Random Czech

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"Gut Heavening Ladis and Gentumen, It is Me, Your Captain. Today ve vere in Oshlo; a beautiful beautiful city I tink you will hall agree. " It is the capital of the captain's own country and we did. At least those of us who jumped ship at 8.30 this morning and spent the next 8 hours packing in as much as we could: The Scream by Munch, The Kontiki Museum and the Viking Ship, the city itself with more sculptures than I have ever seen in one town, not just of pompous citizens and national heroes but the people of Norway enjoying simple things and the animals which live in the forest: two bears tumbling in a ball of granite; two women and two children who were about to jump off the pedestal in the centre of the fountain into the pool beneath and a fabulous bronze tiger which prowls across a square standing at twice the height of a normal one.

We woke early and went up on deck to watch the ship's arrival as it sailed up the ffiord. Very beautiful - I want to see more of those. Oslo is not a quaint mediaeval city; it is bustling and vibrant and very expensive and at eight o'clock in the morning there were winos everywhere. But it had an upbeat personality and loads of confidence. Great day - another place worth coming back to. At about 3.30pm we bought ourselves 2 punnets of Norwegian raspberries (for lunch) and re-entered the docks licking our fingers. For some obscure reason we were stopped by Norwegian security who asked if we would mind if they gave us a random check.. I was tempted to reply that I already had one but resisted. Very bizarre - can't work out what they thought we would be carrying on board which was of interest to them because we are always checked automatically by the ships security system anyway.

Everyone is all dressed up tonight for Gala night. Managed to get a table to ourselves in the dining room but did not linger becasue we were sailing down the ffiord and the sillies had drawn all the curtains! Out on deck the views were breathtaking and our good Captain pointed out to those of us who were up there (over his tannoy of course - he is a bit like Big Brother; we rarely see him!) where the Norwegians had managed to sink a German ship that was sneaking up the ffiord towards Oslo flying a British flag in April of 1940 . They just did not think it really was British somehow and so they torpedoed it and only 800 of the 2000 men on board survived. Bet it was chilly in the water of that ffiord in April time. They still have a fortification on the island from which the torpedo was fired and it proudly flies the Norwegian flag.

Now it is getting dark and we are well out to sea, it is getting dark and we are at the end of our voyage give or take 500 miles of North Sea. Hope you have enjoyed our blog but I am now going to Blog Off. See you!

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