EL SEGUNDO HERALD February 17, 2022 Page 11
Travel from page 2
inventor of dynamite and sundry explosives,
the manufacturer of massive guns, mines,
and shells, and as a partner in Branobel, the
Nobel family’s avaricious oil monopoly on
the Caspian Sea.
For many Europeans and at least one obituary
writer, Alfred has done everything to earn
his nickname, “The Merchant of Death”. But
oddly enough, the insight profoundly shocks
Alfred—so much so, that he immediately defunds
Oslo—Does this look like the principal maritime thoroughfare into a major European capital? Hirtshals—Germans spent billions on an invasion spun purely out of Churchill’s spiteful, devious imagination.
his heirs and invests his massive fortune
in the grand public apology we know today
as the Nobel Prizes. The most important of
these, both in Alfred’s mind and in its impact
on history, is the Peace Prize. Overnight, the
warmonger is transformed into a saint.
Fast forward yet again to May 31, 1916.
Sixty miles off the coast of Denmark, 250
ships of the British Grand and the German
High Seas Fleets collide in the Battle of Jutland
(Skagerrakschlacht to the Germans). 8,645
sailors and 62,300 tons of hyper-expensive
steel sink to the bottom of the North Sea and
Skagerrak Straits in the largest—and possibly
most futile—surface action in naval history. For
the Danes (who naturally go uninvited to the
slugfest), the northwestern skies light up in a
loud, manmade aurora borealis never seen since.
In the European rematch, twenty-three years
later, the Norwegians land in the crosshairs of
the Hitler-Churchill chess match and lapse into
the kind of undeclared civil war that plagues
most of the Nazi conquests. The Market-savvy
Swedes assert their neutrality and sell iron ore
to the highest bidder. The exposed Danes try to
sit out this one, but the Germans invade anyway,
and it’s over in a few hours. But then, with
the superb leadership of King Christian X, the
Danes become the only Europeans to truly sit
out the Holocaust—refusing to co-operate with
the Nazis and spiriting all but a few hundred
of their Jewish neighbors into neutral Sweden.
So what does all this have to do with travel?
After millennia of vicious raids, brutal battles,
bloody squabbles, and all the murderous hardware
they’ll ever need, you might expect to
find a particular type of personality in these
three countries. Nowadays, it might not be
fashionable to generalize about race and culture,
but countries and regions do sport unique and
specific personalities born out of their shared
experiences. Discovering such traits, quirks,
and foibles—getting to the very essence of a
society—is what makes travel so fascinating.
But if you venture to Scandinavia in search of
warlike or warmongering, good luck.
In the 21st century, the Scandinavians live
at the top on every happiness, safety, and
satisfaction index on the planet. Walt Disney
recognized this in 1951, when he brought the
grinning Art Linkletter to the Tivoli Gardens of
Copenhagen in search of pointers for his own
Happiest Place on Earth. There are a hundred
explanations for all the good humor—honest
government, minimal interference, income
equality, low crime, great welfare benefits,
universal health care and education, mutual
social trust—but none of them has anything
to do with kicking down the neighbors’ doors
and running off with their women.
It’s not as if the Scandinavians spend their
days grinning and giggling with joi de vivre.
We found people to be correct more than
friendly—informative and well-spoken, generous
with their time and advice, modest in
their dress, and mild in their manners—but
not particularly interested in catering to the
scatterbrained whims of foreigners. They
might trawl around town in their modest fleets
of bicycles, but these people know all about
their impact on history and might even relish
Jutland—Girls amble where colossal battleships shattered the serenity of the northern night sky.
it. In many ways, change the shop and road
signs, prune back the Volvos and Saabs, and
we could have been touring those thoroughly
Scandinavian colonies of (northern) Wisconsin
and Minnesota.
Our last trip to these parts started off in
Belgium as a drive to anywhere and, by
pure chance, took us to the Skagerrak Straits
and the Kattegat Sea, the enormous body of
water between the Baltic and North Seas that
both unites and divides the western Nordic
kingdoms. We try to incorporate at least one
ferry into every adventure, and this time went
overboard (so to speak), crossing the Elbe and
the Fehmarn Belt to Denmark, the overnight
cruise up the Kattegat from Copenhagen to
Oslo, several fjord-jumpers down the jagged
Swedish coast, and the afternoon boat from
Göteborg back to the Jutland peninsula.
But it was halfway up the Kattegat, with
flat, featureless Jutland on our left, that we
realized just how perfect the weather had been,
how hushed the vast blue waters, how clear
and clean the intense indigo atmosphere. After
years of commuting across the North Sea, we
had direct personal experience of the noisy,
vicious storms and cyclones that could churn
these angry seas and appall the stomachs of the
most hardy voyagers. We’d seen bitterly cold
days when the sun rose and set within an hour
of lunch. Admittedly, those experiences hadn’t
turned us into marauding Vikings, but they hadn’t
exactly left us happy either. Nevertheless, on
this trip and in the perfection of that ageless
maritime paradise, we could pretend that we
were, in fact, two of the most satisfied souls on
the planet. And that alone was worth the price
of admission.
Next up: Cherchez la Truffe!
Ben & Glinda Shipley, published writers
and photographers, share their expertise and
experience of their many world travels. If
you have any questions or interest in a particular
subject, please email them at web@
heraldpublications.com. •
Hvide Sande—Herring huts await their owners on a overcast North Sea morning.
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Order to Show Cause
for Change of Name
Case No. 22TRCP00013
Superior Court of California, County of
LOS ANGELES
Petition of: GEMMA VERNALE EGAN
THROUGH GUARDIANS AD LITEM
REBECCA BRAND & ROBERT EGAN
for Change of Name
TO ALL INTERESTED PERSONS:
Petitioner GEMMA VERNALE EGAN
THROUGH GUARDIANS AD LITEM
REBECCA BRAND & ROBERT EGAN
filed a petition with this court for a decree
changing names as follows:
GEMMA VERNALE EGAN
to
GEMMA GRACE BRAND-EGAN
The Court orders that all persons
interested in this matter appear before
this court at the hearing indicated
below to show cause, if any, why the
petition for change of name should not
be granted. Any person objecting to the
name changes described above must
file a written objection that includes the
reasons for the objection at least two
court days before the matter is scheduled
to be heard and must appear at the
hearing to show cause why the petition
should not be granted. If no written
objection is timely filed, the court may
grant the petition without a hearing.
Notice of Hearing:
Date: 3-25-2022, Time: 9:00 AM.,
Dept.: B
The address of the court is:
825 MAPLE AVE
TORRANCE, CA 90503
A copy of this Order to Show Cause
shall be published at least once each
week for four successive weeks prior to
the date set for hearing on the petition
in the following newspaper of general
circulation, printed in this county:
EL SEGUNDO HERALD
Date: JAN 21, 2022
GARY Y. TANAKA
Judge of the Superior Court
El Segundo Herald Pub. 1/27, 2/3, 2/10,
2/17/22
H-27439