Baby, It's Cold Outside!

But before I blog about how cold it is, let me go back to yesterday. Larry and I received an invitation to go to the Art Gallery to meet Howard Beheren's, the artist of the painting we bought. We went after dinner and me him, his wife, son and daughter. We were asked to have dinner with him and several other well know artists that are on board this cruise. We had to decline b/c we had just eaten dinner. Anyway, we got a picture made with the artist and the painting we bought. We will hopefully get it autographed. Rob, do you like anything by Michael Goddard? Look him up. Every time we see his work on board, we think you would like his stuff. He's on board as well.

Back to today. It really was a cold day, but a beautiful, cloudy, misty, rainy day. I say beautiful, b/c this are is just gorgeous. Even clouds and rain can't mess this up. We arrived at Hellesylt this morning at about 8 and let off a few passengers who were go on a tour and would meet us in Geiranger later in the day. Then we slowly cruised through the Geiranger Fjord and saw many, many beautiful waterfalls and mountains. Our excursion was up the mountain, hairpin curves, stopping along the way to take pictures of the village, fjord and our ship. After 3000 ft up, we stopped for dessert and coffee. Then on up 2000 more ft., twisty turny curves. I guess - b/c it was so foggy that only the bus driver knew where the road was. Maybe it was a good thing that we couldn't see the cliffs on the side of the bus. All in all, it was a wonderful day. And very educational! WE learned that Norway has only 2 seasons. White winter and green winter. That's very true. It was very cold today. We learned that the kindergarten has 13 students and the rest of the school has 35. We learned that the nursing center has 2 inhabitants - a 96 yr old man and an 82 yr old man. It has 2 employees - a 75 yr old woman and a 62 yr old woman. Supposedly all they do all day is make biscuits and give them away. Yeah, right!! We learned that snow skiing is done in the summer months only b/c it's impossible to get to the slopes the rest of the year. AND, there are no ski lifts. It's a 2 to 2 1/2 hr hike up the mountain and a 5 minute ski down. Do this twice and the day is spent! WE learned that the population of Geiranger is 420, but when one cruise ship is in port, it's about 3420. Sometimes there are 5 cruise ships in port at once!

We watched our return trip out of the fjords - waterfalls are beautiful here - then we went to dinner. Turning in early tonight - 10pm so we can be up and out of here for a visit to Trondheim tomorrow.

Hope all is well at home!