Out of Norway!

Its almost hard to believe but after spending a few months in Norway we are finally leaving that weird (but beautiful) country for a little bit of fun! One of our old friends from UIC, Mark, has been working in Europe for the past few years, and we made some time to go visit him in Germany. The cheapest flight we could find out of Norway made a stop over in Oslo. We had quite a lot of time in Oslo once we landed (something like 5 hours or so), but sadly, since we picked the cheap flight, the airport where the stop over was at (Sandefjord) is something like 200km away. I thought it might suck to just sit at the airport for that long, but man was I wrong!

It turns out that the night before we left, our last day in Trondheim, we had a crazy party with the Germans we were living with. Lets just say that when we came home, drunk, we had only about 2 hours before we had to board the bus to the airport!! So, needless to say, when we found such an inviting set of park benches, in the warm sun, and next to some nicely manicured bushes just outside the airport terminal, we felt so relieved! We spent the 5 hours snoozing in the sun, like homeless people on benches, and sipping horrible instant 'coffee.' Not bad at all (except for the coffee part)!


Trying to rest between flights, at the Sandefjord Lufthaven Torp airport.

Next, we will be boarding another short plane ride to Bremen, Germany. From there, we are hopping onto a regional train to get to Braunschweig, the town Mark currently lives in. I am not sure of the plans after that, but it's Mark, so who knows!

Hiking to Holvassgamma Koie

We saw this picture and just had to go:


Holvassgamma cabin (koie) in the Afjord region north of Trondheim.

This is just one of the cabins that are part of a network in the Trondheim area owned by the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). They rent out the cabins on a first-come first-served basis to students and guests, and they have a website. So for our last weekend in Norway, we wanted to do a big hiking and camping trip. The weather was a bit unstable in the mountains where we originally wanted to go, so instead we opted for one of the cabins. We picked the one with the craziest hike, and the one which looked the coolest, but could still house at least 7 people (that's how many people were going all together; everybody in our shared apartment plus two other people).


Hiking to the cabin took almost 5 hours!

We had to reserve a car to get to the trail head where the hiking started. Once we got there (which was north of Trondheim and required a ferry ride across the fjord), we had about 3 hours of hiking, mainly uphill, ahead of us. We started at a farmhouse and walked up a road for a while. Then we started ram roding into the wet and soggy ground that is most of Scandinavia in the summer. A lot of the ground is rocky eroded mountain tops with little soil. Thick mats of carpet-like moss grow on top and the water just collects on the surface because it can't go through the rock below. We would hike uphill, hit a wet patch, and then a deep muddy hole even higher up another hillside. Water normally goes down, but the hill tops don't drain like you expect them to here. Sometimes there would be underground rivers, where you could hear the water cascading past larger boulders that were covered in a thick carpet of moss that you would float on top of. With each step it was like stepping into a huge sponge. Water would rush up, but it was usually really clean, filtered from the moss layer and also helped by the fact that there literally was no soil in many places, no dirt to get the water dirty.


We had to cross a small river to get to the cabin on the other side.

I walked with my Keens for the entire time, with wool socks. I think it worked well (I never tried it before). Yes, my feet were drenched and soaked, but the wool kept my feet warm. I didn't have to worry about where I stepped in order to prevent the water from going into my boot or whatever. I had no boots. When we got to the cabin eventually, I washed my feet, socks, and sandals in clean river water, and then put new dry socks on and a dry pair of slippers. My shoes dried out fast in the warm cabin, and so did my hiking wool socks! So I think this is the way I'm going to go from now on. Anyways. . . it took us almost 5 hours to reach the cabin because we got lost a few times and took a lot of breaks. It seems like the bigger the hiking group gets, the slower everyone hikes. But that's okay, I was enjoying the scenery.


The cabin was very camouflaged and impossible to see from the other side of the river.

When we got to the general area that the cabin was in, we had to cross a small river to get to the other side where the cabin should have been. None of us went to this particular cabin before, and it was one of the most difficult to find, so we were in for an adventure. We paced back and forth along the shore of the Holvatnet thinking that the cabin should be close to the shore. But then after almost an hour, we decided to try what we first thought was a sheep path, which is why we ignored it at first. Bettina blazed up the sheep path and to our delight, actually found the cabin further up that tiny path! Everyone was so happy! We were seriously contemplating what to do in case we never found it.


Bettina was the first to find the cabin! Good job! So happy to make it!

