From Oslo to Andalsnes - Or how I came to break my hand

3/6
Well it did get much prettier on the drive. Wildflowers were everywhere and the woods pressed closer and closer on either side of us, so many fresh green trees  that looked excited to be there. The flowers looked like foxgloves I think. Purples varying their hue through magenta and down to the lightest of pinks. I pointed them out to Mick and he asked how long we had been driving past them.Just the last few days mate, no worries.

Wild flowers

Holmenkollen

Holmenkollen

 

We stopped just before we got to the campsite to check out a ski jump called the Holmenkollen that loomed large above Oslo. Oslo looked so beautiful laid out fresh and clean underneath us, I thought it reminded me  a little of Sydney but maybe that was just the beautiful sparkling harbour it was sat around.

Pretty Oslo

Oslo (it is down there I swear)

At our campsite we met new passengers and I whipped up a dinner that went down as the best I have cooked yet! It was Alex's chicken paprikosh and so all thanks will have to go to him. I fixed the packed lunch for the next day whilst everyone spread around the cook tent laid out on picnic blankets or the lawn drinking and chatting. At curfew (10pm) we were sent down to the lake to continue having fun. I wasn't down there long before the swarms of mosquitoes biting my scalp through my hair drove me home. Sergio our shuttle driver joined us late that night and the poor guy was driven from our room to sleep in the bus in the middle of the night once Mick and Monika both got their snore on.

First troll sighting

We had a shuttle driver for reasons relating to the strict driving laws in Europe. Mick can only drive a certain amount of hours in a row, a certain amount in a day and a certain amount over several weeks. He needs specific timed breaks in between it all in order to keep him rested! In Oslo he had 45 hours where he was not allowed to even sit on the coach, so Sergio was flown up to do the shuttle drives in the city as well as the drive from Oslo to Andalsnes in a few days time.

In the morning I made pancakes despite discovering that the milk we bought was in fact yogurt. It looked very similar and I don't want to say that Moose bought it... but he was definitely the one who picked it up. It became a standing joke for the rest of the trip. Oh well. The pancakes went down a treat and we all went into the city.

Statues of life

This cutie

Our first stop was a park with many statues in it depicting the phases of man. They were brilliant stone likenesses of all ages in all sorts of contorted positions. It was a lot of fun to run around and mimic them all. Mick and I took a great photo best described as the final dance in dirty dancing.

Playing around

Statues

Moose getting amongst it

Julz :) and Mick

 

 

The next stop was a viking ship museum with 3 different ships and their remnants displayed and explained. The boats were much bigger than I had expected and all the carving and weaving much finer as well. The final museum was the Kon Tiki museum. It was about this Norwegian guy - Thor Hyerdahl - who set out to prove that people from Polynesia could have come from South America originally. He did this by building a boat using very old methods and sailing it himself across the Pacific. He did other great voyages like this and generally was a Bear Grylls kind of guy. At the start of the museum there was a great quote from him -
'Boarders? I have never seen one. But I have heard they exist in the minds of some people'. Badass.

A Viking ship

Viking details

I just think these boats are the craziest shape

The Topdeck crew outside the Kon Tiki museum - insert jokes here.

One boat built from Papyrus

His main boat built from Balsa wood

That was our last stop before we were dropped in to the city and I chose to have a passenger day and just go with my new friends and see whatever they were seeing. (Something I have never actually done before because normally I have seen all the stuff they are visiting already). It ended up being a huge troop of us led by '45-minute-Moose' that walked to the palace and around it, down to parliament, across to a cathedral over to a fortress and finally ended at a pub just across from our pick up point. The weather was stunning, and still is. Around 25 degrees and all of us were in shorts, singlets and putting on sunscreen. The city is sparkling, modern, buzzing, welcoming and very, very familiar. I think I love it the best so far.

Oslo is alive!

A good ole' palace guard shot

Parliament building

A cool tree

The harbour from the fort

Tree in a fort

Back at camp again and I pottered around organising for today, and lucky I did. We had organised to have a punch party down by the lake, that involves filling two of my biggest cooking pots with a lethal combination of vodka and juice and everyone chips in if they want a part in it. As you can imagine, things got a little crazy, some people were in the lake playing Frisbee others tried to play piggybacks until the person underneath them gave way. I tripped and used my hands with too much force to keep myself upright. I tried to laugh it off but eventually the pain in my hand that I landed on got too much even with holding it in the cold waters of the lake and I was close to tears as I went back to the cabins. Moose came with me and bandaged and splinted my hand and I went straight to bed.

