Hahahahaha
It’s my last evening in Alesund — I need to get caught up on updating my trip report — and it’s a gorgeous evening so I was walking up to Aksla viewpoint, all four-hundred-whatever steps.
I had seen from down below that there was a decent sized “tour group” (easily identifiable by the matching blue jackets that several of their members were wearing) who were bunching up and taking up space at points along the path — and about halfway up, sure enough, I ran into them. A couple of people were taking photos on a little promontory viewpoint, and I figured the rest of the group were waiting their turn.
I mumbled my “excuse me”s and wended my way up through them. One even had a bag from a local hotel. A bunch of tourists for sure !!
Then I started noticing that a couple of people were wearing earpieces and kind of standing back . . . a few people had serious cameras and lenses . . . and one or two had microphones you know with those padded colored things on the top that show what CHANNEL they are from ??!! Then I thought — wait, why is everyone focusing on this blonde woman? A person or two even was wearing a t-shirt with a drawing of her on it!
I got up to the top past the last/first person in the group and whispered to her — Who IS that??
“The Norwegian Prime Minister,” she smiled and responded. “We have parliamentary elections soon.”
And indeed — holy cow, it was the PM! When she started up again and got to me, I told her thank you for opening Norway to vaccinated EU visitors, and told her that I was happily spending my tourist euros in Norway. She asked me where I had been, and when I started off by listing Bergen, she said very good ! I guess that is where she is from.
Anyway I came the rest of the way up and she and her party came too — now she is up on a different part of the huge platform up here doing a TV or radio interview.
I did the requisite Googling — Erna Solberg has been PM for 8 years and is popular, but at least one prognosticator thinks she won’t win another term in the Sept 13 élections, as her prospective partner parties have lost popularity. (She is the leader of the Conservatives, and I will now always remember that BLUE is their color from their jackets!).
Anyway, she is definitely playing woman of the people today ! She is probably my age (early 50s) and taller than me but also a bit on the heavy side like me — so cool to see her and think that she is the leader of this country !!!
Anyway there is no point really to this post other than it is just funny !