I went after Bettina, and so together we were the first to see the cabin. It was so cool looking! But there was a lot of sheep shit everywhere, which kind of sucked. It was mostly dry though. Everybody else came up the path and we all got settled into the cabin. The story about the cabin is that it was originally built by some Danish architecture students in 1972, who wanted to live in nature for one year. Apparently, they couldn't do it 100%, and trips back to the nearest town became more and more frequent. They canceled the whole thing after one of the students became pregnant. So the story I guess isn't very cool, but what is great was that they never demolished the cabin as they had intended to after the experiment was over. It was used by the locals for hunting and fishing for a few years, and then the cabin association (I am assuming an NTNUI related group) bought it and restored it for use in the cabin network. I guess it must have been hard for the people to live entirely from nature here. There isn't much good land for farming, but there is a lot of fresh water and fish and berries. Also, sheep are there so it must be okay to have sheep for milk, wool, and meat.


We went fishing with Benni and Sebastian and caught 8 fish!

We brought plenty of food in our packs, so split between 7 people we had the luxury of bringing things like fruit, veges, yogurt, and other heavy things like wine! When we got there, we were all hungry, but we also wanted to try and go fishing to see if we could catch some fish and make it part of dinner. Only four of us were into fishing (the non-Norwegians), so we headed to the boat, while Bettina, Birgitte, and Sjo stayed in the cabin entertaining themselves and eventually making a lot of pasta. At the other side of the river was a boat that belonged to the cabin. We brought along some fishing poles and bait, which we took to the boat. We paddled out towards the middle of the lake, but the most bites were near the shore. In fact, on our first throw into the water, we caught a fish! Within 5 seconds too! It continued like that for the rest of the fishing trip. We caught 8 fish total. They were small, so we each had our own personal fish to eat.


We smoked and cooked the fish over an open campfire the first night.

When we got back to shore, we had to gut and clean the fish. I really was scared to touch the fish, so the three guys did that part. It took a long time to do 8 fish, so we were there for a while. It started getting cold! When we were finally done, we got back to the cabin and dinner was ready! I guess they didn't wait for the fish, which was okay, because we were super hungry. After pasta, vegies, and some wine, we built a campfire outside and started smoking/cooking the fish on sticks. They took a surprisingly long time to cook that way, and the meat got very dried out and smokey flavored. The next night, we decided to cook the fish in tin foil with onions and lemon slices. It was much better that way!


View of the lake Holvatnet when we finally got some sun!

After the first night, half the group had to go back home so they could be back at work on Monday morning. We stayed an extra night with Benni, since it didn't matter about work for us on Monday. The second day, the weather cleared up really nicely and we actually enjoyed a bit of sunshine! We went fishing again, this time to a different lake which was about an hour hike away, to the north. We caught some fish which were slightly bigger (and cooked them in tin foil). We also made a lentil, rice, and vege stew which was great! And we had chocolate for desert and a good dose of hard liquor to wash it down (we drank all the wine on the first night, go figure!).


Inside the cabin was very simple and cozy and warm!

We had a blast at the cabin! It was nice to get back to nature and experience life out of a primitive cabin. I really liked it. The morning we had to leave, the weather started turning gloomy. It rained on us almost the entire way back to the cabin! The wind was howling, but luckily it wasn't a very cold wind. We just trudged through it, and made it back in just over 2 hours! That's less than half the time it took us to get to the cabin. I think it's because we (a) never took a break from when we left the cabin to when we got to the car, and (b) were hiking as fast as we reasonably could so the rain would end faster or something! I guess we couldn't leave Norway without the typical Norwegian weather!

Trondelag Folkemuseum

Another place that I noticed one day when we were biking up the big hill in Trondheim towards Bymarka was a huge outdoor museum. Behind a huge gate, which read "Trondelag Folkemuseum," were some cool looking old buildings and walking paths. I wondered what it was (obviously, some kind of museum), so when we got home from the bike trip, I googled it. What popped up was a link to the Sverresborg Trondelag Folkemuseum, a huge open-air museum that displayed almost 100 traditional Norwegian buildings. It was very reasonably priced for the student ticket, so we decided to go when it was sunny.


A rich person's house from the early 1900s.

We took off early from work today, since the afternoon turned out beautiful, and packed some food and water into our bags, and then hoped on our bikes. It was pretty hot out, so we wore our padded biking shorts for the ride (yeah! warm enough for shorts almost never happens here). We were hoping to make the 2pm tour that was advertised on the website as part of the admission. When we got there, the tour actually started at 2:30pm, so we had a little while to look around the museum before the tour.


A real medieval stave church, from the 1100's!

