[I am home again but in the busy days at the end of my trip, I didn’t have time to post. Then jet lag took me out my first days at home. But there’s so much more I wanted to write about my fantastic journey.]

New Year’s Eve, Oslo, Dec. 31, 2018

When I walked into my Oslo hotel room I thought it might be the ugliest room I’ve ever seen. One of the booking sites described it as “industrial shabby.” I didn’t know that was a thing but if it means 60’s throwback colors of lime green and orange in the same room, I’m not for it. Also, it must be worst view of all of the hotels this trip; from my window I see the roof of the attached shopping mall and a small slice of sky.

I should quit complaining. I’m in Oslo.

I’m in Oslo! I have two full days, New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day and the city is still dressed for Christmas.

The train trip from Bergen lived up to its reputation as one of the most beautiful train rides in the world. I arrived on Sunday afternoon but it was already dark. Still, I hit the streets starting with Karl Johans Gate. The main pedestrian walk and heart of historic Oslo, Karl Johans stretches from the train station to the steps of the royal palace. It was still festive with Christmas lights and decorations and lively with people; such a great vibe.

This morning, I returned to the palace grounds. I was heartened to find that you can still walk nearly to the front door of the palace.

I always stop by to say hello to the statues of Maud (Queen Maud and grandmother of the current king of Norway) and Camilla (Camilla Colette, a writer and advocate for both women and animals). Most of the palace’s surrounding park is open to the strolling public; there’s even a sledding hill for kids.

None of the museums I wanted to see—the Vigeland, the National Gallery (where  Munch’s “The Scream” is located), or the Home Front Museum in Akershus Fortress were open for the holidays but I had a slim hope that they might be open in expectation of tourists for the holiday but, again, holidays are more important than tourists in Norway.

New Year’s Eve and Hungry

I must make a decision whether I go to one of the Indian or Chinese restaurants I found in my wandering today to spend the money on a real sit-down meal, or take the easy route and go the organic fast food place in the train station with very good Thai food and spend a quiet night in my ugly room. I feel I should eat in a real restaurant at least once and if not New Year’s Eve, then when? If I could be guaranteed a table next to a window overlooking the main pedestrian street, I would go to the Indian restaurant. I should at least give it a try. Every time I find myself being a little afraid to do something, I tell myself to stop making excuses and give it a try.

So I put my swagger on (this is my woman-traveling-alone walk meant to portray strength and confidence; all women know this walk because we use it every day; it’s our don’t-mess-with-me walk) and went out, down Karl Johans Gate and found the Indian restaurant I had seen earlier (that I was able to find it again was a triumph; most of the many miles I have put in on foot are the result of going in circles being lost). I hesitate to take my map out (screams tourist) and I usually only ask directions when I want to start a conversation.

The second floor windows of the Jaipur Indian Restaurant looked out on the holiday pedestrian traffic of Karl Johans Gate.

 

When I asked the hostess if it was possible for me to sit at one of the tables by the windows she asked me if I had a reservation; I didn’t have a reservation on New Year’s Eve; I was already thinking what I would settle for at the train station Thai place. She did have a small table by the window but it was only available for an hour. Not a problem. All that practice of speed eating in my working life is good for something.

My pushiness and showing up on New Year’s Eve without a reservation was way too ugly American but I was treated like a special guest. I ordered Navrattan Korma (vegetables, a creamy sauce, almonds, cashews, pomegranate, and chunks of homemade cheese) and it was hot, mildly spicy (I was given a choice of spiciness) and served with a separate bowl of rice; the sauce itself was served in a dish over a candle warmer. It was a lot of food but I ate every bit. My diet Coke was poured into an elegant wine glass. I was done in forty-five minutes sharp and didn’t feel hurried. I thanked the hostess for getting me in. I don’t know if it is a family-run restaurant but it felt that way.

I got back to my room around 6 p.m. For more years than I can remember, my New Year’s Eve has been spent at home, with a dog, watching Netflix, and falling asleep on the couch. So after my delicious dinner, I was just fine with a night in my ugly room watching TV and going to bed early (besides I could celebrate the Central Time Zone New Year’s at 7 a.m. the next morning at breakfast).

