The clientele on this floating gin palace (on day 3 we’re about 20 G&T’s in) is rather cosmopolitan. We’re used to a lot of Americans and a small minority of others on the Azamara cruises we’ve done. Here on Princess we have a pretty broad cross section including a lot of Chinese. You don’t get many Chinese on Azamara. Azamara doesn’t have casinos. This one does. I’m not stereotyping. Alright…a little bit. Apparently the casino was full of people and cigarette smoke at 6.30am yesterday morning according to our early rising travel companion. You’ll have to guess the nationality of the gamblers. No clues given.

Speaking of nationality, I haven’t had a DNA test done by one of those ancestry outfits – never know who might get access to it – but I’m pretty sure Norway (or somewhere else in Scandinavia) is my ancestral home. Why? Well I was born in Northern England, just down the road from the Viking stronghold of York. I have the complexion – red hair (now a sort of straw colour) and an almost complete absence of melanin in my skin – see Skin in the Game #1 and #2 somewhere else on this site. But the clincher is a thing called Viking’s Disease or as the medicos call it Dupuytrens Contracture which is a thickening of the tissue in the palm of your hand causing your fingers to pull inwards. I was effecting a permanent  rock and roll horns gesture at its peak. Apparently it was spread by the Vikings as they raped and pullaged their way across Europe. I have it in both hands. Actually that’s not entirely true. I had my left hand fixed a while back because it was affecting my guitar playing. My right hand hasn’t changed in decades. It was when I had my left hand fingers straightened that I found out there were such people as hand specialists – who knew?

We’re now approaching Trondheim. The air is decidedly chilly. I can’t imagine sailing up this channel in the 9th century in an open long boat although compared with crossing the North Sea or, God forbid, the Atlantic, this would be a walk in the park. It’s most famous sailor is Leif Ericsson, son of Eric the Red – I’m home. Leif has a statue next to the wharf. Try pulling that one down and see how far you get.

Now that we’ve landed it’s quite warm and sunshiny – put the coat away and get the sun glasses out. My melanin deprived face feels like it needs a coat of sunscreen. Half way up Norway! Another good thing about this weather, apart from the obvious, is that there is a 40% chance we’ll see the Aurora tonight. We record the chance of rain – different priorities. I guess it stands to reason – tourists travel to Queensland, the Sunshine State (“beautiful one day, perfect the next”) for the sun. Here it’s the Aurora Borealis.

Like most cities in Europe there’s a Gothic cathedral in Trodheim although they cheated a bit here. It was built in the last couple of hundred years and only finished recently. Previous iterations were made of wood and kept burning down. I don’t know whether that’s the reason photograph’s aren’t allowed but apparently that’s the case. That was almost exclusively ignored by the criminals in our group and everyone else inside the place.