Bergen, Norway

We then traveled by air to Bergen, the second largest city in Norway. It is a port city of about 250,000 people, and during the middle ages was used by the Hanseatic League which established several trading houses here to buy salted herring and timber to be shipped to Germany. The original wooden trading houses are still here, repaired over the centuries. It is now a port for the North Sea Oil Production. N orway is the third largest oil exporter in the world, and only has 4,500,000 people, so the government has no debt and can make lots of capital improvements. It is a "cradle to grave" socialistic form of government so they have lots of expenses also. It is a beautiful country of fjords, seas, lakes, rivers, and woods.

Copenhagen, Denmark

The pictures are not coming out right with the text, so please bear with me.

Well, here we are at the Airport ready to leave on our trip to Denmark. We left our car at Diamond Parking so it would not be out on the street at home while Larry Izzi worked on the basement, becaujse he needed the driveway to unload equipment and materials. We had a four to six hour flight to Atlanta, and a two hour lay over and then a ten hour flight to Copenhagen. I thought it was interesting that so many people were exercising in Denmark.

I think I will just add some photos, and try to edit them and add text when we get home.

July 17, 2009. (by Alan) Well tomorrow is the big day when we take off for Scandinavia. I recently obtained a small 'netbook' computer and was not going to take it on our trip, but after reading Kristen and Basil's blog from Peru today, (andefam.blogspot.com) I decided it would be a good thing to do. I am all packed up except for my pj's and tooth brush (literally), so it should be smooth sailing in the morning. I just spoke to Jeanne and she is fully packed also, so we are ready to go. I will try to keep you posted on a daily basis as to our adverntures.

Well, the time has finally come when we are getting ready for our trip to the British Isles! Yesterday was the kick-off meeting at the Larry H. Miller Campus of Salt Lake Community College. It is located at 90th South and about 4th West along a frontage road to the freeway. For some strange reason, Alan wrote down that the meeting started at 10:00 a.m. We thought we would have plenty of time to get there. Then life intervened. Jeanne's nephew, Derrick Frazier and his wife Janet, are in the process of adopting an 18 month old little orphan girl from Uganda. They and Derrick's sister, Patty, flew to Uganda to pick up Massai about six weeks ago, and after much red tape, Janet and Patty came back home.

Derrick stayed to finish the legal approval with the Court. The judge kept putting off agreeing to the adoption, and it came down to the last day before Derrick's airline ticket expired. The judge tried to put it off again, but Derrick's representative told the judge he had to sign the papers, as they were all in order and nothing had been left out. Fortunately, the judge signed them. All this time, Massai had been sick. She got Malaria and was in the hospital in Uganda, and then in the hotel room with Derrick. After she was cured of the Malaria, she got thrush because of all of the antibiotics. Once that was controlled, she still had a fever, so as soon as Derrick and Massai got to Salt Lake City, Janet and Derrick took her straight to Primary Children's Hospital.

Anyhow, I will get back to that story shortly, but because they were in the hospital, and Ellen and Kerry were coming down on the weekend to see them, (the grandparents), Ellen wanted us to take Grandma Joyce to Primary Children's Hospital so she could see Massai and visit with Ellen who is having a lumpectomy for breast cancer on Monday, June 23rd. That meant that we had to leave by 8:00 a.m. to get Grandma to the hospital, then drive south to our meeting. As you would expect, we didn't get away until 8:30, got to the hospital about 9:10 and found Derrick's room, left Grandma and left for our meeting at 9:30 from the hospital.

We got to the meeting just right at 10:00 a.m., only to find out that the meeting was already underway. Michael Wilcox was speaking about the land of the poets, the King James Bible and Shakespeare. He read some verses about the death of a king from one of Shakespeare's plays, and then showed slides of all of the places we would be visiting.

Then one of the two Fun-For-Less Hosts, Anita Towner, gave us some instructions and answered questions. So anyhow, we felt that we got to the meeting just on time and didn't miss anything. After we got home and Alan read all of the material they gave us at the meeting, he found out the meeting had started at 9:00 a.m. We don't know what we missed, but felt that we got the most important stuff. We probably missed everyone introducing themselves.

