WE SPENT THE MORNING IN TRONDHEIM... We are not far from the Arctic Circle, and the weather is absolutely perfect. The people here say that global warming is definitely a reality. We will head out of this fjord into the open Atlantic Ocean and hug the coast as we head north.

I try to keep in mind as I see doors in these old stone buildings that people have been coming and going through them for more than eight hundred years. The colorful wooden buildings are from a much later time. The thought reminds me that I must try to make the most of every day.

Leaving Bergen late yesterday on MS Trollfjord, we passed under a couple of spectacular bridges on our way to the West Cape where the ship oves into the open ocean. The Norwegian Sea opens up and if we were sailing to America we would have open ocean all the way. However, we are going north, so we sailed for about two hours across the Stadhavet sea dotted with several islands. The most spectacular scenery today was the Geiranger Fjord. This fjord reminds me of the great river gorge in China before the dam on the Yangtze River was finished.

I decided to go out in Bergen to take pictures of people... and to talk with them about life in Norway. This is a nation of four and a half million people. I saw not one single street person. While the majority of people are northern European, there is obviously diversity diversity. Asian, African, and Middle Easterners are everywhere... in the streets and in shops selling and buying. I learned that no one is paid directly by check or by cash. All wages must be deposited in the worker's bank account. All wages are reported and all wages are taxed. There is little crime and the maximum sentence is twenty-one years in prison. I am determined to learn more about how they do it. Prices are high but wages are high. I don't know what is done by government to keep the balance between income and cost of living. These are photographs of typical Norwegians. At the end, I couldn't resist Edvard Grieg with a pigeon on his head.




The minimum wage in Norway is the equivalent of $25 U.S. In Norway all means all. Street cleaners and MacDonald workers come under the minimum wage law. The Norwegians are fiercely independent. They say their form of government is not socialist, yet everybody is guaranteed health care throughout life, education through college, unemployment insurance, and retirement.

AN ESSAY on Bergen, Norway, in fourteen photoraphs. EDVARD GRIEG kept a piano, a writing desk, and a couple of chairs in this small house where he could go to be alone and compose.



Grieg composed many of his beautiful melodies at his summer home at the edge of Bergen. The lake pictures were his view from the house.




Downtown Bergen today is beautiful, but busy. Greig prefered the countryside and the mountains. Ibsen's statue seems to scold. He could have benefitted from Greig's view.


The Stave Church is a replica of one that burned down a couple of decades ago.

Located on the west coast of Norway, BERGEN is the jumping off place for the trip up north to the land of the midnight sun. It's the country's second largest city, after Oslo. We leave Bergen on Tuesday afternoon. If the ship has Internet connections, I’ll post photos as we go along. This isn't exactly a cruise ship. It takes mail, freight and passengers to all the little villages along the way, so I'm not expecting the Las Vegas shows and 24-hour entertainment. The ship is known in Bergen as "The Bus."After we get up past the Arctic Circle we'll see the sun all day and all night, so I won't expect to get sunsets, maybe just near sunsets. .In Bergen we're staying in a wonderful old hotel, the Marin. It's in the building in the middle of the photograph above. We are on the sixth floor with a wonderful view of the harbor. This is one of the earliest settlements in Europe. The church was built more than nine-hundred years ago, and the village was very old even then.Mariakirken, finished in 1169, is the oldest church in the city.The big ugly yacht, bigger and uglier when you see it up close, is owned by an obscenely rich Russian oligarch, a guy who had nothing before 1991. He and Bernard Madoff are poster boys for capitalism gone wrong, capitalism with no moral underpinnings.

MANY OF YOU WILL RECOGNIZE THE PASSAGEWAY BETWEEN THE DOMESTIC TERMINALS AND THE INTERNATIONAL TERMINAL AT CHICAGO'S O'HARE AIRPORT. MARGARET AND I ARE ON OUR WAY TO BERGEN, NORWAY. WE HAVE A SHORT STOP IN FRANKFURT, GERMANY... BERGEN ON SUNDAY. On Tuesday we board the daily ship heading north. The ship carries mail, freight, and passengers. We will stop at several small towns on the coast (and in the fjords) as we make our way up past the Arctic Circle. We'll have several days of midnight sun.

These flowers on a tree in our backyard are modest in size but downright outrageous in attitude. The hummingbirds love them.

Margaret and I will be out of the country from tomorrow morning until the sixth of July. I expect to be able to send photographs and do BLOG postings occasionally. I'll have my lap top, so I can send and receive e-mail.

I like the way Crystal Pier in Pacific beach stretches beyond the sand out over the battering waves far enough for sailboats to pass close. The white cottages with blue roofs seem as comfortable and unafraid as the seagulls perched on the pier's railings. The strength of the place comes from what’s underneath. Standing among the pillars close to the edge of the surf is a spiritual experience, like standing inside Todaiji in Nara, Japan. I am awestricken by the power implied in both structures.