Across Norway’s Arctic Circle in the middle of winter

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We saw some of the most impressive and amazing scenery of the entire trip today, thanks to a train line that runs up through central Norway. Masayo and I rode from the town of Trondheim, across the Arctic Circle, and to the town of Bodø, where we are going to spend the final days of the voyage before going home.

The day began with a high BG for me — 229 at 6:00 am. No wonder though; I was so high after dinner last night that I knew the Humalog wouldn’t bring me down all the way. But, I couldn’t worry about it — it was a busy morning.

 

We were up early because the only daytime train would be leaving at 7:30, and the hotel staff had said that we could eat the breakfast buffet at 6:30, even though it wasn’t officially open until 7 am.

It was indeed all laid out, and other people were eating as well. I didn’t have as full a meal as yesterday morning, due to the early hour and the BG. But it was still varied and filling and delicious. I took a big shot to hopefully get my BG down.

We checked out and got some coffee in to-go cups, and set out to walk to the station in the cold Norwegian darkness. At the station, we printed out our tickets from the kiosk (I had purchased them online while still in Croatia) and then went to board the train. I love it when things are on time and the facilities are nice, as they are in Norway.

The train left the station, and I was upset to find that we were on the side of the train not looking towards the fjords and the sea, and we were also in the only backwards-facing seats in the car. I had chosen our seats online, and it wasn’t these two. But after a while I asked an attendant about it, and she told us we could sit in two better seats in the next car, at least for now.

The new seats were great, and we watched the sun rising over the hills. There was no snow, this close to the coast, but we saw some great fog moving around the hills and quaint villages. I checked my BG at 11:00 am and it was still high: 247. I had an apple and some cashews, plus half of a Snickers bar, and took what I hoped would be enough insulin for this paltry meal plus the highness.

 

Eventually we started to see snow, and soon (as the train moved inland) the landscape on both sides of the train was almost solid white, with giant, mostly-frozen rivers and icicles hanging from rocks. It was a true winter wonderland, and I just kept staring out the window, watching it all go by. I’d never seen anything quite like it, snow and ice this deep and enveloping.

We were getting hungry in the afternoon, and decided to spend the money to buy food in the train restaurant car. They had a menu and everything looked pretty good. I ordered a plate of meatballs in sauce, plus potatoes and some kind of mashed sweet corn stuff. I also got a bottle of water; the total for the food and the water was about $20.

 

My BG was now 176, not too bad but still in keeping with the high theme of the day. We ate in the restaurant car, as snow fell outside and the train pushed merrily along through it all. We passed through towns and edged closer and closer to the Arctic Circle, which I’d never been north of before. At each town I worried that someone would get on who was assigned to our seats, but it never happened. People seemed pretty lax about assigned seats anyway, and it looked like they were just sitting wherever was free.

Crossing the Arctic Circle

When we actually crossed the circle, Masayo and I were… um, both sleeping in our seats.

But we woke up and saw it was getting darker, and still very snowy. Everything looked (and indeed was) the same, but I felt a thrill at being so far north. To celebrate I went back to have a beer in the restaurant car — $10 for a Norwegian craft beer called Lucky Jack.

We arrived at Bodø station (pronounced roughly the same as “Buddha”) and it was just getting dark (about 5:30 pm). We walked to our hotel, the Clarion Collection Grand Hotel, and checked in. The Grand is a very nice, impressive place, with a 19th century stateliness and a feeling, in its decorations and pictures, of a golden age of travel and exploration: black and white photos of Bodø ships hang on the walls, while in the corners and landings between staircases are old trunks bound with rope for their voyage.

The hotel is much, much more expensive than our usual, but we are splurging because it’s the last of the trip: we’ll be here for four nights, and then we fly to America to visit my family before returning to Japan, the travel over. (For now.) After checking in I checked my BG: 230. Small nap and beer and unknown meatball sauce, oops.

 

The price is easier to take because a breakfast buffet is included, and the room includes what booking.com calls an “evening meal”. Because they seemed to be avoiding the word “dinner”, I took this to mean it would be something like bread and lunchmeat, or something small like that. I’d take it, though.

But I was wrong: the evening meal turned out to be excellent. It was a buffet, and tonight featured legs and breasts of chicken plus an extensive salad and fruit bar, several kinds of bread, and dessert. That made the room price much easier to take!

We sat down to eat, and there were a few other scattered guests also eating. The food was great, and very filling. If dinner was going to be like this maybe we won’t have to spend money at a restaurant at all here in Bodø! There is no lunch at the hotel per se, but there are free waffles from 3pm to 6pm. Maybe we can eat a big enough breakfast and then have waffles be our lunch.

It was a great day, and I felt like we really saw Norway in winter. The only bad part was that my BG had trended high all day — the lowest reading was 176. But even that improved when I checked before bed and was 131.

A nice welcome to Bodø, the furthest north I’ve ever been!

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