Pat and Norm's World Cruises and other adventures

August 13

We have never been to Germany, aside from several plane changes in Frankfurt, which doesn’t count, and a sail in the Kiel canal.  So it was a pleasure to sail into Bremerhaven.   First of all, along the way, the Danish and German coastlines are lined with hundreds, perhaps thousands of offshore windmills.  At night you can see red lights on them.  We learned that Germany has a goal of 50% renewable energy and has 6 huge offshore windmill parks, some onshore as well but not as many.

We had to get up very early for our trip to Hamburg, it is a 2 hour trip and with some traffic, it took us 2 1/2.  On the way we stopped at a highway station for a restroom break.  This was unlike any toilet I have ever seen.  It cost 70 euros, about 77 cents US.  After you flush, the entire toilet seat rotates around through a washing system.  Definitely worth 70 euros!  I didn’t take a video though!

The trip on the autobahn was interesting, there are no speed limits so cars can go up to 130 mph.  Interestingly, there are no more accidents there than any other European country.  They do look in their rear view mirrors a lot, though, as the Porsches come up fast!

We had a city tour and a river boat trip in Hamburg.  It is the 7th biggest harbor in the world and many container ships come in there.

The river boat was on the Alster river and the Alster lake.  Beautiful mansions line the river and there are many sailing clubs along the lake.  We saw sailing lessons in many place, standup paddleboards, crew rowing and day sail boats.  There are no motorboats allowed in the lake except the riverboats.

Our boat route

There are beautiful art nouveau buildings and many brick buildings, some from the 17th century that survived bombing and fires.

The city hall is a wonderful building, the courtyard in the middle has a lovely fountain and there is a restaurant in there too.

St Michael’s church has an interesting story. For many years, a trumpeter played in all 4 directions from the clock tower twice a day. Then the church ran out of money to pay and they stopped it.  Years ago, a young boy from a poor family didn’t have a confirmation suit, and the church provided one.  He went on to America and became rich, when he died, he left a great deal of money to this church, remembering what they did for him.  The church used it to re-start the trumpet tradition.

There are 4 organs in the church and the pulpit is a work of art!

St. Michaels Church, from the 1680s

We had two wonderful guides and it was a lovely, warm summer day.  A few more things we learned about Germany:  Both mothers and fathers get 18 months of leave when they have a child, the mother takes the first 18 months and the father the second.

We did ask Lars about how the German people feel about the holocaust – do they feel guilty?  He is a young man, and here is how he answered: When I would feel guilty is if I didn’t do my best to tell people about it so it will never happen again. About 1% of the people do believe in the Nazi way and he fears it is getting a bit stronger.

We ended the day sailing out of Bremerhaven where a tall ship festival was taking place.  About 20 ships sailed right by us as we left and many more were tied up at the harbor.

August 11

We arrived in Oslo this morning at 8 AM.  What a beautiful city!  In the morning we took the hop on hop off bus all around the city. There are beautiful forests, parks, museums and lakes that make the sights awesome no matter where you look.

Oslo is the oldest of the Scandanavian capitals and its history goes back 1000 years. About 600,000 people live here, and of the 454 square kilometers, 242 is forest. One of the first sights we saw as we left the port is the beautiful modern opera house made to look like an iceberg with the “iceberg” sculpture in the harbor that turns and twists with the wind. It has won many design awards.

We heard that the wealth in Norway allows many people to own 3 homes and 2 boats, there are a LOT of boats in the harbor and a lot of Teslas in the towns.

We saw many of the historical buildings, including the Parliament.

We also could spot the Holmenkollen Ski Jump which was opened in 2010 for competitive ski jumping. It is huge!  I couldn’t get a picture, though.

The Nobel Peace prize is given out here each year on December 10. The ceremony is in city hall, but there is a museum called the Nobel Peace Center.

We loved the beautiful statues and flowers.

After lunch, we went on a hiking tour along the Akerselva River. We started by taking the Metro subway (which is modern and actually beautiful) to the  Nydalen neighborhood and then hiked back to central Oslo along the river.  There were originally industries along the river, but now they have been converted to shops, loft style apartments and offices.  The old buildings stand near new ones and the effect is really wonderful.  There are many waterfalls as well. We walked over 9 miles!  Luckily we don’t leave this port until 11 PM tonight, we had plenty of time to explore.

University students started here this week and were out in groups with upperclassmen showing the newbies the city.  Probably not much studying going on this week.

