The MS INNVIK - My Floating Home

Berthed just across the water from the brand new Opera house (and pride of Norway) is my home in Oslo - The MS INNVIK.


Billed as an alternative theatre, a minimalist B&B (for the intrepid) and summer café, the INNVIK is a refitted car ferry and lives up to it's reputation on all accounts.

As I entered on the first evening, a sign outside advertised the night's performance as Hedda Gabler and (silly me) I imagined a sedate and serious play. Instead, Hedda Gabler turned out to be a heavy metal band (who, blissfully, only played til 11pm, but managed to out-shout my industrial strength earplugs until the bitter end). I could have gone to the performance for free as guests are invited in exchange for NOT flushing cabin toilets or taking showers during performances, but opted not to...leaving my imagination to conjur up 2007's Eurovision Song Contest winners - a Norwegian heavy metal dressed as Viking/Orc-types.


My little berth has everything I need - desk, bunkbeds & tiny bathroom - though at 54 and with Tintagel-induced aching muscles hauling myself up into my bed presented an initial challenge. Now, but 3 days later, it's a breeze - to get up, I just step on the bottom bunk, then onto the desk - whilst grasping the hand-hold - and hoist myself up and over. It's cosy, it's all mine, it's affordable (for Oslo) and I find it somehow preferable to sharing a room with a 1/2 dozen 20-somethings on holiday. It's also incredibly well-located: It's less than a 5 minute walk to the central train station/T-bane/busses, downtown shopping areas, numerous museums & historical sites and right on the eastern edge of Old Oslo (Christiana).

I've walked all over the city from here and have watched zillions of Oslo natives and tourists climb the Opera house (Oslo's newest pasttime). You walk up, you walk down...

Though right now, I'm sitting in the INNVIK café looking out across the Oslo Fjord to the Opera House. The water is glistening in a rare bit northern evening sunshine (It's been overcast/raining since I arrived) as gulls swirl over, two white swans glide by and numerous ducks paddle back and forth in front of the Opera house tourists (no doubt) in hopes of a tasty tidbit or two.

There can be no pilgrimage without proper shoes

My pilgrimage shoes leaving home
My pilgrimage shoes in Oslo

One last UK post

Couldn't resist posting a picture of this place. Our B&B hostess highly recommended a local place in Whitcombe on the Moor for dinner. She called ahead to make reservations, gave us directions and when we arrived we found it was called the RUGGLEstone Inn. Couldn't resist taking a picture (and taking account). I wonder if it has anything to do with OUR Ruggleses. (sounding very LOTR here - which is entirely appropriate. All of Devon and Dartmoor evoke the Shire and surrrounds)

What can these stones be?

A little surprise for Max that I can't contain any longer.

Steph and I spent a day walking around Tintagel - 1st stop Merlin's Cave below the cliff to gather rune stones for Max. A promise fulfilled. Here they are, Max - waiting to be carved and cast: I expect only the most glorious divinations to result.

Tintagel was remarkable and has all the elements one would expect from a place of power. Very dramatic - even in a ruined state. I don't know how, why or for what the site was chosen, but clearly the place hums with a deep energy. I can only imagine that it's been considered a place of power since its first discovery.

The ruins are only reachable via long climbs up steep and precarious stairs cut into the cliffside - yet there were tons of people willing to make the climb.

Catching up to myself

I have the feeling that this blog is never going to quite catch up to me until I'm in Boston - but that's a good thing. For now, though I'm in Oslo and there are still photos from the UK that need posting. So, I'll back up a bit even though that was then and this is now.

The first are from Totnes, Devon where my ancestor John Chapin was born in the 16th century. The photos are of the interior of the Church of St Mary's, parts of which date from the mid-15th century and stood in the middle of the old town centre. Standing in the church, I was struck by the thought that my ancestors may well have stood on the same space and looked on the same view.

I feel something here, but I'm not entirely sure what. I am unprepared for experiencing the UK as an ancestral place - though I remember the first time I came to Devon: I had a strong sense of familiarity and home. It felt like a place I could easily stay.

Dartmoor

Meant to walk to Merrivale Stone site, but Steph an I couldn't see 5 feet in front of ourselves. Still, I can't help but feel I've had the real Dartmoor experience. Wild, otherworldy, austere and very, very beautiful.

NORWAY!

I've just landed in Oslo and am sitting in the café of the MS Innvik (across the Oslo Fjord from the New Oslo Opera House). I'll be staying here and exploring Oslo for the next few days before going to Larvik. But for now, I'm overwhelmed and a bit tired after a long day's travel - so, I promise...tomorrow, I'll post more and add some juicy photos.