Here are some of the things we found out:

• We owed an additional $280.00 for fuel surcharges from Delta Airlines. We knew in advance that there would be a fuel surcharge. We paid that after the meeting.
• We have to pay an additional $10.00 each for the use of their "Whisper Quiet Headsets" which is in lieu of being fully financially responsible if we break, loose, or damage one.
• We have to bring our our head phones for the headset. The headset is an FM receiver. The "Educator"--Michael Wilcox will have a microphone transmitter, and everywhere we go, he can give his educational lectures, and we don't have to be crowded around him trying to hear what he has to say. It is a good thing, and one of the reasons I (Alan) signed us up for the tour.
• We have to pay $150.00 each to the host about the second day to cover tips for all of the bus drivers, etc. This too is a good thing, as I am sure we would spend more over length of the tour if we had to pay tips ourselves. Of course this does not cover tips for waiters in restaurants we may frequent in the evening.
• We have to obtain $200-$400 in Pounds Sterling per person before we leave. I was planning on following Rick Steve's advice and getting some cash in England while at the Airport, but the host said we don't have time to do that, as there is always a line at the ATM machines (called cash machines in the UK). We also have to have some Euros as the Republic of Ireland is on the Euro standard.
• Then the part that has me worried: There are 90 people going on this tour! Two bus loads. We are on the Yellow Bus and others are on the Blue Bus. Can you imagine the scene we will create at each of the sites we will visit! It is going to be a mad house.
• Then the worst part: They do not stop long enough for a lunch meal! We are encouraged to bring snacks from home. If we are really stretching our budget, to also bring Cup-A-Soup from home and heat it in the hotel room for supper! Jeanne and I plan on finding something locally for lunch and going out for dinner! We are going to take some beef jerky, trail mix, and snack crackers with us, but only for an emergency. Snacking for lunch is not my idea of fun. We were already planning on going out for dinner every night, and the literature from Fun-For-Less says the bus will take us to a location where there are lots of pubs, restaurants, etc. (Which means the touristy areas which we were hoping to avoid).
• They told us to take advantage of the "English Big Breakfast" which is provided as part of the tour. It consists of two slices of canadian bacon, a link of sausage, hash browns or beans, slices of mushroom, two slices of fried tomato and an egg fixed however we desire. Apparently, there will also be fruit at some of the hotels, etc. I hope there will be milk.

Well, anyhow, we will just have to think of this as an adventure and go with the flow. I'm sure we will be able to survive and enjoy our trip. We now have a list of hour hotels and it looks like for the most part they are very nice. We can get a good sleep and a morning shower.

Here is our Itinerary:

July 18, 2008 Delta Flight 76 departing SLC at 11:15 a.m. Arriving in Atlanta at 5:02 p.m.
July 18, 2008 Delta Flight 58 departing Atlanta at 6:40 p.m. (2 hours later than
July 19, 2008 Delta Flight 58 arriving at Gatwick Airport, London at 8:15 a.m. (London is 7 hours later than Mountain Day-light savings time) (so we arrive at 1:15 a.m. our time).

August 4, 2008 Delta Flight 123 departing Shannon, Ireland 11:25 a.m. Arriving at JFK Airport, New York City, at 1:25 p.m.

August 4, 2008 Delta Flight 141 departing JFK at 3:30 p.m. arriving SLC at 6:47 p.m.

I'm sure that we will be so tired by the time we get home we won't be able to talk a straight sentence.

We are going to have to have someone come pick us up. We plan on taking the 453 bus to the Airport as they run all morning. August 4th is a Monday, so maybe we can still catch a bus home. We will have to see.

Well, that is most of the skiny about the preparation for the trip. Now back to Derrick and Janet's adventure.

After they got Massai to the hospital, they found out she had an infection in her right knee. They did an open surgery procedure to clean it out and were going to check her again today and if there was still infection, they were going to open the wound up again and clean it out again.

When we got there to pick up Grandma, Derrick, Janet, Patty, Ellen and Kerry were giving her a ride around the floor of the hspital in a little red wagon. She is a cute little girl. If I can get my pictures downloaded, I will share a couple. Anyhow, we picked up Grandma and got home about 4:30 p.m.

This morning, Jeanne discovered that grandma's legs were leaking fluid. Being on her feet and sitting for so long yesterday was too much for her. She has not been doing well lately and is not feeling very well. She skipped Midsummer with the Nelsons because of her poor health, and now it is looking like she may have to skip the Nelson Reunion. We will just have to play it by ear in that regard.

Well, that is all for now. Keep checking back for up dates.
Alan & Jeanne