For Elenn’s last day, she offered to take Anya and me on a fjord cruise. We had actually scanned the calendar, and this was the open day after my return to health and after the PhD seminars. Previously, we looked at the forecast and thought there was a chance it wouldn’t be raining all day. So, I notified Anya’s teacher that she wouldn’t be in class, and we bused to Stavanger.
We arrived and found out that we were the only three pre-registered, and they require a minimum of 15 to go. We were talking with a couple from London, and together counting the passengers. At 10 minutes to departure, we were up to 13. So, we were thinking about buying extra tickets to make it go. Fortunately, enough showed up, and we took off.
We had amazing weather! Blue sky with just a few clouds, requiring us to dig out our sun glasses. (I was hopeful and packed them). We ate a picnic lunch on board with wonderful scenery.
The 3-hour cruise included a pause at the base of pulpit rock, one of the most famous tourist hikes, with close to 400,000 visitors each year! The 1096 foot elevation makes it a nice hike in about 4 hours round trip. (I plan to do this in early April when my niece visits. Right now the tourist trips aren’t offered during the off season.)
At the end of our trip, we visited the beautiful Hengjangefossen (waterfall).
We got so close that the crew could collect this pristine water for us to drink.
We got right underneath!
And got wet!
Even on our way back to Stavanger, the clouds started rolling in, and a light rain started. How fortunate to have the stunning blue sky on most of our cruise! We headed home, stopping for a bit at some tourist shops, and Elenn cooked dinner. (For those that know Elenn, this is truly a miraculous transformation in the past 6 years!) After dinner, we watched Becoming Jane, with Anne Hathaway, portraying Jane Austen in this biopic. Then, Elenn finished her packing.
We were up a bit early for a 7:30 am pick up by Tina’s husband, Alessandro, and youngest son. We are so blessed by this family! Tina was off with her oldest son at a judo competition, but made sure we had a lift to the airport.
After being dropped off, I went in with Elenn, and because of a bad knee, she had wheelchair accommodation. I was able to go through security and be with her right up to the gate. Though, we made a detour through duty-free and picked up some Skittles for Anya. We haven’t seen them in the shops outside duty-free.
I took the bus back home reading some Maasai ethnography, continued with laundry, catching up on emails, and walked to the store in the rain with bottles to recycle. (About 2 grocery bags of non-collapsed bottles was redeemed for $6.10). To and from the store, I ventured out trying new roads (including the Edvard Munch road) and paved footpaths. I’ve learned to wear rain pants for these outings, and despite the rain, I saw some beautiful and colorful houses with some nice views of this fjord, which ends at Sandness.