Disclaimer: I’ve been caught out with this sort of post before.
Here’s an alternative version of Cast In Steel, featuring footage and images for the tour’s South American leg last year.
a-ha are due on stage just after 10pm local time at the Bergenhus Festning this evening.
Vi gleder oss!
Tenuous a-ha link: er…
I’m not saying that I’m unprepared for this trip, but I totally ignored the rules of the 24 hour clock on today’s pre-written post.
It should have come out at 4pm, but it popped out 12 hours earlier.
I don’t do 4am flights. Ugh.
If you haven’t read it yet, please wait until 1600 CAT (UTC+2). That will then overwrite my error.
Thank you.
Right. *deep breath*
If all goes well, when this post self-publishes, we should be on the first leg of the journey to Bergen for the final concert in a-ha’s Cast In Steel tour.
This first leg is deeply uninteresting and involves fighting with the rush hour traffic on the N2 to get to Cape Town International Airport. From there, things get a little more exciting, involving international air travel (twice) and a bus journey to a fish market in Bergen. To be honest, given last time’s problems, I am more than happy for the entire traveling process to be wholly mundane and uneventful.
As ever, when I’m on the move, I’m not sure what sort of blog coverage will be possible, so I have attempted to furnish you with some pre-written posts, each with at least a tenuous a-ha link. In addition, if I get chance to blog, I shall, obviously.
You may also expect twitter and Instagram updates, although Flickr may be out of the question.
Still. Go look and you may find yourself be pleasantly surprised.
I shall see you on the other side. Of the world.
Continuing on a theme (and who can blame me?), all being well, this time next week…
However, in a horrible twist of fate, it seems that most of the (thankfully northern and western) UK has woken up to snow this morning:
And by that earlier post, I mean this one. It was only when I sent the concert information to Mrs 6000, who is was looking forward to our Bergen trip , that she put two and two together and worked out that the concert in question was to be staged outdoors.
Perhaps it was this bit that did it:
Remember that you should at outdoor concert! Dress practical and according to weather conditions. Check the weather forecast! Wear comfortable shoes, there are long standing. Do not forget that the concert will take place in Bergen and dress accordingly. If there is a chance of rain, bring a raincoat, then the umbrella is not allowed in the concert area.
Google translate with the assistance there. I can see we’re going to be playing with that a lot while we’re away: Min norsk er forferdelig. My English isn’t much better.
But that line about “dress accordingly for Bergen”? Well, that would be because of this sort of stat:
Compared with Sweden and Finland, Norway has a much more humid and rainy climate. It is impressive to note that the precipitation in some areas of the country may reach the impressive 3000 mm per year, which is one of the largest quantities in Europe.
Here you can find the city of Bergen, which is considered to be the rainiest city on the continent.
Oh joy. Tell me more, Wikipedia:
Bergen experiences plentiful rainfall in all seasons, with annual precipitation measuring 2,250 mm (89 in) on average.
Cape Town’s annual average is about 450mm. Exactly one fifth as much.
It’s still a way off to the concert (in weather forecasting terms), but I can tell you that the weather in the lead up to the main event looks somewhere between utterly dismal and bloody awful. It’s cold, it’s wet and it’s windy. Add the wind chill and the temperatures are remarkably stable at 1ºC. Having grown up in Yorkshire, I am untroubled by this sort of thing. Having grown up in Cape Town, Mrs 6000 is less keen on the whole “chilly weather” thing.
The Norwegian for “divorce lawyer” is “skilsmisse advokat”.