Excursion, Part II: Bodø

(continued from Part I)

I woke up on Sunday, June 12 in the Bodø hostel. The term "youth hostel" doesn't really seem to apply--there were people there from all ages and backgrounds, from young travelers like myself, to families, to middle-aged tourists and old men. The Norwegian word for "hostel" is "vanderhjem", which I think literally means "wander home"; I think this is a much better term than "youth hostel".

Norwegian Aviation Museum

I took advantage of the hostel's free breakfast (a surprise considering this is Norway), grabbed a map of the city and checked out. After storing some luggage in a locker at the train station below the hostel, I walked to the city center; finding everything either not open yet or closed for the day, I made my way to the Norwegian Aviation Museum, which is listed first on every list of things to do in Bodø, but was a good mile and a half walk from the city center. The museum was pretty interesting. From the outside, it seemed to be designed to remember a propeller, seen from above; inside, there were lots of military and civil aircraft hanging from the ceiling, as well as peripherals like missiles, anti-aircraft guns, and radar installations. The best part of it, to me, was the detailed history of the military use of aviation, from the first use of balloons in reconnaissance to modern spy planes, complete with actual examples of each type of plane. The civil side wasn't as interesting--more just bragging about Norway's extensive airline system, and histories of its major airlines, in which I suspect the airlines may have had some influence--but still, it was interesting to see the cutlery used by airlines back when they actually served meals.

WWII airplane wreckage

Ejector seats

While walking back toward the city center, I noticed an event going on in a parking lot. I wasn't too curious about it, until I realized that the concession stand had an American flag painted on it, and that the cars in the parking lot were all American cars. It turned out that this was a meeting of the local chapter of the American Car Club of Norway, an organization dedicated to American cars, both classic and modern. (An excerpt from their website: "[Our] main goal is to make sure that American cars as a hobby is allowed to prosper in Norway. Therefore we are deeply involved in politics concerning the import of such cars to our country.") The main purpose of the gathering seemed to be to hold a competition to see who had the best cars (some were truly impressive classics); there was also an event in which two cars' engines were blown out. I've always thought that Europeans like to ridicule the U.S. for our excessive dependence on and obsession with cars, so I was quite surprised to see so many Norwegians apparently obsessed with this aspect of American culture, especially considering the price of gasoline here is about double that in America. When I told the concession stand operator I was from the U.S., he said "nice"--the first time I've gotten that reaction.

"Engine Explosion Competition"

This man's prize: a model car.

By the time I made it back to the city center, almost everything was closed (this being Sunday, not much was open in the first place), except for restaurants and a newsstand, where I bought an English copy of Time Magazine for $8--now I finally have some reading material. It was pretty hot outside, but even hotter inside--this being the Arctic, no one seems to think air conditioning is necessary--so I just stayed outside, as it seemed everyone else was doing. I went down to the end of the pier and sat down to read the magazine, since I had some time to kill. One advantage of this latitude is that I could do that without having to worry about getting a really bad sunburn, like what happened to me in Martinique.

Bodø from the harbor

I then had an $18 dinner at Burger King (I guess that's what happens when the minimum wage is over $20/hr) and went back to the train station to pick up my stuff, then back to the city center where the bus terminal was. I was hoping to take a city bus to the airport to pick up my flight back to Andenes, and the schedule posted at the bus shelter clearly said that there were supposed to be buses to the airport every hour at 50 past the hour on Sundays, from 5:50 PM onward. I got there at 6:40 to take the 6:50 bus, but as of 7:20 there was still no sign of a bus, or of any buses from other routes either, including one that was supposed to stop at the same shelter at 7:10. I realized that I hadn't seen a single city bus during my entire time in Bodø, and other people also seemed be waiting for buses and giving up after a while. Eventually, I concluded that none of the buses were running that day, and not wanting to pay for a taxi at Norwegian prices, I just walked the 1.2 miles to the airport (I had plenty of time since my flight wasn't till 10:05). On the way I saw people with bags walking the opposite direction.

I still can't figure out why the buses weren't running. Even though it was Sunday, there was supposed to be scheduled service. It was also the middle day of a 3-day weekend, and hence a light travel day (which is why I was able to get a cheap flight), but there were exceptions to the schedule posted on the bus shelter and June 12 wasn't one of them. But since Bodø is in the same county (Nordland) as Andenes, it might be that the city buses are run by the same company as the long-distance bus I took from Andenes to Risøyhamn. When I tried to look at the website for that, it said that there was a "route search error" for June 12, and to call the company (which I didn't have much success with on the occasions that I tried). My first guess was that the company realized it would be a light travel day and decided to cut back on or cancel all the bus service to avoid losing money--even if they're getting government subsidies, they wouldn't want to run empty buses--and it wasn't in their interest to make it plainly obvious to people that the buses weren't running. When I mentioned this to someone back at Alomar, she speculated that the bus workers may have been on strike. Either way, it doesn't speak well for the idea of privatizing public transportation, especially if you give one private company a monopoly. (A political aside: I'm pretty skeptical of congressional Republicans' plan to take away Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, its only profitable route, and give it to a private company--this would lead to problems when riders' interests wouldn't line up with the company's, and the rest of Amtrak would be even more subsidy-dependent, possibly leading to its elimination.)

Having literally walked about 10 miles in Bodø, I was really exhausted when I got back to Andenes, and I spent the last day of the weekend basically recuperating. But now I'm getting back into work. After this week, Zuguang's going to China for 3 weeks (both for business and to visit family), so I'm trying to finish as much as I can this week to take advantage of his expertise while he's here. Right now I'm working on an algorithm to determine aerosol concentration by subtracting the real lidar profile from a theoretical one, calculated from the temperature and pressure readings from a weather balloon. If I can finish this really technical part by Friday, to Zuguang's liking, then the rest of my analysis will be much more about the atmospheric science than about the physics of the instrument, which is Zuguang's specialty, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem that he's not here. But I might be more tempted to sleep late, and work from home rather than going to the lidar observatory at 8 AM.

I'm now just past the halfway point of my time in Norway. I probably won't go on another excursion like this one, because it was expensive, and logistically difficult, and other cities in the region would be even more so. But I'll try to do some touristy stuff in Andenes, such as climbing the lighthouse, visiting a couple museums and maybe going on a whale-watching or fishing cruise (if the waves are small enough that I wouldn't get sick), the next time there's a weekend with good weather.