We disembarked the ship at 9AM at Kirkenes - the north end of the Hurtigruten Coastal Cruise. We flew back to Oslo. We were a bit surprised to see Starlink Internet available onboard the SAS flight. It was as fast as broadband on the ground! We then checked back into Hotel Bristol in the center of Oslo.
When we were transported from the ship to the Kirkenes airport. One person in our group was missing. Chris went back to the ship to check, tried to call the missing person but no answer. After having waited for 10 minutes, Chris decided to just go ahead without her. When we arrived the airport, I spotted the missing lady walking into the terminal. It turned out that she took another bus without knowing there was a dedicated bus for Gate 1.
Our tour leader causally mentioned before we headed out in the morning that the Kirkenes Airport Security was actually quite strict in its screening, maybe because this little airport was not too far from the Russia border to its east. True to her words, my backpack was opened, the mess of charging cables, plug adapters, and even the little Arctic Salt souvenir were taken out and examined with interests.
With the few hours free time before dinner, we walked around the center of Oslo again. It was a sunny and warm day, very different from the first day we were there. The city center was still packed with people, tourists and locals? In front of the Parliament building, there was some political gathering with someone speaking in Norwegian with a small crowd holding big flags. I googled and found out one of the flags is Norway Communist Party (NKP) and they were celebrating Cuba’s Dictator Castro's 100th Birthday posthumously.
On the other end of the park, there was a jazz music festival with people performing on stage. The girl singing sounded pretty good. I saw a young Hispanic girl on stage when I fully expected to see a Norwegian girl. That’s when a middle-aged African lady handed me a pamphlet. Oslo was quite a vibrant, lively, and diversified city, in its “Central Park”, over the weekend.
By the time we walked back to the Parliament building, the red flags were replaced by yellow and blue Ukraine flags, and someone was speaking in English, about war and peace -:).
We had the farewell dinner at our nice hotel, with Champaigns. Chris asked everyone what was the favorite moment of the trip. “Cow Bell”, I would’ve said :-). Overall, this was a pleasant and relaxed trip. And Norway, as a country, is very clean, very safe, and very organized. On the other hand, food quality seems on par with American Food, and things seem a bit more expensive there, esp. anything alcoholic (see below*).
I am including some pictures we took on the ship below. Also included are some of the facts about Norway:
1. Norway’s Fjords were formed when ancient glaciers cut through the mountains during multiple successions of ice ages in the past 2.5-2.6 million years. Each fjord is U-shaped at its cross-section, and very deep (650+ meters to 1300+ meters in depth, while a large cruise ship needs 10 meters depth, and a navy aircraft carrier needs 15 meters). When the glaciers reached the sea level and eventually melted, the mountains around the mouth of the fjord collapsed and caved in, forming shallower dam-like structure, and then the sea flooded into the fjord. So, yes, fjords are filled with salty water and connected to the sea. Around the mouth of a fjord the tidal waves in and out could form dramatic vortexes, as seen in our Day 8 excursion near Bodø.
2. Half of Norway’s food consumption is imported. Self-sufficiency is down to 34% if considering agricultural winter feed. Norway had long and dark winter, short summer, and 1-day spring? There are 23 days in a year that’s suitable for boating (vs 330 days in Southern California and 250 days in Northern California).
3. The Gulf Stream, a powerful fast-moving warm ocean current originating near the tip of Florida, flows up the eastern coast of the US and across the Atlantic toward Europe, and goes by Norway. Hence the rainfalls and the variety of fruits and vegetables produced in Norway in the summer.
*4. State-run shops, Vinmonopolet, sell anything alcoholic over 4.7% ABV (Alcohol By Volume).
5. Norway is one of the founding members of NATO, but it is NOT a member of EU. It is in EEA (Europe economic area) & Schengen (Europe open borders agreement).
6. Norway is 7th in the world for per capita GDP (US is 9th). North Sea oil wealth is accumulated in a national sovereign fund, the largest of its kind in the world, valued at $2.3T as of lately (early August 2026).
