Well I am here in Bergen Norway at my friend Guy's place, and figured I should probably put in another blog posting. Last time I left off, I was just on a bus heading to Oslo. It's been a very entertaining couple of weeks here in Norsk, and I've met some pretty awesome and cool people!
So basically Norway can be summed up in
3 4 words: Beautiful, Rainy, F*cking Expensive
Beautiful is applied towards not only the scenery and towns, but also to the people, and the other two are fairly self explanatory.
So when I first came to Norway, I knew it was expensive, and had plans of staying for a week and a half or two at most, since I didn't want to spend too much time in one place, but alas, it's been nearly a month now, and I'm still here! I first arrived in Oslo after a hectic few days in Amsterdam and Copenhagen, and basically just found my hostel and crashed extremely hard! I think I slept about 13 hours that first night, and woke up to....rain! I also realized that in my haste of leaving my hostel in Copenhagen, I forgot my towel, so when it came time to shower, I was forced to resort to using a shirt as my towel...very practical approach eh! Oh yeah, one interesting thing about the hostel I checked into, well there's just a bunch of bunks in the room and they don't have a letter or number assigned to them, so apparently it's a free for all, and this lead to some interesting times while spent in the hostel, but I'll get to that eventually.
So my first day in Oslo, which was a fairly rain shortened day, was basically going out for a walk around in the pouring rain, finding a bite to eat and just hanging out at the hostel reading and finishing writing my blog.....also, around this time I found out that my buddy Tyler Bonkowski was doing fairly well in the World Series of Poker main event, so I started tracking him on the internet to keep myself occupied. Because of the time difference, the poker tournament was lasting until 7 am local time, but I didn't stay up that late the first night.
The next day I went for a more lengthy walk, again in the pouring rain, and visited the fortress area, where I found some extremely massive ducks meandering around the parking lot. To keep myself entertained, I figured it would be fun to start chasing them around the parking lot, and once I started doing this, I actually scared the ducks enough that they started shitting as they were running away from me....it was a rather hilarious moment for me, as simple things keep me quite entertained. To escape from the rain, I wandered into the military museum and checked that out for a few hours, which was a pretty cool place to see, as they even let you go inside one of their tanks.
After the museum, I escaped the rain again by just finding a coffeeshop, and enjoying my $6/cup of coffee....like I said Norway is expensive! After several hours lounging and drinking coffee, I went and found some dinner and a beer, which cost me around $35...yeah...expensive. I also stopped by a nice little square on my walk back to the hostel and later found out that it was the exact square where the bombing of the government building occurred 4 days later...very scary...
I just rolled back to the hostel at that point and hung out to avoid spending too much money. And that was about it for my 2nd day of rain rain rain!
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| This is what 35 dollars gets you in Oslo, not very much! |
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| Scandinavian cities love their statues |
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| Trolls are a big part of Norwegian culture |
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| Lego dude! |
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| One of the ducks I chased that ended up shitting itself ha ha |
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| Inside of a tank at the Museum |
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| The square where the big bomb went off in Oslo 4 days later :( |
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| Oslo weather could be described as.... |
The next day was the first sunny day I've had in quite sometime, so I got to go out and explore the statue park and take a really lengthy walk around Oslo. Oslo has been described as the most boring European capital, but once the sun came out, you get to really experience how lovely the city actually is. The statue park was one of the more entertaining places I've ever seen, as the statues there were a mixture of normal to extremely odd.....Here's some of the pics from the park and other Oslo sights including a $14 McDonalds hamburger!
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| Streams near Statue Park |
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| Nice fountain in on Karl Johan st in Oslo |
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| $15 McDonalds burger |
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| Very interesting statues |
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| Arghhhh I hate babies!! |
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| Playing around with the camera settings |
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| Nice fountain in Statue Park |
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| Another odd statue |
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| and the largest of the bunch |
After walking around some more and enjoying the sunny day, I retired back to the hostel and ordered an online subscription to the World Series of Poker so that I could watch my buddy Tyler play online. I ended up just sitting at the computer for about 10 hours watching the poker and chatting with people around the hostel, not too exciting. I ended up staying up until 8:30 am watching poker and then eating breakfast, then retired back to my room to catch some sleep...and I found some dude had moved all my stuff off my bed, and taken over my bed. I sat there just kind of staring at him in shock as he was sleeping away in my bed....then he woke up and just casually got out of the bed and went to grab a shower....I really didn't care too much, but was just so shocked that he would just move everything out my bed, so I just grabbed the lower bunk bed that didn't have anyone sleeping in it.....strange times in hostels indeed.
Because of the late time of going to bed, I didn't get up until later in the afternoon obviously, and was meant to meet up with a friend of mine, but she ended up cancelling on me due to work requirements, so I just wandered around the city a bit more, and then went back to bed since I was heading off to Stavanger the next day.
And then it was off to Stavanger, via train where I was going to be staying with an old Canadian friend who has been living there for several years. Jason picked up me up at the train station, and we went back to his place where we enjoyed some cigars and cognac, and had a nice relaxing evening, as we planned a hike the next morning to Preikestolen.
The next day we got up early and went and grabbed the ferry over to the hike. The hike wasn't overly challenging but provided some good views, as seen by these photos.
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| At the beginning of the Preikestolen hike |
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| Amazing Fjords |
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| There's me, living life on the edge..well almost |
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| The rock gets pretty busy at times |
All in all, a pretty cool hike. We got back to town and grabbed a few more groceries and had a little bbq and then went and checked out the Stavanger food festival that was going on with Jay's buddy Kjetil. It was pretty fun, but a fairly early night since we were quite tired and Jay had to go offshore then next morning for work, but he was kind enough to leave me his keys and his place while he was gone to work.