Chilling around the cook tent

Sunset at around 11pm

Down by the lake - light at 11pm

Awaking this morning I was in a lot of pain and knew that I needed to go to hospital to find out what had happened. Mick is still on his 45 hour break and so had to stay in the city until the afternoon anyway and so it was only Sergio and Monika on the coach. Poor Monika. I had to write down all the instructions for lunch (soup, but she needed to cook a separate one for the 4 vegetarians and make sure my gluten free girl got the right snacks and such) and then I gave her my shopping list (very short but still pressure loaded I'm sure) and then cook dinner (jacket potatoes with 2 different fillings and corn on the cob). I don't know if she has ever had to do the cooks job before,, and remember that she is still blind going into the new places today. If she can do this she can do anything!

Oslo harbour

Oslo harbour

Oslo harbour

Oslo harbour

Mick and I went to the hospital and after several hours and many good looking nurses I have come out with a cast on my fractured hand. Its just one bone in my little finger but the cast will be on for 3 weeks and I wont be able to do a whole lot.... Lucky my passengers are so amazing. I hope we can all pitch in and not make it feel like too much of an effort. I will have to be even more organised though now that it will not be me relying on myself.

Very pretty down by the lake

Now the lake is empty...

Now Moose and Julz :) are playing Frisbee in it

Mick fell asleep out in the waiting room whilst I was being looked at and was snoring so loudly that a nurse came and shook him awake and asked if he was ok and did he need to be seen? Hahaha! We went and got lunch, which we realised was our first meal in 24 hours, and I managed to book on to the 2pm train to Andalsnes, thinking that I would be there in time for dinner. Nope, my train is 6 hours and I  will pull in to town at 8pm. My day out of action has meant that I have missed out on the bobsledding but I think it is better for me not to dwell on that.

Now I'm on the train and the scenery is stunning. We keep crossing lakes, running between thickly pine wooded mountains and over rushing rivers lined with cold, grey stones. And this is only the beginning. I contacted Welshy (my boss) about my hand and he was caring and asked if I thought I could continue the trip as if I had an option. I told him it would probably be fine due to my passengers and crew being so helpful. Caity the cook on the trip before me was also in the hospital in Oslo for blood poisoning so I'm wondering if I should just pass the hospital address straight to the next cook, Laura.

Can you have too many sunset pictures?

Meg, Chris and Amy

Someone needs to tell Chris he packs worse than a girl...

Copenhagen to Stockholm

29/6

 

The ferry upset quite a few people, it got rough and there was much vomiting, or so I'm told. I didn't mind it, I even went out on the deck to feel the wind which was so strong that if I had tried to jump overboard I think the wind would have pushed me back like the hands of fate. I did worry about how the wind would affect my cook tent set up but after a few more hours of flat windy driving (including nearly being blown off a bridge) we were at camping Absalon and it was calm enough to set up the tent just fine (although I did make sure to peg it down securely).

Damien and Denise serve up dinner

Dinner was gnocchi with zucchini and ricotta and a soup starter, fresh out of the can just add flavour! One of the guys, Damien had been a chef and was very excited to help me with the 'mise en place' which I told him was not a word I was familiar with. I explained when you do mise en place in a tent, it is normally just referred to as 'prep' because its not all that fancy. He was still excited to help and kept my secret of the tinned soup. (it wasn't long into the trip before the passengers and I had no secrets but I tried to keep an air of illusion for the first few days). 

I was amazed with how helpful our passengers were! I didn't have to cut a thing and barely cooked anything either, all I did was instruct. It was something that had never happened before and it amazed me. I couldn't stop saying thank you.

Copenhagen

The Little Mermaid

After eating we went out for our driving tour, I thought the city looked like a bigger Amsterdam. We got out at a few spots, Cristiania, a hippy commune which I found amazing and repulsive at the same time, and later at the little mermaid statue, which was beautiful. Mon was so good with her spieling. You would never know it was her first time and some of the passengers said so. Mick was impressive too, even though apparently the dry run had been quite difficult. I was exhausted on the way home, 10:30 or so and the sun was just setting. However I still had a little organising to do when we got back to the camp and the 3 of us debriefed which was nice. We were obviously all exhausted and even getting back to our cabin was a challenge (we really felt like pro's at that point)! We collapsed into our beds and I wish I could say that I passed out but unfortunately I woke several times to the sun and Monika's snoring.

