APRIL 5, 2022 – From Bøda, I traveled by train down past the Arctic Circle to Trondheim, where I spent a full Sunday kicking around this ancient, northern city before taking another long train ride south to Bergen.
Norwegians are generally well-behaved, but it was in Trondheim where I experienced a mean prank. “Mean” was my initial characterization, but after I dusted myself off, I saw the humor in the practical joke and laughed out loud at my own role in having inspired it.
Ironically, the prank was pulled near the Gothic icon of Trondheim—the 11th century cathedral, where earlier in the day I’d attended a full service. Doubly ironic was that in high school and college, I’d been an habitual prankster myself.
It went down like this:
The day was cool, dull, and overcast. After gorging myself at a local smorgasbord, I wandered a bit, then found a park bench on which to take a short snooze before I hiked off to the train station. With my pack serving as a head prop, I closed my eyes to catch a few winks. A few minutes into this position, I heard an automobile stop, then move slowly over the pea-gravel in the immediate area surrounding the bench. Mischievous laughter emanated from the vehicle–something was up. But this was northern Norway, where I assumed the national trait of good behavior was especially keen. Besides, I wanted to demonstrate that I was a hardened traveler who’d slept at will on any number of hard and uncomfortable surfaces all over the world.
How wrong, my assumptions! With the tailpipe within a meter of my head, the driver stomped on the gas and showered my peace with a spray of pea gravel. I sat up with a start—just in time to see the big, burgundy Pontiac Bonneville screeching away, windows wide open and occupants laughing up a storm. Of course, it would have to be an American car—in 1981, a rarity in northern Norway.
The trip from Trondheim down to Malmö—via Bergen and Oslo—took a day and a half. Upon my joinder with my Swedish cousins, we picked up where we’d left off, exchanging more tales amidst laughter and feasting.
I spent the next several days squaring away plans for my next big adventure: Poland* in the throes of revolutionary fervor. In Stockholm I’d already procured a visa, but now I had to study maps and an excellent tourist book that I found at a Polish government-run tourist shop in Malmö. Also, I carefully reviewed every newspaper article I could find about current political conditions in Poland. Given its proximity to Poland, Sweden was on the Western frontline of developments across the Baltic. The tension was like what existed on the eastern border of Ukraine just before Putin’s recent invasion. Among other concerns, I had to contemplate what I’d do, where I’d go, and by what means, if the Soviets invaded while I was chasing around Poland under an American passport.
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*Peter, my cousin Merith’s husband, had deep Polish roots. He was a Polish count, and by marriage to Merith made her a countess—before Sweden joined the modern age and abolished titles. Peter’s father had been a Polish diplomat during the inter-war period, had fled with his family to Finland after hostilities were unleashed—first by the Germans from the west, then by the Soviets from the east. Peter later migrated to Sweden, where he met Merith.
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