The closest thing to the place where the tour began was the 'old town.' This was a reconstruction of original buildings into what a typical town would look like. Many of the buildings were touching each other, creating a long corridor in front of which was a cobblestone street. Houses looked very similar to the grocery store, the dentist, or the tavern, for example. Many of the houses were made of painted wood with grass roofs. The buildings were very simple inside, and reminded me a lot of the ghost town buildings in the western US.


Side view of the medieval stave church.

When the tour started, we were the only ones waiting! But as soon as the tour guide started walking away, more people joined us (this seems to happen a lot for us). The first stop on the tour took us to a medieval stave church. The church was from the 1100s, and it was all original. The wood has survived for so long because the people have used it constantly since then, and covered it in tar to keep it dry. The church itself was very small and had no windows! This was done on purpose because it was lit from inside with candles and that was part of the experience. There were no chairs, everybody just sat on the floor or stood for the entire church service. We got to go inside and it was really eerie but interesting! There are only 29 stave churches still left today. Most are very plain and simple like the one we saw, but there are a few that are crazy looking!


Beer pitchers inside of a rich person's entertaining and dining hall building.

Next we stopped at a small traditional farm. Those buildings were made of wood, like a log cabin, and had a grassy roof. The roof was made like that to insulate the building and also so that the snow would fall more evenly on the roof in winter. The roof is actually water tight, even though it is only made of wood and bark lining, with some thick branches that act as terracing, so the plants and dirt don't slide off the roof. Some of the buildings were very well camouflaged because of the green roof!


Part of a reconstructed farm, with the city of Trondheim in the background.

The tour guide told us that the farm house was usually a two room cabin, unless the family was rich. One room was the main family's quarters, and the other room was for grandparents. Couples were usually married off as a political thing between families, not for love. People would try to have a lot of children so there were more people to work on the farm! They would eat porridge for three meals a day, supplemented by dairy, fish or fruit/veges in season. It was also very important to brew beer. We learned that it was written into Norwegian law that if you had over a certain amount of acreage (or something like that), you were required to brew beer by law. The Norwegians say "skal" instead of "cheers." Skal literally means bowl, and the saying is from the fact that the brewers would bring beer up from the basement in huge pitchers, and then pour the beer into even larger broad bowls on the table. People would pass the huge bowl and drink directly from it. The tour guide also told us why it is customary in many places to clink your glasses together when you say cheers or skal. That is a relict of times when people used to murder each other by poisoning the others' drink. Because of this, people would slam their drinks together so that some of the liquid from one person's drink would splash into the other's. That way, if you poisoned somebody's drink, you might end up poisoning yourself. It must of happened a lot because the tradition is still going strong!


Old city streets as they would've looked in the early 1900s.

The tour guide was really great, and she was a singer too. She would sing us old traditional folk songs. In another church that was more recent (not medieval) she sang us an old hymn. Then she told us that the women would have to sit on the north side of the church, and the men on the south side. The north side had no windows and was thought of as the evil side because evil came from the north. The women served as protection between the men's side and the evil north. The people didn't bother making windows on the north side because that's where the women sat. Isn't that crazy?


Old city apartment houses from the early 1900s.

We learned so much during the tour! She also told us how you would be able to tell if a person was rich or not by how they painted their house. Red paint was fairly easy and cheap to make, and it was partially made red by mixing in animal blood. White was the most expensive color to make and buy. So if you were rich, you painted your house white. If you were poor, it was red. To this day, most of the norwegian houses that we saw in town or on road trips through the country are painted either red or white. I don't think it's a symbol of wealth anymore, but the traditional colors still are showing to this day!


Inside the ski museum, we saw what looked like Romy's mom!

One of the last things we saw as we went through the outdoor part of the museum was the Sami huts and the boathouse. The Sami huts were basically debris shelters with a wooden frame to keep the debris from falling in on itself and collapsing. The Samis made a winter hut and a summer hut. The winter one was small and cozy, easy to heat. The summer one was large and roomy. They store food in elevated shacks which were on stilts. This kept the mice and other rodents out because they couldn't climb the stilts. In the boathouse, we saw how they used to make buoys. They would wrap tree bark on itself until it formed a huge ball. Then they would wrap the ball with a tightly fitting net to keep it all together. It floats just like a modern day buoy and its totally natural.


Who needs modern gaiters when you can have leather pants with colorful weaved things to keep the snow out of your animal hide ski boots?