Tired and cold selfie, I don't shy away from the ugly stuff.

French toast for breakfast!

In the morning I feared that I had overslept and that the tent had blown away but none of this happened and french toast for breakfast went down a treat. We all went in to town together. It was 8 degrees and cloudy and we 3 went in to a cafe to stay warm, study and drink coffee. We talked over the upcoming days which I liked. Our main problem was the Stockholm marathon that was going to be blocking the city for us when we were supposed to being doing pick ups and set downs and taking people to the ferry terminal. What we were going to do about it was not resolved that day. When the sun came out we walked down the main shopping street and I found another jumper, fearing that this is  only  just the beginning of the cold weather.

So my wind fears were half justified, I walked in to this mess.

We walked on down to Nyhavn and the sky was blue and sun was beginning to warm us beautifully. Photos were taken and Monica decided that she wanted a classic Copenhagen open sandwich for lunch. Fine. But not in the area we were in because it was really expensive. Again fine. However we never managed to find this sandwich after about an hour of wandering and eventually I suggested that Monika go find it by herself seeing as she had to meet a friend in an hour anyway. I hope we can laugh about this now Mon! Mick and I ran into Meg and Mark (Meg is a trip leader from last year on our trip with her boyfriend mark and is an amazing asset to the whole trip) who walked and talked with us some more before I got a kebab and coke. It felt like a cop out but I was hungry and it was cheap.

Mmmmm, dinner.

I had said that I wanted to see the royal palace and this big church opposite it and when I had said it (hours ago) we had been at the same side of town as them. Now after looking for lunch, we were on the wrong side so Mick suggested we drive to it. We picked up the coach and it didn't take long to get to the palace on the stroke of 4 to see the changing of the guards and we hopped out very pleased with ourselves and took photos. Mick was pretty sure he shouldn't have taken the coach in this area and when he tried to get out he ended up narrowly dodging the randomly marching guards. It was pretty funny and others in the square were laughing at us maneuvering a huge coach past these guys who aren't allowed to react to anything even though you could see the fear in their eyes. It took us another hour to get home with the traffic but we had chats and I still had masses of time to organise and prep in the sun. An earlier bedtime that night and I wore my eye mask and had the best sleep in 4 days! Even with waking to Monika again.

The castle that inspired Hamlet

The next morning pack down was quick and the first drive was only 45 minutes to the ferry which would take us from Denmark to Sweden. This ferry was much calmer and sunnier with views of the Danish castle that inspired Shakespeare's Hamlet. On the other side however the long drives started. We filled in time by doing introductions. Everyone gets up on the mic to say who they are and what they do and what they are looking forward to and then some fun ones like who they would like to mud wrestle and why, an embarrassing story and what animal they would be and why. Its a great way to start to get to know everyone and another chance to learn names (I mostly had them down pat by now) and some of the answers had me in total stitches.

The crash marker

1/6
We had a short stop  that day at the memorial of the Bass player- Cliff Burton, from Metallica. At the time of his death  he was widely regarded as the greatest bass player in the world and he was only 24. The band was on tour and in the tour bus they flipped a coin to see who had to go in the top bunk. This poor guy lost and so when the driver rounded a corner in the middle of a nowhere forest in Sweden too hard, he flew out the window as the bus tipped. The bus landed on top of him and it is unknown if he was still alive when the crane came to lift it off him but it is definitely known that when the crane slipped and dropped the bus back down on him again, he died. There was a small tomb stone with some beer cans and guitar picks as tribute and I know Mick definitely appreciated this stop.

Sticky date pudding for dessert?