The clerk at the front desk (a young Swedish man who had perfected his English by playing basketball in California and was now working in Norway; think about that global combination for a moment) asked if I was going to watch the fireworks. A good viewing spot was only a few blocks away. I decided that, if I was still awake, I could at least check out the situation and, if it felt safe to be wandering around a major city at midnight, I’d take a look.

I was awaken by the sound of fireworks at 11:45 p.m., quickly threw on my coat, and headed down to the hotel lobby.

Turns out my hotel is just short walk across the square to the opera house and sits right on the harbor. A long ramp  leads to the roof of the opera house, several stories high, and is one of the viewing spots for the New Year’s Eve fireworks. A steady flow of people made their way to the roof of the opera house like pilgrims to a holy place. I made it as far as the walking bridge across a harbor channel when the fireworks began in force; I had an unobstructed view at the bridge rail so stayed put.

 

There were fireworks going on all around the harbor and all around the city. The two main spots were located across from each other on the harbor. The official display coming from the city hall that I had found earlier in the day during my random walking.

It is also traditional to get sparklers and so the crowd was full of light too. It was a mob but a fun mob. I was cautious about going out at midnight on my own but it was a jovial and multi-national crowd of all ages including families with children. There was a lot of ahhhing and oooing and kissing at midnight. The night was beautiful too, no wind, clear skies, and balmy (if you’re from North Dakota). There were some people dressed to the nines, young girls wearing mini skirts you can’t sit down in, and groups of rowdy but well-behaved young men who seemed younger with their faces lit up by the colors; it was one big happy group thrilled like children.

When the fireworks finished with cheers all around, I went to the one convenient store in the train station that was still open and I got a machine cappuccino and a bottle of Coke Light (no sugar).

I’m now sitting in the lobby of my hotel near a very tall Christmas tree. There are about fifteen other people hanging out. Two very dressed up couples are behind me laughing. A pair of younger couples are sitting in a circle of chairs talking quietly. A few others are just sitting in big arm chairs looking at their phones. We all seem a bit at loose ends but not wanting to go home after the fireworks.

So this is what people do on New Year’s Eve? This is what causes New Year’s Eve envy and regret?

I don’t think anyone is having a better New Year’s Eve than I am and I haven’t felt that way in a long time. Doesn’t it seem sometimes that everyone else is always having a better time?

But then not everyone can stand near the Oslo harbor and watch fireworks light up every corner of the city . Maybe it’s because alcohol is so expensive in Norway, but I didn’t come across one obnoxious drunk. There was no pushing or shoving, just a bunch (there might have been close to a thousand) of people having a good time.

I will return to my ugly room but all is forgiven. If not for the miserable view, I might have stayed in and watched the fireworks from the window. Instead, I was outside, in a mass party, watching the Oslo New Year’s fireworks reflected in the harbor.

There’s watching and there’s participating. Participating is almost always better.

 

I like to watch the working ship work; the unloading and loading of cargo is another thing that makes the Lofoten unique. It is not a tourist re-creation of sepia-tinted photos of the original working ferries that delivered people and goods up and down the coast to places that were difficult, or impossible, to reach by road; it is still the real deal.

I saw the bundles of Christmas trees brought aboard. I saw boxes of lettuce heads, not bags, heads; our salads are handmade.

We have three meals a day; breakfast and lunch are buffets and dinner is always a four-course sit-down meal (except for the five-course dinner at the end of the voyage). The service is impeccable and the staff and crew do everything they can to make sure we enjoy our meals.

At home my “three meals a day” are coffee and maybe a banana for breakfast; I often only have lunch on weekends because at work I don’t make the time, and supper is anything quick and easy and usually cooked in the microwave. I don’t think I’ve ever eaten so well or so healthy for twelve days straight in my life as I have on the Lofoten. I never feel hungry (and usually feel full) and I always feel well. That is significant. Who doesn’t feel at some point leading up to the holidays, bloated, off, or downright sick from overindulgence? Isn’t that the Christmas and New Year tradition?

I avoid gluten and meat and the chef comes up with amazing ways to make vegetables gourmet entrees. One of the servers is vegetarian and he makes it his job to make sure the food lives up to my standards (as if I have any standards; the food has set a bar that I never bothered with before). All the passengers agree–we are taken care of.

My two favorites on the ship are the to-die-for soups and the homemade ice cream. What I realized is that I thought of being a vegetarian as a choice to deny myself a category of foods. I come away from my meals on the Lofoten with a new perspective: being a vegetarian is discovering a whole new category of foods to enjoy. Being a vegetarian isn’t about what you don’t eat; it’s about the endless variety of food you choose to eat.