After we were done with the outdoor stuff, we went inside to the ski museum. Norwegians love to ski, but many don't ski downhill, they ski cross country style. It was normal, back in the days, to make your own pair of wooden skis every season. It would take a person about 2 days to make a pair. Each region in the country had a unique way of making skis, based on the predominant snow conditions. They usually had only one large pole instead of two. They would ski with animal hide or skin on the bottom of the skis to provide traction when going uphill. It also was much quieter, so the Norwegians would hunt with skins on. Snow shoes were relatively unknown and unused, surprisingly. The museum said that the only use for a snow shoe was for hunters who would have a snow-shoe type thing on one foot, and a ski on the other. They would do a glide and hop motion to get to their prey much quicker than if they were on two skis. That is so interesting!


Hand carved wooden cross-country skis from Norway.

At the museum, they also showed the dress that people wore while skiing, from ancient times to modern times. At first it was very caveman-like, with thick skins covering people's bodies. Then the clothes became sportier with weaved wool clothes and leather pants. Skiing for a majority in Norwegian history was not a sport. It was another means of transportation, like walking, when there was snow on the ground. In the early and mid 1900s, men began to go skiing as a social outing, and it slowly evolved just recently into a sport. Women were not allowed, and it also wasn't proper for women to dress in sportier more comfortable clothes to go skiing. Eventually that changed and now skiing is something completely different. Near the exit of the museum, it said that now not even half of Norwegian children own a pair of skis, or even know how to ski! What a change in just 100 years!

Nordenfjeldske Kunstindustrimuseum

It rains a lot in Trondheim, so some evenings or afternoons, we are stuck indoors. After a while, I started looking around in some of the tourist brochures on what to do indoors in Trondheim that wasn't too expensive. Going out to a cafe or brewery is out of the question, since a pitcher of decently brewed beer costs about $50 and any normal meal in a typical cafe or restaurant is at least $20-$30 a plate! Well, anyways, enough complaining about Norwegian food prices, and on to something more interesting. . .



I found out about a cool small museum called the Norwegian Museum of Decorative Arts, located in the city center. This summer, it was having a mid-century modern exhibit, which was displaying a lot of furniture (mainly chairs) and fabrics from the 50s and 60s. Most of it was Scandinavian, but there was supposedly stuff from other European countries and even a few pieces from the US.



Student tickets were pretty cheap, so we opted to go on one rainy day. The mid-century modern exhibit (which all the pictures are from) was kind of small, but really cool! They had a lot of chairs and everything was so colorful and unique. I really like it and I wish I could take all of those chairs home with me! Unfortunately, you couldn't sit in them to try out how comfortable they were. There were a few egg chairs that looked nice, but who knows how comfortable they really were.



In the other parts of the museum, they had modern-ish tapestries and in the basement they had some really old Norwegian furniture from the 1500-1700s that looked like they belonged in a castle or palace. Very heavy and wooden or metal. They also had an abstract modern art part that was just freaky and ugly. We hurried along through that section. I think the only part that was worth seeing in my opinion was the mid-century modern exhibit, which is essentially what we came for.



Hardly anybody was in the museum. We saw only one other woman. When we stopped by there over the weekend to inquire about opening hours and prices, there seemed to be a lot more people. I guess since it was Tuesday, we had the whole museum to ourselves!

A Drive From Trondheim to Bergen: Day 2 and 3

The night spent 'camping' inside of the Toyota Urban Cruiser actually wasn't so bad. (If you have no idea what I am referring to, read the first part of the post here) It was much quicker to pack everything up and refold the seats that morning, than it was setting it up last night. We wanted to wake up earlier than we did, but since we didn't get to sleep last night until close to 2am, when we woke up at about 8:30am-ish, that was ok with us. We woke up to this view:




Yesterday was so beautiful and sunny and warm, but today was going to be overcast and a bit chillier. That is actually the normal weather in Norway, cold and rainy or overcast. So I guess the really nice weather we had yesterday was just lucky! My first concern after hitting the road was to try and find some coffee. Since this is Norway, and everything is crazy expensive, going to a cafe to get a nice latte or cappuccino was out of the question, since that would cost at least $10. We opted for the cheaper gas station coffee machine option, which was "only" 25 kroner, or almost $5. I was still so sleepy when I got the coffee, I totally didn't notice the coffee machine for the public customers right in the front of the store, and I somehow wandered into the employee break room where I found a smaller coffee machine (but it made bigger sized coffees) and made two nice big coffees. Then when I went to the register, the cashier was so confused when I tried paying for the coffee. He asked me, "Where did you get this?" And I told him, and pointed to the break room. I now felt a little embarassed, after he pointed to the big gigantic coffee machine for the public use. Oops! Oh well!


