CharlotteCooper.net - Travel

It's not enough that we got in at three this morning after having driven 500 miles back from the fjords on the West Coast, no sir. B, what a star, gets up early and takes the Rent-a-Wreck back to the hire place. We do breakfast when she gets back and then cycle down to catch the bus to Vikingland, part of Tusenfryd, Norway's number one themepark. We are dedicated pop culture hags.

The bus takes 20 minutes and I get flashes of my trip to Dollywood a few years back. It's steep to get in, but I don't care. We head over to Vikinglandet and are greeted "with salutations," by the guy on the door. He tells us to put on these brown Viking capes and says that we are considered Viking friends whilst we wear them, but that we'd better watch out if we take them off.

First stop is an animatronic/cinematic type thing explaining the history of the Norwegian Vikings. I sit in a faux longship and wear a radio headset translation that features lots of over-dramatic actorly business. When the cold wind blows on the onscreen Vikings we viewers get blasted by air conditioning, when it rains we get sprayed with tiny droplets of water, and when it's baking hot they turn the heaters on us. It's quite an experience. There are Viking waxworks sitting along the row, whom my headset tells me have been misrepresented over the ages; they didn't want to burn and rob the christians, no, they only wanted to extend their trade routes. There's a model of a dragon, and another of Leif something (not Garrett), the first white man to visit America.

Many of the attractions at Vikinglandet involve opportunities for students dressed as Vikings to try to sell us various bits of tat including beaded bracelets and carved wooden things. Some of the displays are on the dull side too: pigs in a pen, even Viking pigs aren't particularly exciting. There's also the 'Tree of Life,' which is just a wooden pole in the middle of an easy-peasy maze.The 'authentic Viking village' might have been more interesting if we'd had the nerve to talk to some of the fake Vikings hanging around there.

But I'm selling this place short because we had a great time. B and me went ape for the axe-hurling stand, partly because the instructor was cute, but also because we were unexpectedly good at it, much better than the others we'd seen have a go. We hit the target!

Slightly peckish after the exertion, we stop at a Viking-themed fast food stand for some refreshment. I have a slice of bark bread and honey, warmed on an open fire, B sips an ancient fertility drink whilst I gulp down a paper cup full of tasty 'Odin's Nektar'. Right on!

The highlight of our trip back in time was the afternoon play, when all the Vikinglandet experts gather for a fake village meeting in front of the local Earl. Naturally this involved a lot of showing off, some Viking songs and jokes in Norwegian, and a bit of audience participation. I shook and cried with laughter as B was dragged down to the stage to demonstrate a bit of axe-hurling. She had been accused of calling the instructor a cow and so had to take part in an axe-hurling showdown. B did not let us down, she hurled that thing with all her girl might, I was so proud.

We handed back our robes and headed for the trash side of the themepark where we go on everything. Best ride: the rollercoaster. Worst: the funhouse when something went wrong and they turned on all the lights. It was unnerving to see clearly what an unscary dump it was in which we had just been creeping around. Second worst: the hideous 'Music and Magic' show featuring animal torture tricks and underage drama school brats doing showtunes. Ech.

It was time to go home and as we hung around for the bus a woman butted her way into our conversation because she wanted to practise her English. She's kind of pushy and desperate, so we got rid of her as soon as we could. Later we saw her showing off some photos to another person in the queue. One set showed her as a sepia tinted frontierswoman, one of those old tyme photo studio pics; the other featured her head superimposed onto a Baywatch Pam-type body.