I was quite content to sit in a coffee shop and watch the human art walk past, but Jamie insisted that we needed a little culture. To be absolutely accurate, she insisted that I needed a little culture. So we went to the Koda Museum here in Bergen.

They had a great exhibit of paper and ink art, an incredible collection of silver art, a Picasso exhibit, a collection of Danish painters, and much more.

Nevertheless, I was terribly disappointed. There wasn’t a penis exhibit in the whole damn place. And they call this a museum?

Bergen, the second largest city in Norway, sits on a beautiful fjord. Or maybe it’s just an inlet. I’m not really sure of the geography, but I am sure that it’s filled with parks and churches and public squares full of happy, beautiful people. We had lunch at the fish market in the city’s old quarter, roamed the streets looking at great old buildings, went to the Koda Museum, had coffee and watched people.

Brad and Ginny Parkinson, our neighbors, have traveled everywhere in the world. Everywhere. He attends meetings with important people and gets honorary degrees from universities in places most of us have never heard of. Ginny usually goes with him, rolls her eyes and keeps his head from getting too big.

They told us we would love Bergen and they were right. They told us to schedule more time here and we already regret that we didn’t.

This, unfortunately, is what happens when you don’t listen to Brad Parkinson.

Here’s a long, seemingly unrelated story that actually isn’t: I consult with Barnett Cox, an advertising agency in San Luis Obispo. About five years ago Dave Cox Barnett came to me and said, “I’ve hired a new copywriter and I want you to mentor her.” I was horrified when he told me she was almost my age. Crap, that’s old for a copywriter. How in the hell, I wondered, can I possibly teach some old woman how to write copy?

We spoke. I liked her, but still had little hope that I could ever turn a longtime newspaper reporter into much of a copywriter.

Well, I was wrong. I’ve told anyone who would listen that Suzy McDonald was great. Is great. We hit it off so well that I often refer to her as my office wife. And not in a complimentary way.

One day Suzy asked where we were going to begin our trip around the world. When I said, “Iceland”, she said, “Why are you going there?”

“Well, I’ve always wanted to visit Iceland,” I said, “but Jamie wants to go so she can ride an Icelandic horse.”

That’s when Suzy said one of the most surprising things I’ve ever heard.

“I have an Icelandic horse. You guys should come up for lunch and Jamie can ride him.”

So one Sunday afternoon we took our friend Ray up to Cambria for lunch with Suzy and her husband Bob. Jamie and Ray and I later agreed that it was one of the nicest afternoons we’d ever spent. Their house is beautiful. The lunch was spectacular. The surroundings were stunning. The company was great. And Jamie, who as far as I knew had never ridden a horse, had a ball riding Suzy’s Icelandic horse.

Today we went to a stable a few miles outside of Reykjavik. We rode Iceland horses in Iceland, which I guess is a big deal to aficionados of Icelandic horseflesh. Other horses have four gaits — walk, trot, cantor and gallop. But Iceland horses have their own unique gait — the tölt — which is so smooth it feels like you’re gliding. One guide said that when a horse is tölting, you could drink a mug of beer without spilling a drop.

My horse’s was named Lucky. Jamie’s was named Eyjafjallajökull or some equally unpronounceable Icelandic name.

Here you go, Suzy. Here’s a photo of Jamie in Iceland with Eyjafjallajökull.

Jamie and I slapped down twenty of our hard-earned Yankee dollars today and gained admission to Reykjavik’s International Phallological Museum, or as it’s more commonly known, the Penis Museum.

The founder was a college professor who had a real hard-on for the subject of penises. His obsession drove him to collect actual penises from every species of land and sea mammal native to Iceland.

For the first three years of the museum’s history, the only mammal not represented was…drum roll, please…man. But that situation was recently rectified when a local resident donated his member to the museum’s permanent collection.

Do you think his family was able to write it off their taxes as a charitable donation?

One added note: In case you were wondering, the sperm whale is hung like a freakin’ horse.

It’s Gay Pride Week in Reykjavik and the epicenter of the celebration is the Kiki Queer Bar about half a block from our cool little hotel.

I’m just throwing this photo up to acknowledge our friend Kiki who lives in Laguna Beach.

Is there something you want to talk about, Kiki?

We’re in the Pingvellir National Park. Or maybe it’s the Bingvellir National Park. Or maybe somewhere in between.

The Icelandic alphabet has some letters that don’t exist in English and the name of this national park begins with one of them. It’s either a “p” with an extra ascender or a “b” with an extra descender.

Whatever the letter is, it’s appropriate that it’s somewhere between two other things because this is the spot that marks the dividing point between Europe and North America. This is where the two tectonic plates come together or split apart or whatever tectonic plates do.

It’s beautiful. Or maybe peautiful.

UPDATE: We just got home from seeing the stand-up comic at the Opera House. He taught the audience how to pronounce that letter. It’s almost a “th”sound, but not quite.

Everyone’s probably seen a geyser or two. We saw Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park a couple years ago during a vacation in the Pacific Northwest.

But this is Geysir, the original geyser, the one that gave its name to an entire category of natural phenomenon.

We traveled by bus several hours outside Reykjavik to see Geysir. It erupts every three or four minutes, but only for a few seconds each time. Look away at the wrong time and you’ll miss it.

A few miles outside Reykjavik, out in the middle of a huge field of black lava, sits one of Iceland’s most famous tourist attractions — the Blue Lagoon.

As its name indicates, the Blue Lagoon is filled with aqua blue water. And tourists. Many, many tourists. All of them dipping their hands into tubs of sulfurous slime and rubbing it all over their faces as they relax in the steaming, geothermal-heated water.

I selected this photo over one I took at a slightly different angle just a few seconds earlier. That photo included two people making out in the background. The water isn’t the only thing that’s hot at the Blue Lagoon.

When I first met Jamie she told me that her dream in life was to visit the Sydney Opera House. We now have hundreds of photos of it taken in every season at every time of day from every conceivable angle. Now I discover that it has nothing to do with it being the Sydney Opera House. The woman just plain loves all opera houses.

The unusual structure above is the Reykjavik Opera House. Not as grand as the one in Sydney, perhaps, but it’s still amazing that a country with only 300,000 people commissioned such an imposing structure. We also have opera house tours on our Oslo and Stockholm itineraries. We saw a real live freak show at the Sydney Opera House and we have tickets to see an Icelandic stand-up comic tomorrow night at the Reykjavik Opera House. Because as you may have guessed, Jamie likes opera houses a lot more than she likes opera.

We started our trip today on a 5:50 a.m. flight from Santa Barbara to Denver (for some unknown reason, IcelandAir flies out of Denver). That gave us the perfect opportunity to get together last night with a small group of friends for a wonderful bon voyage dinner. To make it even better, it was the first time they had ever met each other. What a great send-off.

We love ’em all. Even Jack.

Back row (left to right): Mark Fleming, Diane Fleming, Jill LeMieux, Jamie
Front row (left to right): Jack Ginsberg (trust us, he’s smarter than he looks in this photo), Stella Ginsberg, Dan Ginsberg, Caren Ginsberg, Jim