There were many spectacular waterfalls along the way to Bergen.

After coffee, everything was okay and we kept driving south towards Bergen. We stayed semi-inland, so the terrain was mostly mountains and lakes. It reminded Romy of Switzerland and the Alps. I thought it was cool too! When we were almost there, we had only one more ferry boat to get on, the one that crossed Sognefjorden, the largest fjord in Norway. In a way, the larger the fjord, the less spectacular it is. That's because the dimensions aren't as impressive, relatively speaking. In my opinion, the best fjords were the tall and skinny ones. The wide ones just look like a huge mountain lake or something (not that mountain lakes are cool. . .)


The city of Bergen from above.

It didn't take us long to get to Bergen once we were over the Sognefjorden. The weather started getting gloomier and rainy, but we just hoped for the best. Along the way, I was feeling like more coffee, so we stopped at another gas station place. We found a little shop that sold waffles and coffee for 10 kroner each, so we got some to try. They had nice picnic tables outside where you could eat, perched above the fjord we just crossed over. The waffles were really good, like crepes. But it didn't take us very long to eat them, and drink the coffee too, so we were soon on our way again. I texted Cova to let her know we were on our way!


We visited my friend Cova and her fiance Vidar in Bergen.

Cova lives with her fiance, Vidar, in the center of Bergen. It was really easy finding her condo, so we had no trouble, even with our crappy map. It was so nice to see Cova again! She had a spare bedroom where she set us up with fresh sheets and towels, and she even made us some fresh coffee when we got there! Then we went out to walk around the city for a while. We saw the downtown shopping area and main square, and then we walked to the ports and docks. In Bergen there is a section of very old houses (almost 1000 years old) and warehouses that are still standing, called Bryggen. Most of them are really crooked and there isn't a 90 degree corner anywhere. It was really funny to walk through. Now there are a bunch of shops and stuff built inside the old buildings. We also saw the old fort building nearby Bryggen. Next, we went up the big hill behind the city, and climbed up the steep streets through a really nice neighborhood. When we got near the top, you could see almost the whole city of Bergen below. It was neat, but also very tiring (well, not really but we were already kind of tired). So it was time for a beer!


Romy found a VW nut on the Norwegian equivalent of craigslist. He explored his mini junkyard of VWs and bought a few parts.

That afternoon we went bar/restaurant hopping, have a beer here, and beer there, and then dinner at a new restaurant that had four menus to chose from. Vidar finally got off work and joined us about an hour after our first beer. They told us about their jobs. They both work for the oil industry. Cova designs pumps and Vidar designs two phase flow meters and also takes care of customer servicing for the flow meters. They are going to get married next year in Spain! How exciting! They had a really nice condo, which was very nice to come back to after a late night out. We've been living in a relatively crappy shared apartment flat with a bunch of old and half the time broken and unmaintained things. It was nice to be in a normal abode for the first time in almost two months where everything was functional!


On the way back to Trondheim, we drove through the Lærdal Tunnel.

We couldn't stay long in Bergen the next morning. After a nice big breakfast of pancakes and some fruit, we packed up and hit the road. The weather was improving again as we drove back. This time, we took the inland route, which is the main way most people drive when they are going north-south across the country. One of the highlights was stopping in Voss. The city itself was okay, but we were there to see a guy who had a whole bunch of old VWs. Romy found this guy on finn.no, which is the Norwegian version of craigslist. He lived just up the mountain from Voss, a few kilometers away. And by the way, Voss is the city where the super expensive bottled water comes from, called Voss. I guess they take the water from the lake or something? Not sure why anybody would pay for Voss water (unless its the cheapest option on the menu like in the John Hancock Tower in Chicago). Well, anyways, when we got there, we knew we were in the right place. Suddenly, out of the forested mountainside, a whole bunch of VWs popped up. Beetles, bay windows, old splits, and even some dokas and syncros were all there. It was cool! Needless to say, we spent over an hour there as Romy talked to Christer about all of his projects and cars. Romy even bought a few parts from him, some lights and parts for the beetle dashboard for pretty cheap. And now we know somebody in Norway who can get us a diesel doka syncro when we are ready!


Romy getting ready to check the waters for a dip!