At home a good meal is something I often forget and then settle for whatever is handy. Good food combined with good company providing good conversation while dining in a classic ship looking out on mesmerizing scenery is the perfect storm (probably not the best choice of words to use on a ship) of culinary experience.

What so many passengers say draws them to the Hurtigrutin cruises again and again, is that you can be alone when you want to and you can be with people when you want to and, more remarkably, you can silently sit by a window surrounded by people with the unspoken understanding that being with people doesn’t mean you have to talk all the time.

When we dine though, it is a shared experience in more ways than one. As fellow passenger Phil said, “It’s about the people.”

The food is just a small part of the memories we will always share.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

One of the items near the top of my Life List (or the more pessimistic Bucket List) was to go dog sledding. There are places to do this in northern Minnesota (my home state) but I had to come all the way to Norway to accomplish it.

We docked in Kirkenes which looks like the kind of place you would see dog sleds routinely racing up and down the streets. It was a cold day, even by North Dakota standards, and gave me the chance to wear all the extra layers I had packed.

You could hear the dogs, more than 180 of them, before you could see them. I’m not sure how this enthusiastic howling went over with the guests at the Snow Hotel that was next door but maybe walls of snow and ice several feet thick block the noise.

In the cold north, this sound seems a more fitting hymn equal to the mesmerizing soprano that sang in the Arctic Cathedral for us; the dog yard was a dog-lover’s heaven with every color and variety of the Alaskan Husky howling to do only one thing, run. I had to admire that.

We were told we could cuddle any dog we wish but I was skeptical. Huskies are known be one of the more wild of the domestic dogs with some rumored to be crossed with wolves. I’ve worked in veterinary clinics and dog pounds and on the only two occasions when I experienced a dog being unapproachable, they were huskies. I never blame a dog for this; mistrust of humans seems a reasonable quality in most cases, but I give them the space they clearly ask for.

But, to a dog, these were the most friendly, cuddly, group of dogs I’ve ever come across and I’ve been to many dog shows packed with less friendly primped and fluffed show dogs. These huskies were athletes and only the admirable qualities of speed, endurance, resilience, and teamwork will get you behind the sled. Something we could all learn from.

Rita, from London, and I were going to be sledge mates. I expected to be a coddled tourist. We were shown into a room with a rack of heavy-duty snowmobile suits, Sasquatch-sized winter boots, and leather and fleece mittens the size of bear paws. My own boots and coat were very warm, but I still asked for the biggest suit they had. Very much like the dressers for Queen Elizabeth, I’m sure, it took two mushers to dress me. There were zippers on each side of the legs that had to be zipped and someone had to hoist the suit over my shoulders and pull the sleeves over my hands. I tucked my camera into a side leg pocket, put on the mammoth mittens, and waddled outside where our team of six dogs were impatiently waiting.

Lucy, our musher, is one of those fresh-faced, sparkly-eyed, young Norwegian women that grace the covers of travel brochures and Dale of Norway ads. Only she isn’t. She is from the Czech Republic, and, having only experience in training horses, she answered an ad for mushers in Kirkenes, and in a few weeks she was in Norway. It was her second season and she was loving every minute of it.

Two of the dogs were less than two years old and yipped with excitement at yet another chance to pull cruise ship buffet-fed tourists through the countryside. Two of the dogs were older with expressions that said, Here we go again pulling tourists through the countryside but if it means I can run, I’m all for it. I had to pet all of them and every dog was obliging but still had only one thing on her mind, to run.

I expected to be strapped in with seat belts, possibly helmeted with a very non-traditional bicycle helmet, and quite possibly given a safety lecture by mushers motioning like flight attendants. Blankets had been mentioned and offered, so I pictured Rita and I comfortably bundled into the sledge like pampered Victorians on a Christmas sleigh.

To their great credit, we were not.

The instructions seemed simple enough: Sit on the sledge (there was one layer of reindeer skin for comfort), put your feet here (not near the runners), and keep your hands in (to avoid being snagged off a sledge by a passing branch).

