Norway

>>>>>Are Canna laws newly looser in EU?

Not necessarily, but when traveling between EU countries, the customs and immigration is much more lax if not non-existent.

Just got here and walked right out of the airport without going through immigration or customs. Weird. Could have brought pretty much whatever.

>>>>Norway is not in the EU but is apart of The Schengen area. 

Apparently so.  Neither my brother nor son had to go through traditional customs/immigration either when they got in yesterday.   The Norwegian immigration enforcement surely has the airline passenger lists with passport numbers and are watching people on CCTV and will talk with people who they are interested in.  Fortunately, that wasn't any of us.  

But today we flew up to Svalbard, which is way up in the Arctic Ocean just 500 miles south of the North Pole.  Although it is considered Norwegian territory under the 1920 Svalbard Treaty, it is outside the Schengen Area and it was considered an international flight from Oslo.  Full passport checks and the security was pretty tight.   The security dude made me take out all my liquids, including all the concoctions and potions.  But as they say, you can't bust me, if you don't know what you found. 

Here is the beach right down from our AirBnB:

Here is the little town.  Note the avalanche wall on the lower left hand side.  Apparently, about ten houses were taken out about 10 years ago.

>>>Is Peat Moss used as heating?

It's coal.  Nobody really lived here up here year round until the very early 20th Century when coal was discovered.   The town, Longyearbyen, has the only remaining coal power plant in Norway. 

>>>Is Peat Moss used as heating?

It's coal.  Nobody really lived up here year round until the very early 20th Century when coal was discovered.   The town, Longyearbyen, has the only remaining coal power plant in Norway. 

So digging deeper into the area's coal mining history, there are seven coal mines in the immediate Longyearbyen valley, but only one (Mine 7) is still operational. Some blew up and some just ran out of coal.   

Memorial to the miners who died mining coal in the town, including 31 people who died on January 3, 1920 during a coal dust explosion in Mine No. 1:

This afternoon, we went up and checked out Mine No. 3, which was closed in 1996 when it ran out of coal:

The town has free community bicycles, which are big, clunky one speed cruisers.  They also say don't take them outside the "polar bear safety zone" around the settlement.  Svalbard is home to more polar bears than people and you are actually required to carry a gun if you go outside the settlement.  This evening, we rode the community bikes through the cold arctic wind and rain to the outskirts of town and edge of the polar bear safety zone.  Some of the signs were more elaborate than others:

Looks like some people are trying to actually grow crops up here.  With the midnight sun for months on end, you might just be able to pull it off, but considering the daily high temperatures hover in the mid 40fs in the summer, a greenhouse is a must: 

And even in tiny ass towns in the high Arctic, people still tag buildings:

We took a boat today 30 miles up the fjord to the largely abandoned Russian mining town of Pyramiden. Before the coal mine closed in 1998, this polar outpost was a model Soviet city of 1,800 people complete with schools, concert hall, state of the art athletic center, and the world's northernmost Lenin statue. Today, there are only about 25 residents left who work as tour guides serving up shots of vodka to visitors to this well preserved high arctic ghost town.

My son had a little bit of flower so we carved a bowl from a potato and burned some behind a building.   Arguably, this was the northernmost bowl of weed smoked from a potato in the history of human civilization:

The boat ride up and down the fjord was awesome.  Saw more fin whales than you can shake a stick at:

We also saw a polar bear on the shore chasing reindeer.   Totally Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom stuff.  Polar bears historically have not hunted reindeer, but with the shrinking ice sheets, they are having to adapt:

Good work Alan.

>>>did you see the aurora borealis up there? 

Up in Svalbard, there was still the midnight sun until we left on Sunday.   Supposedly, Sunday was the very last day of the longest day of the year (which lasts several months).   