It was almost 5pm and we were barely out of Bergen still in Voss at Christer's VW place. I gave Romy the signal that it was probably a good time to leave, and in the typical Romy fashion, we were ready to go about 1/2 hour after that. We tried to pick the most direct route back as possible, which involved choosing between a ferry boat, or a really really long tunnel, 25km long. I wanted to do the tunnel because it was so long and that in itself made it more interesting to me. I am really glad we picked the tunnel because it ended up being super cool! As we drove through, we had to stay at the speed limit because there are speed cameras inside of the tunnel. This is a form of Norwegian torture. They can be anywhere and there can be multiple, with only one warning sign to let you know. The speed limit is (I think) 80 kmph, which is a crawling 50 mph!!!! So slow! So you can image, we had some time to enjoy the scenery inside the tunnel which consisted of dirty rock walls, some weak lighting, and large fans every once in a while. But every few kilometers (this tunnel was 25 km long) there were these super brightly lit rest areas to stop and pull over in. They were partly to wake you up and partly just cool, like an art form. I was afraid to get out at first because the air inside the tunnel was probably nasty. Later I read that the tunnel has its own air filtration system. We decided to stop and get out and take a few pictures at the last rest area. The air didn't smell too bad. When we got home, I googled the tunnel and figured out that it is in fact, the longest road tunnel in the world and it's called the Lærdal Tunnel! And we drove it by chance! That was so cool!


A polar dip!

The road next took us into the mountains of south central Norway. This is where there is a high concentration of Norwegian National Parks, so it was a neat area to see. The mountains were really beautiful and a lot of the landscape was glacially eroded, like the fjords along the coast. Some mountains were rounded on top and others were jagged. There was a lot of snow. We passed by Jotunheimen National Park where we saw a few tiny glaciers and some still frozen mountain lakes. Romy decided it was a good time to take a dip! It was a short dip, but I witnessed it, and he went fully in the water and stayed in for a little while so it was a real polar dip! Other than that, another highlight of the drive was the fact that in Norway, the passenger inside the car is allowed to drink alcoholic beverages. So of course, I had one cold beer with me, and I opened it and enjoyed a beer while we drove through the mountains on our way back home. It was strange, and I felt like I shouldn't be doing it because I am just used to that way! Every car that passed by I wanted to hide my can of beer! Towards the end of the can, I didn't care as much anymore :)


A typical road through the mountains of the interior part of the country.

Because it was still a long long way back to Trondheim at the Norwegian speed limits, we didn't end up getting back to our place until 2am! When we finally did get back, we went to sleep for a few hours, and then had to get up before 8am to return the car back to SIXT. What a journey! I felt like we saw so much in just 3 days. It was so worth it and I wish we had more time to do road trips like that. I love road trips!

A Drive From Trondheim to Bergen: Day 1

We've been in Trondheim now for 5 weeks, and the farthest we've ventured out was Hell (about 40 km away). It's not because we are lazy or unmotivated. It's because we've been going to a lot of local places on the weekends to save a little money. There is actually a ton of outdoors stuff to do around Trondheim, especially in the huge Bymarka park. But for our last two weekends in Norway, we decided to go big before we go home! We rented a car and decided it was time to go visit Cova, my friend who I met a long time ago in Paris. Now she lives in Bergen, Norway with her fiance Vidar (who is Norwegian; Cova is Spanish). Both are engineers, and as most engineers in Norway, they work for the oil industry. Their jobs sound pretty cool, though!


The first dramatic fjord we saw out of Trondheim.

It was a strange coincidence that we would be in Norway, and Cova lived in Norway. But we couldn't miss our chance to go and visit and it gave us a great excuse to spend a little money and get out of Trondheim! The car rental was pretty cheap for Norwegian standards. The diesel was about $8 a gallon, but our car we rented (a Toyota Urban Cruiser) got well over 50 miles to a gallon of diesel, so it was manageable! On the other hand, Norway's landscape and weather makes it really hard to build roads. We had to cross a lot of fjords by ferry or underwater tunnel (they were so deep your ears started popping). And some fjords were narrow enough to cross by bridge, but this was rare.


Looking out to Kanestraum on the car ferry from Halsa.

In Norway, there are a lot of tolls. To have a car in Norway is very expensive, so not too many people drive except if they have money. I am not sure who is responsible for building the roads and tunnels and bridges, but after they are built, the people who build them charge a toll. Most tolls are charged per person plus the car. The same goes for car and people ferries. On our way to Bergen, we took the coastal road, and on the way back we took a more inland route. Along the coast, which is all fjords, there were a lot of tunnels, bridges, and ferries that we had to take. So it was more expensive. Each ferry on average charged about 120-150 NOK for both of us and the car, which is about $20-$25. Some tunnels and bridges we had to take were just as expensive! Image crossing the Bay Bridge from Oakland to San Francisco and handing the toll attendant a $20 bill, and not getting any change back!!! That's Norway!


