A very important meeting

In every brochure and description of the cruise was written about the possibility that some harbours would only be possible to be reached by tender. Also that we should be prepared that some harbours therefore would not be available for us. My wife goes along on a mobility scooter which is quite handy most of the times, but we could imagine there could arise some problems on a journey like this.

So it did not come as a surprise we got an invitation to go to a meeting about that. The harbour of a little village in Norway called Geiranger seemed to be a problem to visit.
We did like to go there, saw some amazing pictures on the net and in the brochure.
Of course we would attend the meeting, see what was possible for us.

We were at sea, did not have a lot to do. Lunch was already devoured and so we decided to go a bit early. We are both former civil servants and like to be in time for meetings. We came in 30 minutes early and took strategic chairs; not too much in front, not too far in the back of the room.
Some workmen were placing a screen and a projector. They switched the projector on and checked if the screen was fully used. After that they put more chairs ready for the expected audience.

A few minutes after they had left other men popped up. They were dressed differently, it looked to me like they were the technical team. They put the screen a few feet away and pointed the projector again at the screen, attaching a laptop to the thing. A film was started; the sound was almost off, but it was obvious that the film was about tenders. The projector was fine tuned and they left again.

In the meantime a new team of workers appeared who started to put chairs away or in a different place. We asked them when the meeting would take place; the half hour was almost gone. They told us the meeting would be in another half hour. We were wrongly informed. There were more guests now waiting for the meeting to be started.

A woman in a white uniform (higher in rank, I thought) showed up. She apologised for the wrong info we had been given. A few women in brown uniforms came in and under the leadership of the woman in white they put chairs in the room in a different way. Slowly more people came in and they were told the same story about the wrong timing. The tender film played on, we had seen it more than ten times.

Finally some men in white uniforms came in. They fiddled a bit with the projector and the laptop, but soon gave up. It was impossible to improve the sound. Instead they had to reorganise the chairs. Far more people than expected tried to squeeze in the room. A lot were in wheelchairs or mobility scooter. Somehow this was managed and we got a speech from one of the men in white uniform, the safety officer. The tender film layed on.

There were strong warning about getting on and off the tender, we were made to pay attention to some of the features of the tender film. The woman in white uniform laid a rubber mat on the floor with two yellow silhouettes of a foot. While the man talked, it was replaced a few times.
When the man was done with his speech, he laid the rubber mat a bit different again.

The feet on the mat resembled the step people had to take to get on and off the tender. We all had to test to see if we were fit enough to go ashore in Geiranger.
People became very nervous. My wife assured me that she was never going to be able to do this.
The biggest difficulty was that the step had to be done without using a stick or some other device.
The safety officer told us about this a few times. The other staff members looked on in a very serious way; it reminded me of a funeral or such.

And then it was time to try. One after another people walked up to the mat and tried. Almost everybody made it after all and there suddenly was a happy and joyful atmosphere. Even my wife could do it. So no worries after all. The fact that we had been in that room for almost two hours was already forgotten.

A few days later the cruise ship arrived in the harbour of Geiranger. A ponton bridge was laid out in front of the ship and we could get off the ship in the usual way. No need for the tender after all.
But we could see how things could have been. Behind our ship was a ship called "Mein Schiff". The passengers were going to and from the ship by tender. We probably were very lucky to get to this harbour first.
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The Flåm Railway

It sounded like something you should do once in your life: take the train on the Flam Railway in Norway. We thought we were very smart, we booked in advance through the cruise operator. Everything was very organised by us, my wife would get a special place on the train with her mobility scooter.

When we arrived in Flam, we got up in time. Quite an achievement for us, being very slow in starting the day. In time we left the cruise ship and went to the guides who were ready for us. A grumpy tall blond woman grabbed the papers from my hand that proved we had special seats. She growled that the papers were not right, there was no special seat for us. She kept the papers anyway. In exchange we both got a sticker with a number 24 on it.

Behind us more people showed up. Some in wheelchairs, lots with walking sticks. They all got a sticker with the same number and we were told to follow the woman.

We were led into a sort of corral on the platform, it looked like we were a row of sheep.

The iron fences were meant to keep us apart from the passengers that were leaving a train when it arrived.

My wife was told to leave her mobility scooter on the platform and walk to the train and climb on.

With the help of another guide we managed to get her on and eventually seated. Behind us some of the other disabled people had the same struggle to get on board. Another guide, a young blond man, welcomed us and made a lot of jokes about things that could go wrong.

When the train left, the more able passengers got up and immediately started making pictures of everything that we passed. Opposite us was a couple of which the man had a very professional looking camera; he was sitting next to the window. His wife had a small purple one and started to jump up and down whenever she saw something she liked. "You worry me", he said. She shrugged.

On the other side a man with two walking sticks was seated with three women. One was very overweight and standing up all the time. She blocked most of the view of the man. He obviously was not able to stand up. He tried to peek around his wife but soon that was impossible because of the woman with the purple camera coming to stand next to the woman with the big bum. Once she came over to us and asked worried why we were not making pictures. "No need", my wife answered and the woman looked at us in disbelief and ran to the big woman again.

Soon they were shouting to eachother: "Did you get that? Did you get that?" It proved harder than we thought to make decent pictures. It's only 20 miles and it also has 20 tunnels. This gave us the biggest pleasure of the trip: whenever the people thought that were making a nice picture, we would go through a tunnel. The driver heightened the fun by blaring a constant signal when going through these tunnels. It was a very high shrieking sound that hurted the ears.

The comical guide came to warn us that the greatest spectacle was coming: a waterfall with a woman dancing in front of it. For us it was impossible to see this, but it sounded a bit fake anyway.

At the end of the line the driver walked to the other side of the train and the people got another chance to win from the tunnels while photographing.

Finally we got back at the station and wrestled out and went back to the faithful mobility scooter. While we walked back, out of the station, we came to the end of the train. Just in time to witness how a man in a mobility scooter drove off another carriage on the train with a ramp. We threw our stickers in a bin.

I don't think we'll make this trip again...

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