NORWAY - Do You Know the Way?

semester@sea.wldy

by ALEX BUDAK, staff columnist

There I was, floating down the Voss River in Norway, looking at the beautiful scenery around me, and all I could think of was my beautiful “McPrincess.”

As soon as the Norwegian customs officers cleared our ship, we headed to the train station to purchase tickets for our train ride to Voss, where we would spend the afternoon whitewater rafting. The train is a small commuter that only seats 100, and my group of friends numbered 20, so we didn’t want to take any chances. By 9 AM we purchased our tickets and had a few hours to kill before our 1 PM train took off, so we decided to explore the city of Bergen a bit.

The city, thanks in large part to its past as a major seaport, has what I consider to be a very traditional European feel. Small, colorful, wooden homes, a la Amsterdam, are situated along the various waterfronts in the city. It also features expansive public-space with parks, large fountains and ponds around the city center.

I was constantly amused by the Norwegian fascination with American culture, the pinnacle of which occurred when I wandered into a shop that must be Norway’s version of Abercrombie. In the store – which was blasting Maroon 5 and Ludacris – were t-shirts with English sayings that I couldn’t help but wonder about. Probably my favorite was a ¾-length shirt that boldly said “SOUTH COUNTY RHODE ISLAND” on it. What Rhode Islander would have enough state pride (or county pride, for that matter) to wear a shirt proudly displaying that they are from the smallest state in the union? Fear not, Rhode Islanders, there are Norwegian teens reppin’ for your state (and if you’re lucky enough to be from southern Rhode Island, your county as well). My other favorite shirts were knock-off NBA team shirts. Due to either copyright issues or a confusion regarding any other sport that’s not soccer (football,) each shirt featured the city and nickname of one team, but with the logo of a different team. The Phoenix Suns shirt, for instance, proudly displayed ‘Phoenix Suns” on top of a green and yellow Seattle Sonics logo.

I went to purchase an international phone card in order to call that country that even Norwegians pretend to call home, only to find that the store didn’t accept my foreign Visa.

“Don’t worry,” the cashier said, “there’s an ATM across the street at McDonalds.”

So I headed across the street into an absolutely gorgeous white wooden building – decidedly “golden arch” free – with just a small script “McDonald’s” above the door. I walk in to use the ATM, and notice a woman working the register. Despite her french-fry grease stained McD’s tanktop, she was gorgeous, and almost made me want to order the Kyelling McPita they offered, but I resisted the temptation to “act American” on this trip, and instead headed to the ATM. In Iceland, the country that I was just in, the exchange rate was 6.45 Kroners to the dollar, which I must have confused with the Icelandic exchange rate of 65 Kroners to the dollar, because as I selected the amount of money to withdraw, thinking I was taking out about $15 US equivalent, I accidentally took out $150 US. Actually, this is all probably giving myself too much credit. I think I spent more time looking at the beautiful blonde cashier than I did at the machine I came there to use. Of course there was no return option on the ATM when I realized that I took out about ten-times too much, and my French-fry lady (aka my beautiful “McPrincess”) didn’t even notice that I was now a big roller with 1000 Kroners.

After a couple of hours of exploring, we stopped for a snack at a small coffee house. I ordered a cookie and milk; I asked if they had non-fat milk, but the woman looked at me confused. I then asked, “skim milk?” She responded in the affirmative and poured me a glass, which, when I tasted it, reminded me more of the little shots of cream in coffee shops or a strong half-and-half than it did milk. So I took my “cookie and cream” and sat down to eat my snack, which cost me the equivalent of $7 US. (Quick aside: for the same amount at Diddy Riese, I could have had 18 cookies and 3 cartons of milk).

After refueling and chatting with my fellow rafters, we jumped on the commuter train to Voss. The rail line winds around landscape that alternates between dense forest and vast expanses of water, interspersed between tunnels built through the numerous mountains of the area.

We arrived in Voss and were greeted by our Kiwi rafting guide, who shuffled us into a big van and whisked us to company headquarters (i.e. a shack with rafts), where he gave us a pep talk before turning us loose to get our rafting gear on. They outfitted us with a full body wetsuit, a wetsuit jacket to go above the first one, waterproof boots made of the same material, a helmet, and a big ol’ life jacket. I felt like a poor man’s water-resistant Batman in that getup. We then piled back into the vans and went to the riverbank where our rafting guides were waiting for us.

The weather, it should be noted was better than anyone could have hoped for. Our guide told us that it was the first nice day in Bergen (a world leader in rainfall, averaging 200 days of precipitation a year), since last summer. The skies were bright blue (true blue, even) while the water, a deep navy blue, was still a frigid 38 degrees thanks to the typical Norweigan weather. It contrasted beautifully with the tall green trees that lined the river, and the plentiful white foam in sections of the rivers that contained rapids.

We jumped in our rafts. My raft was made up of 4 friends, a Scottish couple on “holiday,” and our drill sergeant guide. We practiced the various commands – left, right, forward, backwards, and my favorite “GET DOWN” where you squeeze your paddle underneath your elbow and wedge yourself as far down in the raft as you can. Once the guide got some confidence in us (or at least some feigned faith), we headed down to our first rapid where we had a swim test waiting for us. We had to get out of the raft, float down stream for 10 yards on our backs, and then once we hit the rapid, turn over on our stomach and swim as hard as we could against the current to reach the shoreline. Fortunately, all of us passed, and it was now time to get to the fun rapids.

The lull between rapids is made up alternately of veering in-between rocks and gathering up speed for when we came up to the drops, rapids, and whirlpools. The rafting is better than the best roller coaster because it features all of the excitement of a ride, but without the certainty of the track; our guide, if we began to slack, would remind us that if we didn’t pick up enough steam we could flip in the rapids, giving us a harsh swim to the side as our punishment.

We got to go through dozens of rapids – all successfully, I might add, as our raft didn’t tip over or have a single person fall out. We may not have been great rafters, but I think it goes without saying we were good at “GET DOWN.” Finally, as we reached the last half-mile or so of our rafting adventure, our guide told us we could get out of the raft and float downstream next to it. We slid out of the raft, laid on our backs and let the current whisk us away. The water was so cold, however, that our hands (the only parts of our bodies not covered by the wetsuit) quickly turned blue if we left them submerged. The scene was of four Semester at Sea students floating on their backs, with just our hands out of the water, and dreading the times where our hands had to meet the water in order to steer our bodies downstream.

We went back, showered, and returned on the train to Bergen. We were back by about 8:30 PM, and I was asleep by 9, exhausted from a day filled with expensive cookies, a longing for 1% milk, a wetsuit so tight I don’t know how I got it off, memories of my first time rafting the rapids, 1000 Kroners burning a hole in my pocket, and one McPrincess I wish I could have spent it on.

All photos taken by and property of Alex Budak