Dancing with statues in Stockholm

In Stockholm we settled down to a quiet dinner with drinks around the cook tent. I laughed at one of the boys (Tom) who saw me cutting up mushrooms and took himself quietly off to get another dinner because he doesn't like them but didn't want to complain. He came back after it had all been eaten and was disappointed when I said that the mushrooms had been for tomorrow morning! Oh dear. Music and banter went down well but nothing crazy. The next morning we ate the mushrooms with scrambled eggs and we all went in to town for a tour of the Town Hall where they present the Nobel prize. Mr Nobel was the guy who invented TNT. He became very rich and did many good things but was disappointed when he saw that his nickname was the Master of Death. He wanted to be remembered for something positive so upon his death his will read that his fortune should be awarded to those who contributed to the world in different ways. The beginning of the Nobel prize. The Blue Room (it's official name) was beautiful, designed to look like an Italian piazza, and that is exactly what it looked like, even with a blank high ceiling which they can project images of an open sky on to.. The Gold Room above looked to me like what the inside of a pyramid should look like. Huge and mosaiced with gold tiles it came upon us totally unexpectedly in what was otherwise a fairly ordinary Town Hall.


The Blue Room

The Gold Room

The Gold Room

The Gold Room

Stockholm Town Hall

We went further in to the city and got out at the Vassa museum. This was all about a huge war ship that had sunk in the 1600's after only managing to sail a few hundred meters into the harbour. It was left and almost forgotten about for 300 years until in the 1900's it was attempted to bring it back to the surface. They found it amazingly preserved, including several skeletons and have reconstructed it with a museum surrounding it explaining all that the ship can tell us about those times. It was one of the best museums I've ever been to, the ship is the size of several houses and in the most amazing condition, preserved in the cold waters and thick silt of the harbour.

The Vassa

The Vassa

 After the Vassa Museum Mick and I dropped the passengers at the palace and made our way to the supermarket for a quick shop which one of the passengers (Wade) joined us for. It was a grey and rainy day and I spent it back at camp cooking the Lasagna and Trifle for dinner. The trifle was funny. I needed jelly crystals and sent Mick to find them in the supermarket. He was unsuccessful and I sighed and went to look and found them. We both agreed that they were indeed jelly crystals. Then I wanted thickened cream and was very happy when I found some that was vanilla flavoured. All these discoveries were in Swedish remember. Back at camp and when I started making it, it turned out that the jelly crystals were in fact jam crystals and that the cream was yogurt. Oops. We laughed and put it together anyway because it was all I had to work with. Surprisingly it set and even better it tasted great! Some passengers laughed at us when Mick and I took the first bight together and turned to each other and said, 'this is actually good!' You should try it next time you make trifle.

The Helpers roster

Meg serves lasagne

After dinner Monika was taking passengers out to party in Stockholm. I had full intentions of going until I got exhausted and had some pains and strains in my body (I'm not going so well with my back so far). Also the next day was going to be my only day in the city and I didn't want to wreak it by going out and getting tired, also it's very expensive out here! All in all a lot of reasons. I disappointed Monika though, I know that. Mick said not to worry that its not my job to go out and there were other passengers staying back but I still felt bad. Oh well. I was doing breakfast in the morning (breakfast burritos) when one of the passengers (Colin) turned up in a taxi (this is about 10am) still with a beer in his hand, so some of them had a crazy night.

Chilled drinks in the cook tent

Hello Rekorderlig in Sweden!

I was well rested and after a very casual morning I went in to town by myself at about 1pm. I went in to Skansen, an area set up like Sweden was in olden times like Sovereign Hill but much larger. I caught a ferry over to it and dodged runners from the Stockholm Marathon that was going on that day. (The end result of what to do about pickups- ect? basically just that we could not do them until later, and we ended up paying for the taxis for those who needed to go to the ferry). I asked a guy in a high vis jacket if he spoke English. 'Much little' was his answer. 'How do I cross this road that is full of runners? ' He grinned and gave me a little push and all of a sudden I was jumping and hopping through the red faced, puffing runners with him laughing behind me.

The ferry to Skansen

A Viking Ship?

The theme park was pretty tempting too...

The Stockholm marathon

In Skansen I saw old fashioned shops, watched people carving draws, Upholstering chairs and blowing glass. Their gardens were beautiful, full of herbs, vegetables, fruit trees and flowers. They had a zoo and for hours I watched otters, moose, wolverines, bears, seals and generally had a ball. It was late by the time I got out and I caught the ferry back to the main town to wander and find something to eat before coming home on the train again. Again it was a nice quiet night of drinking and chatting around the cook tent.

