And Now For Something Completely Different

So, John has come with me to a couple of Alice gigs, and I thought it was about time I went along with him to his obsession,  a mass naked photo thing with Spencer Tunick.  I've always thought of this as completely barking mad, but when he said, ' He's doing a thing in the Arctic Circle', I decided to  tag along. Never been to the Arctic circle, so, why not?

And now, here we are in Bodø, the arse end of nowhere, the weather at home is fabulous, and here, it's  Arctic Circle like, howling wind, rain, etc  etc.


We have explored the town,  which took about an hour on day one. The museum,  3 floors , took about 25 mins, Especially funny was the basement, a dry aquarium, which was a load of dead fish, suspended against a blue sea background..........

'It was state of the art at the time', said the girl on the desk apologetically

Moose! Well kinda.

OK, it's an elk really. Still haven't seen any moose.As usual.

Yep, it's the town museum!! OMG

Lots of fascinating stuff in the Bodo museum. Not.

Actually, the history of the town was very interesting,  founded 200 years ago, it only survived due to a bunch of herring turning up annually to be slaughtered, and provide income. Bombed in the war, occupied and then deserted, it has thrived since, with lots of crappy architecture, including lovely block hotels, a beautiful power station (eurrgh), etc etc, you get the picture. There is even a Koncerthall, with a  Rad Blu Hotel opposite, so Alice, it would be a great place for a gig, no??....


There's not a great deal to do in Bodø, apart from the museum, some giant murals around town. a modern cathedral, a few shops with ancient mannequins and yellow window blinds in the windows, 3 supermarkets and a lot of coffee shops. And they all close on Sunday. It's like being in Cinderford.
We went around the town, looking for all the murals , hah, not terribly exciting but we love a challenge, and some of them were hard to find. I lost the will to live at some point, so John carried on and found them all.




About 4 of  the restaurants are open, but you need a mortgage to have a meal - we had salmon in the hotel restaurant,  no starter, no pudding , water to drink, and it was still £65. We bought a bottle of vino one day in a shop, but you gotta get it before 6 oclock, they dont sell it any later. And it's £11 for the cheapest bottle!!!......at least you get three glasses out of it.

I really liked this milk jug, wish I had stolen it now. Feel like I paid for it anyway, 2 Ts, £8, ffs

 Most of our meals were things we'd bought from the supermarket - salad bar was about £8 for a box, so definitely something we need to repeat!! Especially as John is trying to cut down on carbs....we are officially starting the low carb diet when we get home, as he has been diagnosed as pre-diabetic, even though he is skinny........

Thankfully breakfast is pretty good.  Bacon, eggs, sausages etc etc, lots of ham, cheeses, breads, crackers, yogurts,  fruit, cereals, piles of smoked salmon and gravadlax.....pretty much anything you possibly want, so we've been eating stacks and then making lunch, with crispbreads and salads. Especially the smoked salmon, nom nom.... And I think we'll  be having salad from the supermarket salad bar again for dinner tomorrow. Note to self - BringShoulda brought all those cuppa soups and pot noodles....

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Piles of smoked salmon and gravadlax. And that's just my plate

Awesome breakfast!

Norwegian goats cheese. Bit weird. Good job I brought the Marmite

Well, the whole point of coming here was this Spencer thing.......but I'm like, 'Do I need to do this? Do I feel comfortable with it? Well, no tbh, I don't.  But it seems a bit pointless to come all this way and not do it, so I went along to the meet up, still undecided. I mean, naturists are weird people, right, they like walking and pub quizzes, and shopping in the nude. I can cope with it on a beach, but sitting in a pub? Barmy. Even John thinks that's barmy......

Spencer had got some old jet fighter plane in the road, and we were gonna stand around it. Then,  he said,  the women were gonna go off to the Maelstrom, a local place where the river meets up with the sea and produces a few whirlpools.
This sounded like one of the more interesting places around, and I like a free trip, so I decided to do it,  which meant I had to do the plane thing first,  even though I had previously decided to run away at this point tbh.....

 Bit nervous, because I have scars and patchwork bits, and a whole lot of other body issues - but then I realised that nobody cares about that except me, also,  I decided that this might be the maddest thing ever, and was therefore worth doing. And I gotta say,  after 5 mins walking over the grass unclothed  to the plane, I was ok with it. Gave me a bit of an andrenaline rush even!

So we all spread out and then he ordered his long suffering assistants to move us around....."Put the lady with the tan lines at the back, no not there, left a bit, NO NO NO! Move that woman....NO, that's a man!.................... .Run, Steve, run........
Was pretty funny really. Every time the wind blew, there was a collective sigh and communal shiver!!

We then walked down to the marina (clothed) and stripped off again for a shoot on the rocks, along with our very own 'ball' - floats that had been sprayed pink, yellow and orange, and we were allowed to take them home with us. I reckon it's because he didn't know what to do with them afterward, lol. He asked us to take pics of them in other locations, and post via #bodbodyscape - the weirder the better!!

 

Then us girls got carted off in a bus to the Maelstrom(some of the pervy blokes wanted to come along too, but he wouldn't  let them, hah).

Don't know who took this pic, but this is how it can be if the tides are right

 
The Maelstrom was mildly interesting, the river coming down meets up with the sea coming in and forms a lot of whirlpools, quite a sight to see. We had to clamber over rocks and thru mud, and then drape ourselves around the rocks like seals........And then it started raining. Deep joy. By the time I got back to my clothes, I was splattered with mud, it was pissing down, and the wind was howling round all me bits. Struggling to get dressed, one of the girls remarked, 'This reminds me of camping', which is hilariously spot on, and made me think, 'yes, and I'm not doing this again either'. Me and my clothes were completely soaked, and my mood was, well, moody.

Getting off the bus, the wind was worse than ever, and of course I didn't even bring a jacket. So I swiped one of the nice blankets they lent us while we were waiting around, appropriated a nerd mac  from a handy box and struggled with the elements for 10 mins, to get back to the hotel and a nice hot shower. Shit journey, but, my god, it was the shower wonderful!

Later on we went to the after shoot 'party' in a nearby bar, where it was so expensive we had one meal between 2, and I had to chat up the barman to give me bigger measures of wine. At £11 a glass, I feel it was a sacrifice worth making. Of course after a couple of those, I didn't really care any more, but the only people we ended up talking with were the kind of pervy blokes I really can't be doing with. Wish I'd been a bit more vocal in my disapproval, but hey, there's always next time.

Steve puts on his 'seafaring' face, aarrrrrrhh.

The following day, there was a shoot up in some nearby mountains, it was in the evening, and everybody had small hand held lights. I was intending to go, but the weather was really pants, so I let John go on his own, whilst I stayed in my lovely warm hotel bed, reading my book.

On our last day, we decided to rent a car - which was super exp, as is everything here, so we ended up with a 'Rent a Wreck', which was actually not a wreck, but at least cheaper than getting something new. We went north, up the coast road, stopping at Mjelle Beach, a beautiful deserted bay. If only the weather was like last week...

And then going on to the trading post at Kjerringøy, where the old buildings have been preserved as a museum. You have to pay extra to see the old house where the traders lived, as it has all their furniture etc, so as we are cheapskates, we just peered thru the windows. Coffee shop was nice though!

Smelly!

Lovely old fashioned shop

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No, I already have hair insurance, thanks

It was an interesting trip, and I am glad I did the Spencer T photo thing ....might even do it again! And guess who we bumped into at the airport..
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