Week One

This is gonna be a quick update, as I have twelve minutes left on my Internet rental.

Today, Friday will my seventh full day in Europe. So far I have divided time between Iceland and Norway.

Most of my time in Iceland was right in Reykjavik, which is a great city for nocturnal, pedestrian, English speaking tourists like myself. It is a perfect stopover spot coming from the West Coast, because you do not really need to change your internal clock, even though they are seven hours ahead of us, they stay up that late anyway. Hitting the Blue Lagoon on the way to the airport to the next stop is highly recommended. I wish I had more time in Iceland, but I expect to be back some time in the future.

Norway has been kind of a mixed bag. Normally when I travel I try not to let the thought of how much money I am spending interfere with enjoyment of the moment, but things are just so expensive here that you cannot help but think about what a beating your wallet is taking. To really do Norway right you need to cover ground more slowly than I have time to do on this trip. I basically am finishing up a loop today from Oslo to Bergen to Flam and back to Oslo. The transportation legs, train from Oslo to Bergen and boat from Bergen to Flam, have been very scenic, even with less than perfect weather. Bergen was disappointing, partly because of some really cold rain. Oslo is Oslo, I will write more after visiting tonight. Flam is great--nearby hiking to waterfalls, etc.

Gotta catch a train!