And here we are! London was calling and we listened! Well, actually we had to, because we are kind of stuck here. Today we arrived early in the morning, we said good-bye to out cruise ship and to Yuki & Bill, and we took the train to Waterloo Station in London to get train tickets heading over to the continent. Nice plan, but it didn’t work out. There are no train tickets to the continent for today, neither for tomorrow or the day after and the next day following. Right now, you cannot leave unless you had bought tickets way ahead of time, even for a train! Well, you think there are also airplanes and such things, but the only option would be a $1500 per person, one-way flight that takes 23 hours and would have a layover in Dubai. For that price, you might be able to find somebody who would take you to the Continent in a rowboat, right?

But since we are travelers and not tourists, we are positive, open-minded and adventurous, we decided to get the earliest possible train tickets in 3 days, which will bring us to Brussels. That was the only available option, unless you want to wait 6 days for more options. So here we are, Brussels it will be and London it is for now, because „London was calling“!

When I asked Ted, if he knows the song “London Calling” he said no, but he knows another song with London: “London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down, London bridge is falling down…..” So let’s stay positive, at least for the next 3 days, ok?!?

When I designed the costumes for Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” in 2019, I researched the three main locations to be accurate with local weather and dress. Two of those locations were familiar to me, one of which is my hometown – Ingolstadt – the other is Geneva in Switzerland, which is very close to my hometown. The third location are the Orkneys, a group of islands north of Scotland, with harsh and challenging conditions. The average temperatures, wind and rainfall, it reminded me of Iceland, the furthest north I’ve ever been!

And here we are, the Orkneys, where Dr. Frankenstein created and destroyed the female version of a creature that he made with the body parts of a young woman that had drowned and was buried at a graveyard…..

We arrived in Kirkwall yesterday morning

By now our first month of traveling is done and – so far – we have a lot of fun! First a few stats:

We travelled ~ 10,000 miles (16,000 km)

We changed the clock 11 times! (+3, +1, +1, +1, +1, +1, +1, +1, -3, +2, -1 hour)

We travelled on 4 airplanes, 2 cruise ships, subways in 3 cities (NYC, Hamburg, London), many buses and taxis, 2 sightseeing boats and 1 air tram

We were in 7 different countries (1 of which 2x)

We met with Anja & Jürgen (5 days) and Yuki & Bill (10 days)

We slept in 6 different places: 2 hotels (NYC, London), 2 ships (Queen Mary 2, Norwegian Star), 2 Airbnbs (Hamburg, Reykjavik)

We changed currency 7 times; $, £, €, SKR, IKR, NKR, £ and back to €

Biggest food surprise: Haggis (Edinburgh, Scotland): Haggis is a savoury pudding containing sheep’s pluck, minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and cooked while traditionally encased in the animal’s stomach. Wikipedia

Recipe: https://www.haggisuk.co.uk/how-to-cook-haggis

And we still like each other!

Picture perfect day exploring Ålesund today. This town was destroyed in 1904 from a big fire when 850 houses were burned and 10,000 people lost their homes. It was in the middle of a big winter storm with temperatures of minus 25 degrees Celsius! 2 days after the fire the first ship with emergency supplies arrived, sent from the German emperor Wilhelm II. Many ships followed and the whole town was built up again, this time with stone houses, electricity and plumbing. And – here comes the best part – all of them in Art Nouveau style! I’m in heaven, remembering my first big thesis paper I wrote for Art History: Art Nouveau!

It’s almost 3.30pm and we are about to continue our voyage to the Orkney Islands, where we’ll arrive tomorrow morning 11am.

Ålesund made it into our “3-out-of-1” list. This is a list of places we like to live for 3 months before heading back home for the rest of the year. So far there is only one other town on our list: Bolzano, Italy!

So far, we’ve been to several different countries and all of them stood out in their own ways: by colors for example

Iceland was not cool. Iceland was freezing cold! And the German saying “there is no bad weather, there is only bad clothing” was not including Iceland. I was wearing everything I brought, but I got sick nonetheless. 1 day in bed, 1 day taking it easy and today at 7am we arrived in Olden, Norway after crossing the Norwegian Sea and I felt much better! We headed out for a 6.82 mile hike up the Husten hiking trail and had a great time!

Olden is a 500 resident town at the end of the 66-mile long Nordfjord. We had picture perfect hiking weather. Yuki & Bill are great company and we hang out together for almost everything we do. It is great to see Ted and Bill catch up those 30+ years they lost track of each other and Yuki (Japanese) and I (German) discover so many similarities in our culture how we grew up.

Now we are back on the ship where I’m treating myself to a special massage in the ship’s spa, followed by dinner with Ted, Bill & Yuki and a show at the theatre at 9pm.

🐑🍷🌎🚢 Life is good! 🚢🌎🍷🐑

Iceland is a fascinating country! It is 1/3 of the size of Germany and has only 339,039 people (Germany has 83 million more people!). It is very harsh here, extremely beautiful, clear, natural and freezing fucking cold – excuse my language, but an average of 12 degrees Celsius in summer, when the sun “shines” 24 hours a day, that’s the big minus! They should say the sun “is present” 24 hours, or the sun “shows up” 24 hours a day, but shining? Definitely: no way!

Iceland is the perfect setting for movies: Fast & Furious 9, Game of Thrones, Die Another Day, the Secret Life of Walter Matti, etc

Icelandic students have to learn Danish, starting in 5th grade. From 6th grade on they learn English. Danish is not very popular, the past was just too cruel and brutal… Btw, schools are used as hotels during the summer months! Most highschool students live in dorms at the highschool because they live too far away. And there are 3 universities in Iceland!

Police is not armed here. They do have a gun in a locked glovebox, and when they need to use it, they have to call their chief to get a code to open that glovebox. By then the criminal has run off 🤩 Crime rate is still very low! When you’re 18 years old you are a legal adult with all responsibilities. Drinking age is 21 though and you can only buy alcohol in a few government owned liquor stores.

Trees are rare here, but according to one of our tour guides, Iceland was covered with trees before the Vikings settled here in 900CE. The only native tree is a birch tree. Nowadays they have a variety of trees, but they are not very tall. In fact, there is this saying: What do you do if you ever get lost in an Icelandic forest? Stand up! 😆

The only native wild vegetable growing here is Rhubarb! Wild fruits are berries, especially blueberries. They grow a lot of things in greenhouses in the south of Iceland. In fact, our guide told us that Iceland is the biggest produce producer in the world – per capita 🤪

And tonight we will continue on to cross the Norwegian Sea to Olden, Norway. It is more than 600 miles to Olden, so we’ll arrive there in 2 days, Tuesday June 28th. And we’ll change the clock tonight again: 1 hour forward!

The Western Fjords we’re so minimalistic and beautiful, even the weather appreciated our visit! The north of Iceland around Akureyri is very different: trees, farmland, Geysirs and hot springs. And tourists, many tourists! And brutal weather: 2 days earlier it snowed, so we lucked out with 6 degrees Celsius, but with that nasty wind, it seemed to be 3 degrees. Great. So today, Yuki and I are both sick 😖

We ankered at Seydisfjordur today in the morning, after crossing the Arctic Circle again.

I’m not going on land today, taking it easy and sleep. The usual, if I’m sick, I sleep it off…..

Another night on the ship (this time calm) followed by another excursion. We did touch the Arctic Circle last night, which was a big deal for Ted!

It was very cold and windy today. I can’t get over the fact that this is normal summer weather!