Gerard and Francoise

As in the last 4 years, we took a short break from our beautiful Connecticut summer to see parts of the Northern Hemisphere we haven’t visited before.  Two years ago, we went to Northern Europe, but didn’t get to Norway.  This summer, we started in Amsterdam and sailed all the way up to Tromso, Norway in the Arctic Circle joined by two dear friends from France.

As you probably know, the coast is a beautiful series of fjords with towering cliffs and mountains.  The towns along the way are architecturally elegant, quaint and pristine.  The country always ranks as one of the happiest countries in the world.  Social programs, free education, and low unemployment help. They’ve had a bit of help from oil.

While oil was discovered in the North Sea in the late 1960’s, it wasn’t deemed practical to extract until the 1973 oil crisis drove up prices.  In addition, technology investments totaling more than NASA spent to go to the moon helped solve many of the problems with drilling in fierce weather and seas.  The boom that followed provided investment, jobs, good wages, and of course – inflation.  It seemed odd that a meal in their small towns cost as much as New York City.  But with an eye towards the future without oil, Norway has diligently saved their oil royalties.  Their sovereign fund (government pension fund) is the richest in the world and now tops 1 TRILLION dollars – $200,000 per citizen!

Anyhow, we enjoyed a lovely two weeks with good friends, spectacular weather,  lots of golf (very difficult courses), great food (excluding greasy whale sausage and nasty lutefisk), and the long, long days of summer.  We even played a round of “midnight golf” in the 4-hour dusk of northern Norway.  I didn’t know this, but the Arctic Circle is actually the artificial line above which the sun never quite sets on the summer solstice, nor quite rises on the winter solstice.  In fact, because the axis of the earth’s tilt wobbles a bit over time, the Arctic Circle moves with it.

3 AM Sunrise