Day 5: Snakes on a Boat

Did you know there is one kind of snake that lives above the arctic circle? This is not that snake.

This is some random fake snake on a boat docked right by our apartment.

Today we slept in a bit, learned to cook eggs on the cooktop and went for a drive. Our first stop was the mall. Not so much because it was a mall, but because it was the first large parking lot we found in Svolvær, the largest port city in Lofoten. We hit the tourist info center, looked in a couple of galleries, and walked around the town a bit.

On the way back to the car, we hit another grocery store for snacks and went into the mall to visit a liquor store. I got a bottle of Swedish Whisky, we'll see if that makes it home. I also got a small bottle of Talisker, which I'm enjoying as I write this, while watching the light change on the pier as the sun sets and doing a load of laundry.

I also got a hotdog on the way out of the mall, but ate it before either of us could get a photo. 

The rest of the day was spent driving with occasional stops to walk about and take pictures. Because this whole area is gorgeous.

Also, we encountered the strangest bathroom yet. It's like a skill challenge to get in and out. 

Is this to keep out bears? Did we accidentally fall into the island from Witness?

The rule is to not create new paths while hiking, so we stuck to narrow routes that had been previously walked. By late afternoon, we were headed back to Henningsvær to see a bit more of the town while it was still day light. Plus, I think Bill was tired of driving. The roads are narrow, and our rental is larger than his regular car.

We stopped in a couple of shops and tried to find some graffiti about cod. Instead, we found a building full of art, one of 5 in town currently hosting an art instillation as part of a month long Lofoten International Arts Festival, though, so we did see some art. Mostly in video form. The theme for the festival was I Taste the Future and works were intended to meld science fictional ideas with cultural analysis.

One of the films in this building was an interview with a museum curator set decades in the future. I thought it was intended to be satirical as she mainly uttered tech industry babble wrapped in art application, but from the completely straight description in the program, I can't actually tell. The other video, which we could hear everywhere in the building was an interesting sort of sound and video collage. Like a children's alphabet book as a means of cultural exploration.

We went to a second building hosting LIAF exhibits. There was a black and white film cutting between a video about a mythical creature and a documentary about a scientist examining the remains of what might have been this creature. I would probably have more appreciation for that as art if I wasn't so into MST3K at it was kind of indistinguishable from many an old scifi film featured there. The only really interesting one here was a video of an android underwater talking about time with lots of cuts of deep sea creatures. I later read in the program that the android's story was inspired by an Edgar Allen Poe story set in Lofoten, "A Descent into the Maelström." Oh, and I briefly lost Bill in the building when I got too far behind him.

We also wondered through the more residential part of town and found some other street art by a different artist.

For dinner, the nice restaurant that looked closed last night was open tonight. I got a table and ordered Cava and scallops while waiting for Bill. Fiskekrogen is right on the water and our table had a lovely view.

My pan seared cod was quite good, but the roasted root vegetables it was served with were great. 

Tonight's forcast indicated the possibility of northern lights, so we stayed up a bit late to see if we could see anything. We saw some faint lines. Whether these were not particularly bright northern lights, or if the area by our apartment has too much light pollution for a good view, I don't know.