Back on the train, heading for Bergen, Norway, Sven plugged in his laptop computer and logged into his Internet provider account. He had received numerous memos from several of his friends at the Oslo Sanitation Institute. One of the memos struck him as humorous, so Sven decided to parody the memo and mail it back to a public e-mail alias at the Institute ([email protected]).
The e-mail caused a small disturbance. Here we see Institute administrators scrambling to deal with the problem. Unfamiliar with the basic operations of Internet e-mail (such as forward, reply, read, and send), several administrators were puzzled that Sven could have received the memos.
Their solution was to cause a poppy field to appear along the train route. This would put Sven and company into a very deep and permanent sleep. Fortunately the train sped through the poppies at speeds of over 150 km/h and no ill effects were experienced.
When Sven heard of the furor he had caused, he replied, “Yumpin’ Yiminee! I vuss yoost yoking. I vill neffer do dat again!”
Sven did received many warm response memos, but he is not divulging the names of his friends, lest the Institute administration decide to go on a “witch hunt”. (As in “Snow White”, they won’t have to look beyond the mirror on the wall.)
To the south of Bergen is Osøyra. The early settlers of Norway lived in small villages on the mainland and islands along the Atlantic coast. There are more than 150,000 islands off the Norwegian coast, all rich in wildlife.
Here Sven met three fishermen from the village who took him out to fish in the North Sea. Sven got seasick and spent most of the day sitting near his mop bucket.
In Bergen, at the Lutefisk and Lefsa Festival, Sven and Olga met another Olga, Olga Cramling, novelist and poet laureate. Here we see her joining in the festivities, dressed in traditional Norwegian garb.
When the festival concluded, Ms. Cramling invited Sven and friends to her cottage by the sea for a poetry reading. Knute, the tour guide, was enthralled by Olga’s “Norsk Haikus” and commented,
“Uff dah! When I hear Der sound dat trills my big ears. It makes me happy!”
You must be logged in to post a comment.