Rita offered to sit in the back after adjusting five layers of neck and face protection, so she could continue to breathe which is always preferable. With our arms sticking out from our bodies for balance and the wind suits stiff around our middles, the technique was to take a deep breath and swing your leg over the sledge and fall to the seat as gracefully as possible. There wouldn’t be a second chance. A miss meant an ungainly tumble to the snow, in which case a team of mushers would be needed to set us upright again.

I will say though, in the photos, I do fancy myself looking like a true arctic explorer.

Once seated, I waited for the strapping in. The sledges are the Ferrari of sleds, as spindly as racing bikes, but tough and flexible. Where Lucy told me to place my feet was on just a very thin, maybe two-inch wide, rail of wear-polished wood. I tucked my elbows and hands in and waited for the straps, thinking I would be tied up like a load of flour to be hoisted on a cargo ship. I didn’t want to lean back into Rita because our layers of warmth were suffocating enough.

No straps. Nothing. Just the hope your butt stays stuck to the reindeer skins, you keep your balance, and you manage to somehow grip the smooth wood which is akin to holding a hockey stick with your foot.

The dogs are either very intuitive, intelligent, trail-smart, strong, fast, tough or a combination of these qualities. It took very few commands to make the trip: “Gee!” means right, “Haw” means left, “Whoa” means stop. Lucy told us two other phrases that I’ve lost in translation but one means “Let’s get going!” and the other roughly means “Get up the hill” (getting up the hills was the only time I saw the dogs show any letting up on their breakneck speed; the tourists are getting heavier every year).

Lucy has no need to yell. The commands were more reminders than commands to the dogs who already seem to know their job well enough. Between musher and dog, it was a concise conversation so unlike the owners of city dogs who stand on their steps and yell for their wayward dog to quick digging in the neighbor’s garden and come home already.

Lucy explained there were two leaders, the young inexperienced dog and the older dog at the front, who had the brains. Behind them were the “swing dogs.” “Their job,” said Lucy, “was to catch any mistakes the leaders make and correct them.” Finally, the two dogs at the back, which included an eleven-year-old, were the “wheel dogs,” the heavy-lifters with the strength and endurance, and, also, most importantly, the calm demeanor to not be spooked by the sledge constantly threatening to run them over or the squeals and whoops of two women.

The ride was not limited to a safe circle like the pony rides for children at the State Fair. We raced up and over hills through the woods until we came to the openness of a frozen fjord (which, in a long winter, can have ice meters thick). This stretch was straight sprinting and the dogs looked like they wanted to run to the ocean and back. Lucy stopped more than once to let us take photos which involved the even more difficult maneuver of swinging a leg back over the sledge and standing up (Lucy was always there to lend a hand). With mittens off, the fingers went numb after a couple of shots; this was one of the coldest days so far. Lucy had to stay with the sledge or the dogs, so eager to keep going, would have run away with it.

At this time of year, this far above the Arctic Circle, I was told more than once that it is dark all day (which is the flip side of the Midnight Sun in the summer). But it is not dark. The Polar Light is a magical soft light of grays and blues and whites that feels more authentically Norwegian to me than the sunny days of summer. It is not quite twilight and not quite dawn; not an ending or a beginning. Instead it is other worldly and a step out of time. You quickly learn to appreciate not only the lack of sunlight but the lack of man-made light, sounds, and chaos. The Polar Light is gentle on the senses and the mind and demands reflection. For those who return saying they couldn’t see anything at this time of the year, were not looking or seeing.

After the flats of the fjord, we returned to the woods with some thrilling turns and reckless downhills with quick curves at the bottom where the runners scraped against the ice and Rita and I whooped. The only thing we really worried about was falling off—I felt on the verge of falling every moment which only added to the thrill—was the tumble we would take, bouncing into the snow like giant stuffed beach balls, landing on our back with our limbs waving in the air like flipped bugs. It would have taken a team of dogs to pull us up again.

It was a good long ride but too short, of course. I took more photos of the dogs than of any other iconic landmark in Norway. I thanked each of the dogs in the team and thought how well the team is put together. The two lead dogs, young and old, share the task, think, learn, and agree on decisions and direction (bipartisan, you could say).

I think, if I were a sled dog, I would be a wheel dog, the marathoners of the team, not fast but steadfast and resolute. They willingly carry the load whenever asked and will do so until they drop from exhaustion; better to drop than to quit.

The swing dogs are neither leaders nor followers but correct, without credit, the mistakes of the leaders for the good of the team. They are also responsible for pulling the sled safely around curves (avoiding high speed sled-tree contact).