Have been in mainland Norway since Sunday, when we flew into Oslo from Svalbard.  Gets dark about 9:30 on the mainland and haven't seen the aurora borealis yet.  Stayed one night in downtown Oslo and was impressed by the town.  Probably the cleanest, most orderly city I have been to in Europe.   Steeped in history, yet cosmopolitan and very modern.  The downtown core is virtually car free and just walking around you can hear an orchestra playing Carmina Burana in the park outside the royal residence, live opera at the Akershus Fortress, and thumping EDM coming from a nightclub:

Random FDR statue:

My son flew back to NYC on Monday, but my brother and I sticking around until Saturday, so we headed towards the western part of the country on the train to Fense, which is the highest point on the Oslo to Bergen line.   The scenery from the train going up there was great:

Finse (aka Ice planet Hoth) is just a railroad station, a high end hotel, a hostel, and a collection of cabins, huts, and assorted outbuildings. There is a lot less snow now in late summer than when they filmed Empire Strikes Back here in 1979 right after a massive blizzard that bedeviled the film crew and delayed production. Finse is also near the Hardangerjøkulen glacier. We hiked over miles of boulder fields and glacial moraines trying to reach the glacier, but rivers of glacial melt runoff stopped us at the base. We did pass by the site of the Rebel turret cannons and defensive lines and the location where Han Solo destroyed the Imperial probe droid.

Thwarted from reaching the glacier:

Didn't see any Wampa but did encounter these creatures:

We stayed at the hostel, which is one of nicer ones I have been to.  Not a party place (most guests were middle aged and older Norwegians) but they did have a brewery in the basement (the highest brewery in Norway).   The lake is frozen in winter and was the point of advance by the AT-ATs on the Rebel lines during the Battle of Hoth:

While waiting for the train the next morning, we found a small Star Wars exhibit in the basement of the high end hotel.  They had copies of local newspaper articles about the production and a scrapbook of photos from the film shoot which helped connect the dots between the landscape and the movie scenes.

We then picked up the train again and headed west towards the fjords of western Norway.   The scenery on the way down was even better than on the way up:

The village of Flam is at the very end of the Aurlandsfjord, which is a branch of the vast Sognefjord:

Flam is a very popular tourist spot and the only lodging available was in a Viking themed brewery/hotel shown in the lower left side of the picture above.

Here is the view from the deck outside our hotel room overlooking a beer garden:

And here is a Viking themed brewery just steps from our hotel:

Beer is decent enough, but Norway is expensive and the home of the $10 beers.  Thankfully, the dollar is strong these days and we are getting a relatively big bang for our buck. 

Found some WWII bunkers while messing around down by the fjord:

This morning, we rented some ebikes to go exploring the area.  Never ridden one before.  It wasn't like a moped, but a bike you pedaled with bionic like powers that allows you to go up hill with an extra umph. Pretty cool and felt bad passing traditional fit cyclists in our clunky orange rented ebikes as we checked out the sites up in the Flåmsdalen valley:

Got back to the US on Saturday and finally have time to post some more pics.

We rented some kayaks in Flam and paddled over to a little spit in the fjord populated by baby goats:

After two nights in Flam, we took the fast ferry up the Sognefjord to the west coast, stopping at various little towns on the way ot pick up and drop off passengers:

The ferry dropped us off in Bergen, Norwegian's second city on the North Sea:

While in Bergen, we paid a visit to the Fantoft Stave Church. The Norwegian Black Metal kicked off its reign of terror here in 1992 when musician Varg Vikernes burned down the 842 year-old-church. The church that stands today is a meticulous recreation built from the ashes.

We later took a cog train up to Mt. Fløyen overlooking the city:

We wandered around for a bit up there and then hiked back to town through moss covered woods.  For a town that gets 80 inches of rain per year, we were lucky to have a rare sunny day:

As we got close to town, we heard the distinct sound of live music.  Followed the music to an old medieval fortress complex, only to find a Euro-Pop band called "Highasakite"  doing a soundcheck for a show later that evening.  The band apparently has the distinction of having an album with 92 consecutive weeks (and counting) on the Norwegian Billboard "Topp 40"  Thought they sucked.

Anyway, we had a 6:30 am flight the next day, so didn't stay out too late and missed the full concert.   

>>>> did you get to the Nobel museum or the sculpture parcs in Oslo?

We only had one night in Oslo proper.   My brother and son went and checked out the sculpture park, but I was feeling ill that day and didn't join them.   I didn't mention it yet, but my son caught a stomach bug in Barcelona before he met up with us and was puking his guts out on the plane ride up to Svalbard.   He looked so bad when he got to the airport in Longyearbyen that a cop asked if he needed to go to the hospital and I was worried they wouldn't let him in.   My brother got it two days later and then it was my turn two days after that on the day we were in Oslo.  Felt like crap for about 12 hours, but was feeling better by nightfall and didn't get it as bad as they did.