Category — Norway

The next day my host was going to Oslo for the weekend. I considered my options and figured the Hurtigruten ferry to Trondheim would probably be cheaper during the week, so I took my chances and stayed in the room to spend the weekend in Bergen and take the ferry on Monday. I stayed indoors until 15.00, and then went to the Hurtigruten booking office to book my ticket for the ferry. Of course I showed up the minute they were closing up, so the lady couldn’t help me book my ticket anymore. What she could do, was tell me that it would be up to 60% cheaper if I was to leave on Friday night or Saturday night and ask me to come back the next day to actually book my ticket.

After roughly half an hour of cursing, I started to think of ways to replan my weekend. I had the only key to Basil’s room with me, and he wouldn’t get back till Sunday evening late. Then I remembered that we had met a German girl at the meeting the day before that lived in the same student housing area as Basil. I went to the youth hostel (close by, cheap internet) and sent an email to Joanna, the girl in question asking if she could help out. I kept my fingers crossed the rest of the day

Next, I had made an appointment with Siri, a Norwegian girl and Matthew, a Kiwi surfer I met the day before at the meeting. We went for dinner in a very cheap (average of 15€ per dish) traditional restaurant. The food was very good. A weird thing that is apparently quite normal in Norway is that you pay in advance. After eating, we decided to go to a bar. A good one was only 10 meters away as it was located underneath the restaurant. We sat there for a couple of hours discussing the political systems in our countries (this happens a lot when meeting surfers and is a lot more interesting than it sounds!), the fact that Norway apparently has two Norwegian languages (fingers for non-Norwegian people that knew this ) and the economical situation in the world. Two really good things about this pub: good music (rock and metal combined) and cheap beer (only 34 NOK (=4,25€)for 0,4l ) so I splurged and drank two beers.

After a while, Siri had to go home to pack for a trip to Oslo the next day. Matthew and me went for a drink in the metal pub on the other side of the street. We found out that we met many of the same people through couchsurfing. He while hosting in NZ, me while hosting in Rotterdam. This world is so much smaller than we think!

After that I went home, finding a reply to my email saying that Joanna could help me out with the key. Yay!

The next morning my host had to go to university (he’s an exchange student after all ) but he let me stay in his room. I slept in a little, did some stuff on the internet and around 13.00 I left the dorm to go into the city. I wanted to walk at first, but off course I had to sleep after half a kilometer. I sat down at a bus stop and lo and behold I wake up from a bus stopping at the bus stop (they do that, you know ). Me just waking up, I jump up and get in the bus. Just as it starts driving away, I get the feeling I’m missing something. I look around and I see that my backpack with my important belongings is missing. It is still at the bus stop. I shout stop! and the bus driver stops. I jump out, grab my backpack and get back in. Phew! I continue my way into the city.

The weather was beautiful and I didn’t see a drop of rain until right before the meeting started. I went to the fish market (fresh fish, yummy!) and a fortress that used to make up part of Norway’s defenses. After that I walked around the old part of town. The old part of Bergen is a beautiful area that is built against a very steep hill, so it consists of very small, steep little streets and almost hidden stairs with beautiful houses and even more amazing views here and there. I climbed as high as I could get without using a map and then descended again.

After that I went to the tourist information office for some info about Bergen (mainly a map of the city centre since they apparently have never heard of something called signs). I slept there for a bit and then explored the city centre a bit more. After sunbathing in the undergoing sun (it sets quite early since Bergen is surrounded by hills) I bought some food at the supermarket and then went back to sleep some more at the tourist information office to fill my time until the meeting would start (Oh yeah, and to pick up my glasses that I had forgotten there the last time I was there, but that had nothing to do with it ).

Around 19.30 I made my way to the random pub we picked the night before as a meeting place (google really IS your best friend ). I was surprised to find several people already there. Apparently the meeting time had changed again (who maintains this crappy buggy website ), so it said 19.00 in the meeting page, while I could swear I had set it to 20.00. It didn’t matter too much, so I introduced myself and sat down. The meeting was like all other couchsurfing meetings I have ever been to: a lot of fun! I was very surprised though to see 10 people show up during the evening!

After the meeting I returned home with my host and we went to sleep satisfied after a good meeting and a nice day!

The following morning he had everything planned out for me: he would drive me down to the gas station (read: gas station/supermarket/water point/hotel/friends), we would have dinner (I could barely convince him to let me pay for that) and then we would say goodbye.

So we had some nice breakfast (only 15€ for two persons in Norway for an all-you-can-eat breakfast? I suspected he had been talking to the cashier lady who he obviously knew very well ). After that I started hitchhiking and benny drove off to a village close by to go to the doctor’s .

The hitchhiking went abominably bad, and just as I really was getting down again, a boy comes walkiong out of the gas station straight towards me. Hoping he would tell me that he was gonna carry me on his back to Bergen, I approached him. He told me that benny had called, saying that he would pick me up and drop me off 80Km down the road if I was still there half an hour later. Obviously I was still there so took me with him and he dropped me in Geilo.  Benny had bought a huge postcard (needing a 12,50€ poststamp :S) to send to my parents.

During the trip to Geilo I decided that I had suffered enough from hitchhiking and I would take a train from there to Bergen. The ticket was “only” 45€, so I decided to go ahead and do it. And boy am I glad I did! This is the most beautiful train ride I have aver seen in my life! Norway at it’s most beautiful! Huge wild sceneries full of rock formations, glaciers and snow here and there. Photo’s and video’s in the gallery soon!