Don’t we all need a swing dog or two at times in our lives? Someone to bring us safely around the curves that life throws us?

Four-time Iditarod winner, Susan Butcher said, “Dogs have a lot to communicate to a person willing to listen.”

There is as much to hear in the far north as there is to see.

(Coincidentally, I posted this on Susan Butcher’s birthday, Dec. 26, 1954. Sadly, she died of leukemia in 2006.)

The North Cape (or NordKapp in Norwegian) is on the northern coast of the island of Mageroya. European route E69 highway ends at the North Cape making it the northernmost point in Europe that you can get to by car.*

The cliff is a little over 1000 feet high (and is fenced which seems a little silly because there are plenty of other non-fenced cliffs in Norway but I suppose “jumped off the North Cape” looks more impressive in your obituary).

Besides the iconic globe, there is a visitors center (with a lovely tiny chapel) and a sculpture, “Children of the World.” Nearby is a small facility the bus driver said is secret but then said, “I will tell you the secret.” It is a radar post keeping an eye on Russia which is a little more than 300 miles away.

I’m sure the North Cape is crawling with tourists in the summer but in the winter, it was just our group from a single bus and the place had an authentic wild forlorn feel.

The 2009 Trans Europe Foot Race started in Bari, Italy, and finished at the North Cape for a total of 2,787 miles (or 106 marathons; no, I’m not considering doing it).

* To state you can “get to by car” left out a few important details. Sometimes the snow is deeper than a car. It is a road most likely built exclusively to get to the North Cape because there’s nothing else up there (= no help if you get stuck). It is as steep and winding a mountain road as you can imagine and would make an excellent action movie backdrop (Fast and Furious are you listening?). Finally, if you really must use the road when it is closed due to snow, you must find a willing snowplow to follow.

** I have not photo enhanced any of the following photos. In the Polar Light those are just the kind of colors you get but maybe wouldn’t expect.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This morning (after another night of deep sleep only interrupted once by something, I’d forgot to batten down, hitting the floor), I decided to skip breakfast (a difficult decision but I thought it might be good to see what hungry felt like again) and spend some quiet time in the bar with a view of the flag deck.

As often happens (if we let it), it was the right choice by accident. The full moon was rising directly over the bow of the Lofoten. We were out of port and in the far north (I went on an excursion to the North Cape yesterday); there was nothing but black (no horizon line between sea and sky), stars, the wake of the ship reflected in the ship’s own light, and the full moon straight ahead spilling its yellowish light on the water.

Another passenger, Tim from Namibia, entered the bar. Tim came here specifically to see the Northern Lights; he was thrilled with the display we had two nights ago. Tim walked quietly to the other side of the bar, intentionally without a god morgen, respecting my writer-hard-at-work posture (at least I hope that’s how I appeared): shoes on the floor, legs folded under, tapping away at my tablet. Tim seems to be that sort of man.

The problem with a really good trip is that the experiences far outpace the time I have to write or even to reflect. Today is Day Seven of twelve days and I wonder why I haven’t done this all along, taken the time in the early morning to simply sit and think (well, there is that fantastic breakfast buffet and the wonderful care of the crew that makes me feel like a welcomed guest every morning at 7 o’clock sharp).

We will dock in Kirkenes in one hour. I need to pile on the layers for the husky sledge ride I will be taking. Dogs! I didn’t know dogs would be included in this trip. A repeat Hurtigrutin traveler, Pam, said it is the best excursion of the trip. When we met, we traded photos and stories of our dogs; hers is a Border Collie named Penny, and mine, Gem, of course; I’m certain I’ve thought more of Gem than she has thought of me this past week. I’ve started looking forward to the excursions off the ship exactly for the cold and wind and shaking the chill off when back on board with coffee and conversation and the four-course dinner served in the evening. The tour buses always have us back just in time.

I have been searching for words from the moment I boarded the Lofoten to describe the coast we have traveled. Passages form in my mind before sentences hit the screen or paper; I can “hear” a phrase or paragraph in my head (otherwise known as hearing voices, I guess, but in a good way, but, then again that’s probably what all crazy people say) where it often restlessly waits, before I finally get it down.

