(last updated:  May 26, 2001)

These are some of the things Vanessa and Yancy are doing in Norway this year.

You are only allowed to look at this site if you are at work, on company time.  This is what we refer to in the business as a "break".

      You WILL excuse the quality of the pictures.  Our good camera was stolen  when we shipped all our stuff here so we're stuck using a Polaroid for now.  They also took our toiletries....Tums, Sudafed, and junk like  that.  You can click the pictures to get a better look.  If you come to Norway to visit and give me pictures I'll add you to this site, then you'll finally be famous.
 

Here are some pictures of our  abode.  We live on the 1st floor of a duplex that has a nice back deck with a yard, and a little front deck with   "Fraaanchss" doors that overlooks the fjord.  You can sort of see the water and the mountains  in this picture but for some reason the Polaroid's lens makes it look way more distant than it really is.  Somebody send us a decent 35mm manual camera and flash, thanks.

We've been doing some fishing.  All we need to do is walk down to  the fjord, 10 minutes away, and drop a  line in the water.  Our friend  Paulo has pulled out a big salmon that  was about 23lbs and 3'4" long.  We got enough fillets to serve 12 plates  from this.  There is also an endless  supply of cod, of which we've caught many.

Here's a picture of Jeremy with a cod he caught from the fjord.  He later went to Lofoton Islands and came back with 3 much larger cod.

Here are a few pictures of me and Vanessa fishing.  If anyone would  like the picture of Vanessa  in full 300dpi splendor just ask me...    yancy_riddle@yahoo.com.  I'll be digitally inserting a tiara into her pciture at  a later date.

Buying  anything alcoholic is a complete sin in Norway.  You must go to a "Vinmonopolet"  of which Trondheim, the third largest city in Norway, has only 2.  Small towns around the country here...forget it, none.  Church and state are integral in Norway so anything of a sinister nature is frowned upon, at least by the government.  Everybody else thinks it's ridiculous.  There are several hurdles you must clear before you can buy wine or hard alcohol.  First, you must be there before 5pm, 3pm on Saturday, forget Sunday and anything that smells like a holiday.  You basically have to leave work early to buy wine.  You can't touch or look at anything.  Well, that's not exactly accurate.  Recently a few Vinmopolets have allowed the people to touch before purchase.  To my knowledge there are only 2 of these in the country.  So, the procedure goes as follows....  Pick a number and get in line.  You have a few minutes to get a catalog and pick wine and/or booze by catalog number.  When your number is called go to the counter, give them the catalog numbers, and hope it is in stock.  If not you better produce a backup set of numbers,  which are usually chosen by selecting the number closest to wine you wanted.  Not the best way to select wines.  We think it's funny that wine selection,  a once pleasurable and leisurely experience, has been made into a nervous,  reactionary event.  Although as time goes on the laughing is being converted to crying.  Yes, everything  containing alcohol is about 30% or more expensive than in the U.S.  Hard alcohol is so expensive that most people rely on international travelers and duty free.  Buy beer at any grocery store.  The choice in beer is usually simple...get  "the beer"....the local Trondheim brewed Dahls is usually the choice.  It's good, so there's no problem there.  So, here it is....one of the  "stand in line for your wine" numbers and a page from the catalog.

As a full blooded American it is my God given right to BBQ anytime, anywhere.  The following photo was taken in early April.  By grilling in April I was attempting to FORCE spring into coming.  It didn't work.  Even at the end of May we are still waiting for leaves to come out on some of the trees.  By June the sun will be setting around 11:30pm and rising  at 2:30am.  If you stick dusk and dawn on that it is always light here...except  when the inverse occurs in autumn.  Nobody seems to know why the snowflakes are rectangular in Norway.

The next series of pictures are from a sailing adventure Vanessa, Ingrid,  and I took on a square rigged tall ship.  Basically it's a sailboat with about 30 sails built around 1915.  It was a "sail training" type thing requiring actual physical labor.  Vanessa's father refers to it as the "slave ship" because we had to do work AND we paid for it.  We also slept in hammocks below deck that were 2" from your neighbor's.  I'm surprised that the man snoring near us didn't receive the plank.  He snored so much that small fury animals running away were stopped dead in their tracks during his inhalations. Effective hunting technique?  I got to man the helm for awhile while Vanessa climbed the rigging.  The man standing next to me is actually crazy and blind in one eye.  He didn't know that picture was being taken.  We also had to use all those ropes to raise, lower, and change the angle of the sails to catch the wind.  We were on the team that had to get up at 4am.  Yes, I chose that one on purpose.  Surprisingly the princess did quite well at 4am...even though she started to smell really badly after a few days of non-showering.  That's life on the high-seas.  Luckily we didn't develop scurvy during our 3 day journey.  Since the sun doesn't behave properly in Norway we were able to catch sunrise at 4am'ish this time of year.  We decided that ramming and plundering smaller fishing ships in the area would have added a special flare to the trip. Nobody else thought so.

We're going to the island of Svalbard soon.  Get an atlas out and find Svalbard.  It's at 80 degrees N lattitude.  There isn't much land at or above this lattitude.    Why are we going here?  Because we can and it's unique.  We will be in polar bear and baby seal land.  Put in your requests now.  You know what I mean.