Norway - Tromso - THE Birthday

22 June 2006

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The day of my birthday was another day of enjoying the beautiful views, wandering around the town and going on tour of Mack's Brewery, the world's northernmost brewery. The tour was fun and interesting and the beer was DELICIOUS!!! Being the big drinkers Annie and I are, I finished my beer but Annie could not (half a litre each) and there was no way we could consider drinking more in the middle of the day. We spent the rest of the day wandering around some more, sitting drinking coffee at an outside café (with more beautiful views) and Annie bought herself a fleece jacket to keep the warmth in. After a quick beer-afternoon nap, we decided it was time to pop the champagne we had brought along to celebrate my entering "Club Four-OH". We sat and enjoyed the view of the Tromso sound and mountain with some champagne before going, at about 10 PM, for the most delicious steak dinner. After supper we went to the last open shop, where we were told we had 3 minutes until closing, to buy ice-creams, and wander around at 11:30 PM eating ice-cream in the bright light. To end the day we went and got the last of our champagne and went to the viewing platform outside the bar of our hotel and, right on cue, the sun came out at midnight to end my birthday!

Our last day was a short one as we had to head off to the airport at midday. We had decided to set an alarm for 6 AM (for some DAFT reason) to see if we wanted to go out and do anything. We woke up to bright hot sunshine, looked at it, commented how warm it was and went back to sleep until about 9 AM, a much more civilised time. Instead of rushing to breakfast we gave the hotel breakfast buffet a miss and went and bought some coffee and wonderful pastries from a local bakery and sat on a bench at the waters edge to enjoy coffee and views. Apart from buying some sandwiches and drinks for the flights home (they only sell food on these flights and mostly meat we don't eat), checking out of the hotel and catching the airport bus, there was not a lot left to do. We had wandered all over Tromso, looked at spectacular views from every direction and taken HEAPS of photos. As if to confirm this, the weather clouded over with angry clouds and started raining with thunder and lightening all over Norway. So much so that flights all over the country were delayed. We had a triple-hop so were quite worried we would miss one of our connections. In Oslo we, and a few others too, rushed like crazy to the next gate and got there just in time to get on the plane and take off minutes later. Our next change was in a town called Stavanger and, although we had half an hour between flights, we were still a bit concerned. That was until I spoke to the air stewardess who told me the plane and pilot we were on would be flying us on to London! We relaxed and enjoyed our lunch and, amazingly enough, we and our luggage all made it back to London with ease.

What an amazing way to spend a special birthday, doing something I have always wanted to do and being lucky enough to see the midnight sun on so many nights while we were there. If this is the start to "Club Four-OH" it can't be bad!!!