Wood carving at Skansen

This morning was a super quick pack down. The passengers keep amazing me with just how helpful they all are and we were ready 15 minutes before departure. We watched the Swedish version of 'the girl with the dragon tattoo' which was great then pulled up at at servo and supermarket for me to do a quick shop. I've never shopped at a service stop with all the passengers hanging around before and it was quick but not too bad. One passenger, Moose, came and helped and I don't think he will ever want to come again! (He did). I taught him tricks like how to find out if an item is sour cream or not. Open it, stick your finger in and if it tastes like sour cream, buy it. Now we are just cruising toward the Norwegian border. It is very forested land and still flat. I can't wait for the mountains to start and I think Mick can't either, he is bored.  
 

Skansen

 

Skansen

 

Skansen

 

Skansen

 

Skansen

 


Otters at Skansen

Moose!

Skansen

A bear way too far up a tree

Geese at Skansen

Blind x 3 - RS2505

We call it 'going in blind' when you go on a trip to places that you have never been before. Imagine; you know how to do your job, in a hospital, in a store, wherever. Now they take you to a different hospital or store and ask you to do your job like you have been here all the time, oh and they all speak a different language and use different money. It's interesting. We have all the information (mostly), trips have been coming up here since the 70's and the one before us passes on as much as they can. But still, we have never done it ourselves before. On this trip, I was blind, Monika was blind and Mick was blind.

*I wrote this account as we were on the trip, day to day. So some of the tenses may seem off, and some of the opinions change dramatically by the end of the trip!*



Berlin from above

I flew in to Berlin from Rome on the 25th of May. I was up at 4am, flight at 6:30 and arrival at Wombats hostel Berlin at around 10. Monika met me there and we sat on her bed and talked candidly for the first time about our thoughts for the trip. To be completely honest with you, my thoughts were 'I want to pull out'. I was terrified at the thought of going in blind. I was terrified of how much work there is on this trip, and I was worried about how much was riding on me doing a good job, 45 people's health. No biggie. Oh wait, yes it is.

Monika was also scared. She had been studying for months now , all 3 of us have know about this trip since February and the trip leader has a crazy amount of study to do before they can convince a group that they are an expert on a place that they have never been to before. She will do driving tours, walking tours, instruct passengers on different things to do and what to expect where in places that she has never been before. All I have to worry about is not being totally sure what is in the supermarkets up there or what facilities the campsites have, very small worries in comparison to hers. At the moment I can hear her mumbling her Copenhagen driving tour to herself from the jump seat. Herself and Mick will make some excuse to the passengers tonight to disappear whilst I am cooking to do a practice run before the real thing. Mick would also have a lot of study to do, except that it's Mick and he takes it one day at a time with not to many worries at all. And I trust him. Calmest dude ever, if you see him worried you probably need to start worrying as well.
 
My first worry that morning of the 25th was that no one could tell me what coach my gear was under or where it was. I called around the equipment manager and after a few hours and some rustling around he told me the coach number and parking spot. I got the keys and made my way out to it and after checking over my gear a great weight was lifted from my shoulders, there were/are many others still sitting there though...

That night Monika and I met our 44 passengers. I was so nervous, Monika let me know that our RS is the biggest one that Topdeck has ever sent out and that didn't calm me (I don't normally worry this much I swear!) this worry was mainly about space. Mon gave them an introduction, run down of how the trip will work, a few rules and then I gave my own short introduction. Then we did some paperwork with all their insurance and passports. I tried to remember as many names as I could. Eye contact and silent repetition helps. 

View of Berlin from my hostel balcony

 I walked them down to the restaurant that I had sussed out earlier in the day and we had our first group meal of Soup, Pork Knuckle, Sauerkraut and some rich German beer that filled me up to my ears. Mick joined us mid meal because of his many train delays and I was glad to sit down for dinner and chats with him. Mon had suggested that we all go back to the hostel bar for drinks and mingling and I was having fun but was also absolutely shattered from my long day and had just one drink and a few chats before heading to bed.

My first experience of strange sun times came that morning when at 5:30 I woke to light outside that I would normally associate with 7 or 8am. I was so confused that I didn't even believe the time on my phone display and had to get up to check my watch which definitely said that it was still 5:30 and I had not overslept my alarm.