But nothing very worthy has been waiting that does justice to the fathomless fjords (well, they can be measured at more than 600 fathoms deep), the staggering slate mountains, the bleached snow that takes on a neon glow in the moonlight, the Christmas card towns that cling to the water’s edge like glittery moss, and the moon that has gone from a sliver to full since the start of the voyage. If I say anything, I’m sure it has been better said by better writers many times over. Describing the landscape is as overwhelming as the landscape itself.

Here in the far north, it is easy to feel forgotten and easy to forget. Forgotten because there are so few roads, lights, and people; you feel away from everything in the world that is unimportant. What seems important is the temperature, the depth of the water, the distance to the next port, the hours of light in the day, good soup, and warmth.

I’m sure some people live here just for that forgotten feeling.

Easy to forget because it is so unlike real life—work, responsibility, people even—at home. It is so bewitching because people actually do live here; it is not an illusion. There are modest houses with spectacular views (in the dark from the bus windows we can peek into the lives of residents sitting at their kitchen tables or watching tv with a twinkling Christmas tree nearby), shopping malls, grocery stores, and schools.

This is the seduction of the far north and the Polar Light; you could get away from it all. People do. People have and when asked about the winters and the cold and the dark, answer quickly it is god and you can’t help feeling they are keeping a secret, the secret of a good life.

I can’t say anything good about this trip because anything I say is not nearly enough.

 

Christmas decorations in Tromso with the nearly-full moon over the harbor.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

It is a tradition on Hurtigrutin ships that when they cross the Arctic Circle going north, first-time crossers are encouraged, but not required, to participate in the initiation ceremony befitting crossing from one cold place to a slightly colder place.

 

I willingly took my coat off on the cold and windy deck, sat on a chair looking like I’d just been arrested, along with four other condemned passengers, and braced myself for our introduction into the Arctic by having a large soup ladle of ice dumped down my back (inside my shirt) by undernourished King Neptune. The new employee of the Lofoten got the full baptism with the full punch bowl of ice and icy water dumped on her head.

I was surprised how many people didn’t take part. I wouldn’t have missed it.

 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

 

Ships are referred to by female pronouns; the Lofoten is an old lady by fleet standards. Built in 1964, she is the oldest ship in the Hurtigrutin fleet. She is also the smallest with the fewest passengers. All these are reasons why I chose her.

As a footnote, in somewhat fine print, an oh-by-the-way afterthought, she is also the only ship in the fleet without stabilizers.

If you don’t have ships in your front yard, like, say, in North Dakota, you would probably go with Wikipedia: stabilizers are “an additive to food which helps to preserve its structure…[keeping] emulsions from separating in products.” According to Dictionary.com: “any of various substances added to foods to prevent the loss of desirable properties.”

If a ship is your means of transportation, a stabilizer is “a mechanical device for counteracting the roll of a vessel.” In food or ship, the purpose is closely related. The ship’s stabilizers help prevent one from loss of desirable lunch due to it becoming separated from one’s body.

In other words, to vomit, barf, regurgitate, expel, hurl, puke, retch, spew, upchuck, and throw up (thank you Thesaurus).

The Lofoten is pure old-school elegance on the inside and a tough-as-steel, working ship on the outside. She moves in and out of port with impressive gentleness, never slamming the bumper tires at the docks or stirring a garish wake. If she was a woman, she would sweep in and out of a room, not as the center of attention with bravado and noise, but the gentility of breeding and experience.

There is always movement in the ship, a gentle rolling from side to side, as if you are using your toe to rock yourself in a hammock. This constant movement makes sleeping divine but walking comical.  In the cafeteria, passengers, who would be called drunks on dry land, are sure-footed dancers on a rocking ship, able to balance the white porcelain coffee cups, three-quarters filled with hot coffee, clinking against the porcelain saucers from the engine vibration, while staggering to the chairs that are chained to the floor. They grab hold of the tables, also secured to the floor, like drifting astronauts in weightless space, until they can finally sit down and moor themselves.

This gentle rock and roll is one of my favorite things about being on a ship. It is the primordial cradling we experience before we are born. It is why the fetus is grinning and the mother is retching with morning sickness.

It is Lofoten’s gentle and graceful waltz across the calm water, usually so level, that, focusing on the far horizon line, makes it so easy to forget we are moving.

But, given the chance, the Lofoten kicks up her heels a bit; in open and choppy water she lets loose and stabilizers be damned.

