Hello from Bergen, fjords, Stavanger, Alpine, Oslo,
Goteborg, Kobenhavn
Date: 9/15/99 10:11:38 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Typing this from Babel Cafe in Kobenhavn. Already had my
city and canal tour and long walk, and I have my photo next
to the famous mermaid. Will go to the Tivoli Gardens next
to the train station after this message, then the Elsinore
Castle (40 min up north) that was used as the setting for
HAMLET and a bit of cafe life tomorrow. Post cards were
done already last night, before my 10 hours sleep.

1. Scandinavia. I am done with this part of my trip, next
Northwest Europe. Just in case you do not know, Bergen,
Stavanger, and Oslo are in Norway, Goteborg in Sweden,
Kobenhavn in Denmark. The Scan countries due to their
geographic sizes evoke impressions that they are large.
Actually they are tiny countries by population. Sweden has
about 8 million people, Finland and Denmark about 5, Norway
about 3.8 million. in comparison, the Swiss have 7 million
people, including 1 million guest workers.

Bergen (German for Mountains) may have been the most
beautiful city I have yet seen. The Old Town of Tallinn is
still the nicest but by layout Bergen is just beautiful and
the weather was nice. Imagine looking up at 60 degree angle
at night and the lights you see are of the homes on the
very steep hillside not stars. it has a population of about
150,000. The train from Stockholm is about 8 hours to Oslo,
2 hours of wait, then 8 hours thru gorgeous Alpine country
to Bergen on the North Atlantic Ocean, thus crossing the
entire land from the Baltic Sea.

Then I took the ferry ride south to Stavanger, passing thru
spectacular fiords and archipelago of islands, inlets,
rocky cliffs, mountains, islands of all sizes, etc.
Appropriately, the train ride back to Oslo also passes thru
spectacular Alpine country, like the Black Hills of South
Dakota and Colorado combined. Remember what 1 said about
the South Island of New Zealand when I was there in April
this year, that the entire islands should be declared a
national park^, (Actually most of it is declared as World
Heritage Preserve by the UN.) Well, the same goes for
Norway; it is gorgeous, primarily due to the glacier land
up north, the fiords along the coastline, and the
mountainous terrain covering the "lion's head" part of the
country. 

The trio to Kobenhavn was more of the same, passing thru
Goteborg, Sweden, and many beach resorts all the way to the
sea between Sweden and Denmark. The train ride is then
interrupted by a ferry that connects directly to Elsinore
on the Danish side, from there 40 min south is Kobenhavn.
As with Stockholm and Oslo, it is a beautiful city of about
1 million people. Look at all Scan countries as if they are
a state in USA. Everyone speaks English, less in Finland.

2. Kari. Well I had my date in Bergen with the 19-year-old
beauty I met in Warsaw. I stayed at the YMCA in Bergen and
after a good night's sleep called her the next day. We met
at 4 in the afternoon in front of the funicular, climbed up
to the mountain, and had a wonderful soup and a cake at the
restaurant there. After a long talk about this and that, as
we had agreed in Warsaw, we came to a restaurant that has a
reindeer (and elk) on its menu--Bryggeloftet Stuene its
name--I assumed my jet-set personality, asked for the head
waiter, asked him to get the chef to our table, asked him
if 'the meat were fresh, how he prepared the meat, etc. and
asked the head waiter to recommend a wine. 1 had grilled
reindeer filets double portion. with half pear filled with
real cranberries and au gratin potatoes (which I asked the
chef to prepare with thick cheese, the potatoes first
boiled then baked), Kari had elk roast. Of course, we
shared. Just when the mood was right, I commented "Kari, it
has been years since I had a 19-year-old girl will you do
me the pleasure of ravishing you?" She was more blunt,
saying "I'll sleep with you . . ." Although I had prepaid
my night at the YMCA, we checked in at a nice hotel room
facing the water, opened the curtains, got a bottle of wine
... (I asked her if this would be a problem in a small
city, but it was not.)

After being hard at, work most off the night, 1 missed the
8 o'clock ferry, barely had the time to collect my stuff
from the YMCA, and took the one at 9:30 am. The ferry ride
took 4 hours, the train arrived at Oslo at 11 at night. I
had planned to stay one day in Oslo, but I knew Oslo from a
previous visit and it was too late for the hostel. So I got
a ticket for the 7:30 train to Kobenhavn. The station locks
at 1:15 in the morning and opens again at 4:30 1 stored my
stuff in a locker and walked the city, from the station to
King's Palace on Karl Johan Street, passing in front of the
Parliament, right across of the Grand Hotel, where 1 gad
nice memories. I sat on a bench there and smoked a
cigarette at 2:30 in the morning, having my reveries,
continued my walk to the university and finally the Palace,
then meandered back. The train arrived in Kobenhavn at 5 in
the afternoon. Except for one hour sleep on *the train when
I first got- on, at 8:30 last night I finally had my chance
to sleep all night, after 2 nights without sleep ...

I think I am made for this "on the go" life style, and yet,
Miami Beach is also such a wonderful place to return to,
some day... 

3. New Friends. I have met so many nice people on my way.
Only a few gave me their email addresses. Of these,
CiaoPippi, a wonderful Italian girl, and a student of
biology, whom I met in Budapest, CatParmer, the young
female South African adventurer who promised to help me and
get me in touch with "off-the-track" outfits for my
adventure in Africa next year, Chhiv, a Cambodian French
instructor in France), Held!, the Estonian beauty in the
bus to Riga, who is a Chemical Engineering Student in
Tallinn. (Heldi, I will never forgive myself for missing
that date with you in front of the Rathaus, but I could not
miss the chance to go to Russia. I came to the RATHAUS
LATER AND HAD A GLASS OF WINE FOR US.) 1 had already
mentioned some of the others. Then came Jan, a lumberjack
of a big man, who was on the train to Stockholm, with his
15-year-old daughter; whose dream is to have 10 people in
his 36-hectare commune up north, especially now that his
wife is entirely disabled in a nursing home, his 2 sons
away for school. He is now left with one long-term friend
and a young daughter, who he knows will also leave some
day, Hans Jacob, the iron man athlete whom we met at the
restaurant on mountain top ... And just when I thought that
all model-like Swedish girls must have migrated to Miami
Beach, 1 met such a beauty just as we were arriving in
Goteborg. And Nora, the wonderful 19-year-old student from
Bahrain (Persian Gulf), and a liberated Arab women, who
said she might come and visit me in Miami Beach ... These
were surely special encounters that have enriched me.