That didn't make me feel a whole lot better and I spent a very unrestful hour waiting for it to go off before getting up to start one of the most important days of the trip for the cook. Why? In Scandi there is of course shops. However they vary in size as you go along and are very expensive (or so I'm told). The idea is to stock up in Berlin at the Metro (cash and carry) for all the food for the first 4 days and then also as much/all of the dry goods as possible for the rest of the trip. Things like uht milk and cream, juice, curry paste, cereals, muesli bars and herbs and spices. Mick and I arrived at Metro at 7 when it opened and finished shopping and packing the coach at 2pm. We were joined by Monika at about 11 when she finished her driving tour and we were also lucky enough to have the help of another group in town, Blake and Scott and their two wallahs (Trip leaders in training) who were an amazing help with packing the coach.

Cute cafe's near our hostel

I started the shop with my head in a mess with all I had to do and get, I felt physically sick at one point and had a raging headache for the whole thing. I was so scared at one point that I called another chef in Rome just to hear that I was doing it right and to be reassured that even if I did forget anything, I would be able to get it up there. That phone call kept me grounded for a little bit longer and got me through the shop. Thanks Marissa :)

We packed it all away and went straight back to the hostel where I had just a few salads to prepare in my hostel room. It can be surprisingly easy and calming to cook in a hostel room, or, it can be cramped and frustrating, luckily this was the former. I had a few more jobs to do, ordering some bread from down the road for pickup in the morning, organising my fridges and straightening out my to do list for the next few days. Then, as guilty as I felt about it, I had a nap for an hour and a half. I felt guilty because Berlin is such a wonderful city with so much to do, and specifically the area our hostel was in, around Alexanderplatz, is one which I have not spent much time in and is full of boutique and different stores, wonderful restaurants and is just walking distance from the city center. But I was shattered and 'look after number 1' is a sentiment from my Dad which I take to heart. So I slept.

A side note example of what it means to go in blind. Our hostel is one that I have never stayed at before. I have visited it just the once before on our training trip. All I have done in the area is walk up and down the streets to the group restaurant and the bakery. I really haven't done anything else. But when a group of passengers walk up to you asking for a restaurant recommendation from their chef, I cant just say, I have no idea I've never been here before, because how does that look? Nor can I tell them anything too specific because I haven't been there before and if it is a bad experience, it comes back to how they see me. I had noticed lots of Asian restaurants around the area and the night before Mon had said that she had gone out for duck that was great, I have also heard trip leaders in the past say that Thai around here was good. So, confidently, I told my passengers that the Asian around here was great and there were heaps of places to pick from. Luckily they came back later with reports of the great Vietnamese they had had down the road, and I looked like I knew what I was doing!

Pub crawl with Dr. Dan, Blake and Meg

Last night we went for the optional activity offered which was a nightlife tour of Berlin, better known as, a pub crawl. In Berlin it is legal to drink on the streets so one of the highlights is when the organizers hand you a beer at the meeting point in the center of a very trendy nightlife area of the city. We went to 3 different bars, all quite different. We drunk, danced and generally mingled with our passengers (except when Mon and I snuck off for some cheeky and delicious fries). The last stop of the crawl was a club just down the street from our hostel, I did a crafty smoke bomb and no one seems to have noticed or cared. Winning!

First departure morning

This morning was a struggle, lack of sleep will kill me soon but forcing myself into action is something I'm pretty good at at this point. Mick and I loaded everything on to the coach and I went off to pick up the bread. We have so much food that we have actually blocked off and filled up the back 5 seats with dry goods which I warned the passengers not to eat. Because of this we are all very tightly squeezed together (no spare seats at all!) but no one seems to mind and they are all chatting. We stopped at a boarder shop to stock up on booze in preparation for the expensive destinations ahead (one case of strawberry lime rekorderlig for me!) and had lunch in the car park there. The weather has changed enormously. In Berlin the skies were clear and it was hot! Now we are looking at a blanket of gray and the wind is whipping up something crazy and made the picnic a little hard.

Moose, Tom, Mick and Jake brave the weather on the ferry (don't let their clothing deceive you, it was freezing)

On the ferry right now and it is rocking quite heavily from side to side and several passengers have already thrown up. We are a bit delayed by the rough seas but hopefully tonight will still go smoothly, I have my first dinner to cook whilst Mon and Mick go for a dry run of Copenhagen and then I get to go and see the city for the first time! Hopefully tonight will be an early one and I wont be hating life quite as much as I was this morning.