benches made entirely of ice in front of a table made entirely of ice, then we left to go outside and get really cold in the driving wind. Interesting experience. We wandered around the port a bit looking for more adventure, but this town apparently exists only to serve the North Sea oil platforms. Finding only a tank farm, we gave up and boarded the ship for the run down to Trondheim, our next stop.
LEAVING THE ARCTIC
On the way south we crossed the Arctic Circle at 66.5628 degrees North Latitude. This location is marked by a globe set on a rock island, and is noted this time of year by the sudden acquisition of murky light at noon. Taking photos of the globe, we came across a little ceremony on the top deck. Passengers were grouping around a ships hand getting fish shaped spoons of cod liver oil, which they drank. It is some sort of Right of Passage for those hardy Norwegian folk that venture into the far north of the world. We drank our spoons of cod liver oil, the taste of which immediately shot my memories back 60 years or so to an age when mothers, my mother included, fed cod liver oil to children in December to ward off colds. The taste was exactly the same, horrible. Cheryl never experienced this as a child, she being much younger than me, but seemed to enjoy it. I was able to take discernable photos of the forbidding mountains as we passed. There appeared to be nothing living on these islands, until we came across a tiny village clinging to the shore on one. This village is accessible only by boat, and the inhabitants live solely off fishing the North Sea. Perhaps they also keep a long boat or two for occasional raiding trips to the Outer Hebrides Islands, having passed up the changing times from 1200 to now. But then, I don’t know where they would find the trees to build a long boat, their island being mostly exposed granite.
That night we docked at Trondheim. I don’t know much about the western coast of Norway, but I do know about Trondheim. The German battleship the Bismarck spent the beginning of World War II hiding in the Trondheim fjord. You will recall the story of the Bismarck, named for Otto von Bismarck, as told in the movie ‘Sink the Bismarck’. The Bismarck was the largest battleship of WW2 in the European theater. It docked with the cruiser ‘Prinz Eugen’, from which I claim my middle name. Bismarck and Prinz Eugen eventually ventured forth into the North Atlantic on a merchant shipping raid and were intercepted by two British cruisers, the Prince of Wales and the Hood. Bismarck sunk the Hood in one salvo, and sent the Prince of Wales running. She was pursued by a huge British operation and eventually sunk by torpedo planes. The Bismarck’s career lasted a whole eight months. Frightful waste of money.
We had booked a walking tour of Trondheim for the following morning. Morning came along with freezing rain, and off we went sliding about on ice covered sidewalks. I quickly noticed the natives had steel studs stuck in the soles of their shoes, and so had no problem with the omnipresent ice. I, on the other hand, wore my Wellington boots with leather soles and heels on this trip, which are somewhat slicker than ice skates. This was to be a very long walk through the uninspiring streets of Trondheim. But, off we went, wandering along the wharf and the fjord. I kept looking for some impressive government monument that would identify the berth of the Bismarck and tell her story, but I did not see a thing. After a few blocks we veered off the wharf into town. At this point I slithered up to our pretty and young guide to ask about the Bismarck and where it had been anchored. To my complete amazement, she had no idea what I was talking about; not only no idea where it might have been anchored, but no idea what the Bismarck was. I explained to no avail. I know the Norwegians don’t particularly like the Germans, and are still really pissed off about WW2, but I can’t believe they have erased the Bismarck from their memories. Surely the movie had played here.
The rest of the walking tour was just dull now. There really wasn’t any reason to visit Trondheim other than to see the historic sight of the Bismarck anchorage. The town had nothing else to offer except for a couple of brass markers set in the sidewalk that mark where a Jewish family was taken by the Nazi’s. Our little guide did know all about the persecution of the Jews and the entire history of the family. I am not at all fascinated with this dark history and would rather not hear about it. Our tour guide was even getting bored or cold and was taking off faster and faster for the ship. She had those little studs in her shoes. By the time we got back, she was out of sight. Fortunately, it was easy to spot the ship, it being the only one in the harbor.
We got underway late that night heading for Bergen. Only one more night to see the fabled Northern Lights. After dinner I made my way to the upper deck with my camera and laid flat on a deck chair looking up at the cloudbank. At least it wasn’t precipitating. No one else came up. I think the passengers were feeling a bit defeated by now. After a while, I saw a star through a hole in the clouds. I aimed my camera at it as it moved across the sky, and then the moon popped through the hole. I snapped a couple of shots before it vanished and waited as the hole moved northward, camera zeroed in. Was this going to be my chance?? No. The hole drifted off and the solid cloud cover settled in. The shot of the moon was a good one, but it wasn’t the Northern Lights.
So, we arrived in Bergen defeated. The trip was interesting in its’ own way, but still a disappointment. Tired of walking around on ice covered sidewalks and not interested in paying really inflated prices for gifts, we decided to forego a stop in the Bergen shopping district and headed straight for the hotel next to the airport. Early the next morning we were off to Prague, my favorite Eastern European city, for a few days of Christmas shopping. Magical Prague would, I knew, make up for the fruitless search for the Northern Lights. We always like to return at least once to places we visit around the world, but maybe we have seen enough of Norway above the Arctic Circle.
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