We stopped for lunch at a picnic area on the Atlantic coast just south of Kristiansund.

You might think that the inland route would be a little cheaper because there wouldn't be any bridges or ferries. Only slightly! Over the mountains, if you are not on a main highway, you still pay tolls so they can maintain roads over the big mountain passes. For example, on the way back we had to pay 70 NOK to go over one mountain pass! That's a little over $10. But I'll stop complaining now because in reality, I think every penny we spent was well worth it. The scenery along the way to Bergen was amazing and I was in awe for every kilometer!


We drove the 8km famous Atlantic Road, but saw it on a calm day with nice weather. The inset shows what it can be like during crazy weather!

We started off at about 9am from Trondheim. That was the earliest we could pick up the car from SIXT, the rental company. We were into taking the smaller roads (not the highways), but our map wasn't too detailed to show many of the smaller roads, so sometimes it was a mystery where we were. Out of Trondheim, we headed towards the coast. It was a really nice sunny day so the weather was perfect for driving along the ocean. One of the first things we saw was a loop road that went towards Kristiansund. It was a nice city on the Atlantic. We drove south from there and ended up driving along a really cool road which had a bunch of mini bridges over really small rock islands. We were hopping from island to island, and then we got to a much larger bridge. It looked strangely familiar. We stopped before the bridge where there was a parking area and an information sign.


Driving on a typical Norwegian road. Excellent scenery everywhere!

To our surprise, when we read the sign, it said that we were driving the famous Atlantic Road! Romy really wanted to drive it and now we unintentionally found it. The bridge looked really familiar because I've seen it on internet pictures (I put the famous internet picture as an inset to our picture). In really bad weather, the waves can get really high! But we were there during good times, so the ocean was very calm and it was pretty warm. Another interesting thing is that the bridge is curved. I don't really know the purpose of that, but it looks cool!


We picked some wild strawberries next to the road and had it in our breakfast the next day.

After the Atlantic road, which was technically only an 8km stretch, we returned back inland. When we got to Halsa, we took our first ferry of the day! It was a short 15 minute boat trip to the other side of the fjord. Then we continued on, driving through more mountains and fjords. Eventually we got to Molde, where we took the second ferry of the day. This ferry was crossing more open water, so it took about 40 minutes total. We got to the ferry with about 15 minutes to spare before boarding, and it was getting hot outside, so we indulged in some vanilla soft serve ice cream covered in chocolate! Of course we both got the large size, which in retrospect was way too much but whatever! It was soooo good!


Along the way, we drove up the Trollstigen and went to the observation point.

On the other side of the fjord from Molde, we saw a bunch of huge jagged mountains still covered with snow. We were about to drive through them in the next part of our trip. Not too far away, somewhere in those mountains, was a road called the Trollstigen. That's where we were headed. It is a famous Norwegian road which zig zags up a steep glacially cut mountain valley. Along the road are some waterfalls, and great views! When we got to the foot of the road, it was crazy to realize the scale of the climb! We got to the top, very slowly, where there were some newly built observation decks. The decks had glass walls and railings, so you can see just how high you were! The floor of the observation decks were slotted so you can see down through them. Anyone who is even mildly afraid of heights would probably get sick and panicked. There was nothing except a good 1000 ft drop below, and I felt like I had to clutch the railing to feel safe. Don't drop your camera! It would probably get destroyed and it would be irretrievable!


This is the Trollstigen, a crazy road that winds up the glacially carved mountain valley!

The observation points were really nice and since it was nearing the end of the evening (it was about 8pm), there weren't many tourists out there. That was really great because the huge tourist buses can get crazy on the road, which is barely one and a half lanes wide, with a death drop or rock wall to each side. A big clear and cold river made a huge waterfall just next to one of the observation decks. We spent almost an hour there, before moving on. We kept driving south, and we needed to catch one more ferry before the day was over so we could see the Geiranger fjord.


Aboard yet another car ferry in our rental car! They really pack you in!

We ended up getting to the ferry a few minutes late! We were so upset, since at this time of night (by the time we got there it was about 10pm) they only run once an hour. But as we pulled into the ferry terminal, we didn't see a ferry at the dock, and there were still a bunch of cars waiting in line! Could it really be, a Norwegian ferry that was late!? They are usually so prompt! We were so lucky that the ferry was late. As we pulled into the 4th lane (which meant we would be one of the last cars onto the ferry), we gave each other a high five and waited happily until the ferry came into the docks and unloaded all the passengers traveling the opposite way. Once we got on board, we were pretty crammed in, so that they could fit as many cars as they could.