I had just eaten too much for lunch (too much seems to be the way all meals are eaten here; the food is amazing) and was leaving the dining room. I was wearing my Sea Bands (elastic bands that put pressure on the insides of the wrists to prevent motion sickness) like cruise jewelry but recognized the distinct wooziness in my head and sour taste in my mouth that signaled approaching destabilization of my lunch.

Fortunately, I’m starting to learn my way around the ship. I may not know the exact route to the lifeboats, but I know the fastest route to my cabin. I rushed down the spiral stairs and through the narrow B deck hall, fumbled with my card key, and got into my cabin. I dropped everything and sat on the bunk, closed my eyes, and waited for the Tilt-a-Whirl to stop tilting.

Seasickness (which is the same as motion sickness but on water) has something to do with the inner ear and balance. More simply, your body knows it’s moving but your eyes, in a ship for example, see calmness and orderliness—the coffee cup is still on the table and walls are not moving (if they are, then you’re probably drunk).

Closing your eyes shuts down the argument with the inner ear.

My lunch was held at bay. With eyes closed, I felt my way to the bathroom door and then inside to the nifty toiletries case hanging on the wall, and found, by feel, the Bonine blister pack. I opened one eye, just for a moment, to take a peek, to make sure I wasn’t taking the Advil Multi-Symptom Cold and Flu meds.

I kicked off my shoes and with eyes still closed, found my way up the ladder (a dangerous move to be sure but desperate times take desperate measures). I stretched out, kept my eyes closed, and tried to make peace with the lurching.

My lunch, the first enjoyed on the cruise, was some exquisite Norwegian cheese, a delicious cold cauliflower and fresh pea salad, a yummy baked squash hot dish, and a local selection of fresh berries in sauce for dessert.

I was able to successfully retain it all.

In the night, the rolling sound I identified as my tube of lip balm traveling back and forth across the tiny desk in my cabin. Then it dropped to the floor and continued its travel there with longer trips back forth over the floor. It was after midnight because midnight is when I crawled into bed. Crawled isn’t quite the right word for my ungraceful climb into the upper bunk. I more closely resembled an earthquake victim struggling from the rubble until I gratefully flung myself flat on the bed. It was a scene from any Lucy movie (Lucille Ball for you younger readers; google her).

There was more clattering in the night, making various scrapes and clinks as objects moved and collided, punctuated by items falling to the floor. It was like robotic mice were at work in my cabin.

I didn’t care, not a bit. The only sound that would move me from that bunk was the ship’s alarm (tested earlier with passengers forewarned) and, even then, I would question if it really was that serious. I was wiped out. Thirty years of anticipation leading me to this first night in my bunk on a Hurtigrutin ferry was exhausting. If the ship was sinking, I would get a few more winks in until the cold water reached my bunk.

I had set my travel alarm and there was no place to put it within arm’s reach, even at a stretch. I would have to get out of the bunk to turn it off. A big mistake or a sure-fire way to wake up depending on how you look at it.

At 6 a.m. (breakfast was at 7) the alarm beeped with the same urgency of a morning in real life (waking up in my apartment to go to work); like Pavlov’s dog, I was conditioned to stop the beeping at all cost.

I had enough sense not to bump my head on the low ceiling, but I had to twist around to get the front end of my body to the ladder which was at the foot of the bunk, kind of like reversing position in a closed casket.

The floor didn’t look so very far away and, thinking like a fourteen-year-old, I calculated that I could put one foot on the middle rung of the ladder and swing the other foot to the floor, easy.

I can’t explain exactly what I did because I don’t know what I did; my foot hit the polished hardwood floor and slid out from under me. I can blame it on the heave and ho of the ship. Like a drunk figure-skater, I over-corrected with a pirouette while still gripping the ladder with one hand, finishing with a face plant into the lower bunk bumping my head along the way. A move that earned a judges’ score of 9 out of 10 for execution.

I righted myself, hunched in the lower bunk, and thought about the lesson I had learned: never wear socks when getting out of an upper bunk onto a polished floor on a rocking ship.

The floor was littered with the restless objects of the night and the toiletries that were sitting on the small narrow shelf in the bathroom were tipped over like dominoes. Now I understood why there was a basket in the bathroom. Now I knew what needed to be tied down and what didn’t. And from now on, I will sleep with my alarm clock in the bunk with me.