American songwriters were and I guess still are fond of writing songs about American females. I can think of a few – She Was an American Girl by Tom Petty, American Girls by Counting Crows, California Girls by the Beach Boys, American Woman by the Guess Who (okay, they’re Canadian). I’m sorry, I can’t help it and I could do with losing a bit of avoirdupois myself but (nastiness alert) travelling on this ship reminds me of Queen’s Fat Bottomed Girls. And I don’t think I’ve ever seen as many canes, walkers and mobility scooters beep beep beeping as they reverse into elevators. If we hit weather like the CB and I experienced off Japan last year, it’ll be carnage. The crew will be sweeping body parts into the ocean. I know it’s a bit unfair making this an American thing but their life expectancy has dropped in recent years and there’s a reason they had so many covid deaths. I’ll leave it there before I get into more trouble.
I mentioned in #2 that the Northern lights forecast was at 40% from 8.00pm last night. When the CB and I managed to drag ourselves away from O’Malley’s (of course there’s an Irish pub – they’re everywhere) and head up to the roof (deck 16) it was obvious that word had got around. These big cruise ships look pretty top-heavy but when most of the passengers are at the top, on one side of the boat, those stabilisers below the waterline have to be working overtime lest we tip over (see paragraph above). At first glance it was hard to tell what the fuss was about but you have to give it to phone camera manufacturers because through the camera lens, there was the Aurora Borealis . We’re hoping the weather holds out so that when we get to the roof of Norway, it will be even more spectacular.
Trondheim is a very nice city of about 200,000 people of which about 20% are students – science and technology dominates (yea!) and there’s a big medical school. I’m assuming that they have here similar discriminatory enrolment policies as Harvard and othe Ivy League schools in the US. But instead of favouring Obamas, here it’s gorgeous cool blondes. There are Miss Worlds everywhere you look. So I certainly have something to look at while throwing down a Ringnes or three.
There’s a zone around Trondheim and the next stop – Tromso – which gets the benefit of the warm Gulf Stream so it’s a balmy 4 degrees rather than minus 20 or whatever it would be without that advantage. I guess we also have to realise that we are further north than the north coast of Alaska, which puts things into a bit of perspective. Breaking out the thermals today.