After I arrived to Bergen, I texted my host and we met at the supermarket near his dormroom. The room was very small, but as long as the host is so nice and there is place for me to sleep, I’m perfectly happy. We talked for a while and decided that we were going to organise a couchsurfing meeting the next day. We created the meeting together and after that he was going to the city and I staid at home since I was very tired and wouldn’t be much fun anyway.

I checked some email and read some blog comments (keep ‘em coming, they are what keeps me writing this bullshit ) and then went to bed.

I left Ricard’s place at about 9:00, reaching a first good-looking hitch hiking spot at about 10:00. From then on, it took me 4,5 hours to get 60 KM done. The two guys that picked me up during that time both declared me crazy I was just about to lose all hope and was seriously about to start looking for  a dry place to sleep  (If I wasn’t going to make it I had to find a place to put my mattress and sleeping bag down and a warm place to get some food and I was in the middle of nowhere) . And then there was Benny. An old man in a run down Saab picked me up. He was apparently going to take me for about 100 kilometer (great, that left “only” 380 Km to Bergen :() to a place called Bromma. He told me he used to be a sailor and had also hitchhiked a great deal. Even he said “I have hitchhiked everywhere in Europe but I would never do it in Norway!”

Benny told me everything about his trip to Oslo and how this was the last time he would ever take his car there. He also told me that he lived in a small cabin up in the mountains in the middle of the forest just off the main road to Bergen. We talked and talked and finally he offered me to give me his tent. He told me he would get it and bring it to me at the gas station he was gonna drop me off at. Finally I went up there with him to get the tent and he offered me to stay there. I had seen this coming from a mile away, so I had already given it some thought. I said yes as I wasn’t looking forward getting stranded some 50 Km down the road when this man was so friendly, energetic and funny.

When we got to the cabin, I knew I had made the right choice. The whole cabin was about 4×5m, had no running water and no toilet but a stunning view to the valley below. As I just had been given a tent, I set that up outside and put my stuff in it.

When I got back inside, Benny started telling me all kinds of things that had happened in his life (usually accompanied by an exact month and year (I am 26 and couldn’t do that and this guy is 67!) and a whole photo album. He told me he worked with Bob Dylan before he became famous and he told how apparently everyone in the whole valley knew him. Judging from the people at the gas station and the flamboyant character he was, I believed him. We listened to old tapes he hadn’t listened to in years and this especially made him ecstatic. This got me thinking: I felt like I was taking so much of this man’s generosity, but at the same time he was very obviously having a wonderful evening himself. Nothing to feel guilty about I decided; moreover I was very happy with the whole experience.

The following morning I stay in the van for a couple of hours thinking about how to go ahead with this all. There was no moment that I was scared or anything, but there are two reasons I was very concerned (especially since she told me he was getting worse): one is Bente, who is such a lovely lady and I don’t want her to get beaten up or worse and the other reason is that I’m a couchsurfing ambassador and I can’t let this pass by without doing anything. I talk about the whole thing with some friends and finally decide to go in to talk with Bente.

When I get inside, Paul is off to work (he was apparently still drunk and mad at Bente when he got up!) and Bente tells me she is about to run away for a couple of days to give Paul something to think about. She ends up arranging she can stay with some friends in Groningen and we leave together with a taxi before Paul comes home. She didn’t leave a note and has no mobile, so Paul’s gonna be wondering I guess. Bente also realizes that they have to stop hosting for a while, so I guess now I just have to leave a reference explaining the while thing.

I end up calling on Ricard’s friendliness again and he happily invites me back to their place again (how awesome is this guy!?). I went back to his place and cooked some pretty nice chilli con carne for them, and we spent the evening talking about couchsurfing and the future.

The next morning I was going to Bente’s house in Hvitsten about half an hour outside of Oslo. I had heard about her from a number of people and as she was apparently the best place ever to relax and have some good food, I decided to make a de-tour to her place to relax for a couple of days.

I got up, packed up, thanked Ross for the awesome time and went on my way. I took a train to the nearest town and hiked the last 6 Km to Hvitsten. When I got to Bente’s, I met a couple of the couchsurfers from the party last week. They were there to have dinner with Bente and Paul, her boyfriend. Paul was already pretty drunk when I got there (15:00 in the afternoon) but Bente was a very lovely woman and I had some fun with the other couchsurfers. At some point the surfers left and I was alone with Bente and Paul. Paul just sat and drank wine without hardly saying a word while a was having very nice conversations with Bente who was smoking hash like she was in Holland I drank heaps of house wine which luckily had a very low alcohol percentage. All of a sudden Paul starts yelling half at me, half at Bente in Norwegian. He breaks his glass, throws it out the window and apparently likes that idea so much that he starts throwing everything on the table out the window: burning candles, falsk of wine, glasses, bowl of chips, etc. I decide to stop him and get up (After all I’m twice his size and half his age). He walks away and continues drinking in another room.

I am left with a shocked (and luckily stoned as hell) Bente who explains to me that Paul is alcoholic and he is getting worse in his tempers. I make sure he is not touching her and am not sure what else to do about it. While we are talking, Paul comes in a couple of times refilling his glass of wine and disappearing into the bedroom. By this time he apparently no longer has a clue that I’m in the room as he walks around butt-naked. I’m not sure what to do about the situation, so I act like nothing’s happening

After I go to bed (the “couch” is a nice double bed in an old Citroen HY parked in the garden, how hippy can you get ) I think about it some more.