Old fishing huts along the shore of the fjord in Eigsdal.

The ferry unloaded us in Eisdal. From there it was a really short drive to see the Geiranger fjord. It was absolutely so spectacular! The fjord was so narrow and steep! There were a bunch of waterfalls flowing over the walls of the fjord and the sky was turning all kinds of colors of sunset. It was about 11pm. We pulled over at a parking area off the side of the road where they had an informational sign. From there we saw a trail that lead somewhere. We wanted to check it out to see if maybe we could get a better view. Sure enough, the trail took us along a flat section perched along the steep fjord wall. It went towards the Seven Sisters waterfall, but we didn't go all the way there. We stopped after about 10 minutes in front of another huge waterfall! We had such an amazing view of the fjord from that place! We were kind of scared at some points because the trail went past places that were very much at the edge of a death drop. At one point, I was holding on to a small tree to feel a little more comfortable about standing at the edge while taking a picture. There were some camping spots along the trail, which we were considering camping at. However, I think I would want to rope myself onto a tree in case I would roll in the night. From some of those camp spots, you could literally roll off the mountain and plunge into the fjord below. I am not exaggerating here at all!!!!


My favorite spot of the day: the Geiranger fjord!

The Geiranger fjord was my favorite thing that we saw that day so far! But in order to make it to Bergen at a decent time the next day, we needed to keep driving so we couldn't camp at Geiranger. Even though it was past 11pm when we started driving out again, we still had plenty of light and energy in us to keep going. The road dropped down into the actual town of Geiranger, and then climbed back up again over another mountain pass to get out. We found a scenic route called Strynefjellet that wasn't too much of a detour after that, which we decided to take. It went up even higher into the surrounding mountains. So high in fact that there was still a lot of snow everywhere. In some places, the snow on each side of the road was taller than the car and we were in a channel of snow! It was really nice, but we decided not to camp here either because we had summer sleeping bags. Eventually the road starting going down again, back to sea level. We found a good pull-off area and got camp set up. Except we were so lazy and tired by that point to set up the tent (it was almost 2am) that we just pushed the back seats down in the rental and slept inside of the car. It wasn't too bad! The next morning, we continued our journey to Bergen. . .


Driving over the mountains at Strynefjellet, which still had deep snow in July!

A MidSummer Night's Party

Relaxing on the fjord, near sunset.

In Norway, where the sun doesn't set during most of the summer, the summer solstice is a very important day. I think this is true for a lot of Scandinavia as well. In Trondheim, where we are spending part of our summer, we are at roughly 63.4 degrees north in latitude. This is pretty close to the arctic circle, which is at latitude 66.5 degrees north. The sun sets here in Trondheim at about 11:30pm and rises again about 3:00am. Basically, the sun just dips below the horizon for a few hours. It stays light out even when the sun is down. It is light enough to do all kinds of activities without a flashlight. It's like a never ending dusk or dawn. Dusk rolls into dawn and you can't even tell.


The only weirdos wearing sunglasses at night!

One of the girls that we are living with in the shared apartment wanted to host a mid-summer night party. It is traditional in Norway to have a bonfire outside on the night of the solstice. There is a nice beach area close by to the city where we had the party. It is right on the fjord and has nice grassy and rocky areas to sit on.


Playing volleyball at midnight.

We had a lot of food that everyone brought to grill, and we stopped at the grocery store to try some Norwegian beer. I tried Dahl's, which a light Pilsner style beer in a can. It was okay but very light, kind of like a Budweiser or Miller. I also tried Carlsberg which is Danish, and I thought that one was gross. We also tried some imported Samuel Adams, but it was funny tasting and not good because it was made for export and had to be limited to 4.5%. The beer was a bust, but we had fun anyways!


Sunset came around 11:30pm that night!

We were able to see the sunset and the tide come in. Some people who were also partying on a neighboring rocky outcrop had a hard time coming back to shore when the tide came up. The tide completely isolated them on their tiny rock island. They were so busy partying they didn't even notice! The rock outcrop we were on was big enough that the connection to the mainland was never flooded over.


A panoramic picture of Korsvika after midnight.

We ended up going home at around 2am, but some people stayed all night until the next morning! We had plans which required us to be functional the next day, so we decided not to do that.


Biking home at 2am after we left the party.