When we got back to the center of Oslo, we were tired but couldn’t resist a trip to the famous ice bar.  Here they give you ponchos and gloves and you enter the ice bar.  Everything, the glasses, the tables, the bar and the sculptures are made of ice.  You get a drink of cranberry liquor with white wine and get to sit on the benches, chairs or at a table or you can wander around and take photos.  Here are a few:

Tonight, we leave after our 3 days in Norway, and we have decided that it is a place we want to come back to.  We will have a restful day at sea tomorrow, then on to Hamburg Germany.

August 10

We had a lovely visit is Kristiansand today – we did a walking tour of the city, about 5 miles.  Our guide shared lots of information.  Here’s some of it:

• There are 5 million people living in Norway, and 5 million Norwegians living in the US!
• Minimum wage here is the equivalent of $20/hour US
• One of the foods Norwegians like a lot is pizza, it costs about $30 US for a pizza and $10-$12 for a beer, which sounds like a lot but when you consider their salaries it isn’t so much
• The average tax rate is 37.5% and the rate goes up as your income goes up, millionaires pay about 50% but they get a lot for their tax money
• Health care is free, including all hospitals, doctors and dentists, etc.  So is education except for college which sad to say….costs all of $300/year.  All transportation, bus, etc is free
• Their unemployment rate is about 3 1/2% and in Sweden it is about 30%, so a lot of Swedes come to Norway to work

The town is Norway’s 5th largest city and this is where Norwegians like to come on vacation.  The town center fits within one square kilometer, making it easy to walk around. It is on the south coast and stays temperate pretty much all year, but what bothers residents the most isn’t the weather, it is the dark. The main shopping street is closed to traffic and is heated so there is never a worry about snow there.  Also, our guide, John, said that when the young people get drunk, they can sleep it off on the warm street!  There is only one liquor store for each city, it is controlled by the government.  Salaries are pretty even, the person who cleans the street makes just a little less than a doctor. So it is a socialist society.

They say they have the world’s prettiest McDonalds, what do you think?

There is a tax on cars, so whatever you pay for a car, you pay the equivalent in tax. So the Tesla costs $100,000.   Right now is a good time to buy an electric car, which have the license EL.  This is because there is no tax on them, this will change next year and the Tesla will cost $200,000.  EL license plated cars also park for free.

We visited a church during an organ concert, enjoyed the charming buildings and many flowers and walked through the fish market which is really for locals, not for tourists like the one in Bergen.

August 7

Today we docked in the Faroe Islands.

First a few facts we learned:

The Faroe Islands are made up of 18 different islands, 17 of which are inhabited.  Two of them only have one family living on them.  They believe strongly in local education here, so for primary grades, each village has a school.  What about those families that live alone on these two islands, you ask?  Well, there is a teacher that spends two weeks on one island with those children, then a helicopter transports her to the other island for two weeks.  And she goes back and forth all school year.

Taxes are 45% here but everything is free, health care, elder care,  education, transportation in the bus system, etc.  Yes, even those helicopters and the teacher.

The population of the islands is 48,000 and there are 70,000 sheep.  And they wander everywhere.  The guide says there is a hefty fine if you hit a sheep with your car, not so if you hit a human!  I am sure he is using a little Faroe Island humor with that one.

There are very tall cliffs here and one sport is to climb up on the cliffs and hoist a sheep up with a rope.  The sheep grazes there for months and then the men climb back up and lower the sheep down. They say the grazing up there makes them taste better, but really the sport of it is what attracts. Incidentally, there are no trees on these islands, the sheep have destroyed them all.

Cliff that looks like an elephant. These cliffs are where you see sheep graze

We went on a boat trip to Vestmanna Sea Cliffs where we saw puffins, arctic terns and many other bird species.  Also, lots of those sheep on the steep cliffs. We sailed right up into the grottos, including one that was a dark cave.  It was spectacular!  That’s the reason for the hard hats

We then explored the capital, Torshavn, which is named after the Norse god Thor.  It is one of the world’s smallest capitals. They do kill and eat whales here, and everyone, even a newborn, gets equal shares of the whale meat.

It is very windy, and you might think they get a lot of power from wind, but no, only 10% because the wind keeps knocking the windmills down.

It is a very safe country – there have been 5 murders and 3 bank robberies in the last 300 years and no one locks their doors. Our guide has only seen a gun twice in his life.

There are wonderful houses with grass growing on the roofs.

95% of the economy here comes from fishing and fish farming. We saw lots of salmon fish farms in the bays, salmon ladders for the wild salmon fishing and lots of fish was being loaded on to our ship.