I decided to go and check out Kjerog the next day, which is another famous climb in the area, albeit a much much more difficult one. The bus ride there was 3 hours, and then the actual hike took around 4 hours, but was extremely variable with very steep climbing spots. I would actually say that it was a harder climb than most of the days on the Everest Base camp trek, just due to the crazy elevations.
Since I was solo, I had to make friends, so I made friends with a nice Mexican fellow, and we had a fun time hiking around and enjoying the awesome scenery. Here's some pics from the day, including a famous spot where a boulder is wedged in between two cliffs.
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| Kjerogbolten beginning |
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| Rugged terrain made for tough climbing |
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| Horatio enjoying the view of the Fjord |
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| Cool rock with a huge drop off the back, living life dangerously :) |
After an exhausting day of hiking, we headed back to town and caught up on some sleep on the bus. I really wanted to head home and have a shower, but Horatio and I decided to head out and check out the food festival and grab a beer or two....so we ended up at some piano bar which was a completely awesome time. The piano guy was from the Netherlands, and played some pretty great tunes, unfortunately a fair bit of the audience wasn't as into the music as Horatio and I were, so we were basically the only ones requesting songs and enjoying the show. At one point I accidentally ended up hitting on the guy's gf but once I realized she was his, I apologized cause he was so awesome ha ha.
Eventually Horatio had to ditch cause he was too tired, but after enjoying a few $15 a glass scotches, and $12 a glass beers, I was ready to continue on with the evening, so I ventured outside and started chatting up others and was lead to some live music bar, which also ended up being pretty cool, but extremely loud! It was a pretty fun time, but also very expensive. I then decided to start the long walk back to Jason's place, but while I was walking I started chatting up a local girl named Wenche, although she went by the nickname Smud Huzla (Norwegian for Smooth Hustler) ha ha, and she ended up inviting me into her place as I wanted to see some of her artwork, but first I had to hang out in the lobby of the place while she cleaned up....and then to my surprise, one of her roommates walked in and was kind of giving me that "oh hello, why are you in the lobby of my place at 4 am" kind of look...so I introduced myself and she said to come on in...so I got inside and met a few more of the girls living in the flat, and had a late night beer and listened to some tunes until about 6 am, when finally the exhaustion of the day's hiking kicked in, and I was ready to pass out.
The girl who invited me in ended up having to work at 8 am, so she left, but just left me sleeping on the couch, where I remained until 3 pm the next day, catching up on sleep, which was quite the sight to see for the other girls that were living at this flat, seeing as how I was some complete stranger sleeping on their couch, and they couldn't wake me up, since I'm such a deep sleeper. I eventually was ready to head back to Jay's place, but left my number for Smud in case they were going to be doing anything fun that evening. So later on I eventually heard back from her, and she invited me to come meet up with a big group of them chilling at the bar where they all worked called Mexico, so I headed down there and met up with a pretty fun group and we went out on the town until pretty late into the evening, with the obligatory after party until 6 am at their place, and me crashing on their couch, again!
The next day I went to hang out for a few hours at Mexico, and then ended up going to the candlelight vigil to mourn the dead from the Oslo massacre. I'm sure pretty much everyone knows about the massacre, and it really hit close to home for Norwegians since they are such a quiet and friendly country where terrorism attacks are the last thing on their mind. The food festival in Stavanger was cancelled due to the bombing and the vigil was very heartfelt. Stavanger is about 180,000 people in size, and there was about 100,000 people that showed up to do the walk around the lake and mourn the dead, which is very impressive to see how the people really come together in a time of sadness. It was also quite interesting to talk to Norwegians about the events, and quite a few of them said that they were glad it was a Norwegian who was responsible, rather than a Muslim extremist, as that would have caused a huge uproar, since there's a lingering tension amongst the Muslim community and the Scandinavian countries, due to their difference in religious viewpoints and of course the infamous cartoons that were published a few years back.
Over the next few days, the days basically consisted of me waking up in the afternoon, hanging out at the restaurants or pubs with the girls, and then head out on the town for the night, then end up back for after parties until 5 or 6 am at the girls' house. Over the course of my time, I also ended up working at the bar for a few hours the one day since I was just hanging out not doing much, Smud put me to work in exchange for free food and drinks, which was pretty fun. First time working in 4 months, damn slave driver! I also kind of ended up dating her for a few days as well, which made for an interesting time, since she had never had an official boyfriend and asked if I could be her first one ha ha ha...so yeah it was all good, but of course I had plans to eventually leave, at which point she would break up with me since she didn't want to be the one broken up with ha ha ha...pretty interesting times. Also, this lead to several shave days...win! We also did some other fun things like going bowling with a bunch of people from the restaurant, going on a fishing date, where I managed to only catch seaweed, and someone's boat ha ha
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| Stavanger from the bridge by Jay's place |
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| Chlling at Mexico |
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| The bowling champion, Gunnar! |
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| Throwing down an owl |
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| Candlelight vigil for the dead |
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| Chilling over some bubbly at a club in Stavanger |
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| Hanging out with some random locals at Mexico |
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| Showing of my bowling form |
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| More Vigil |
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| Lake in the centre of Stavanger |
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| First day of work in 4 months! |
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| Even unclogging the sinks |
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| A late night cheeky owl |
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| Common sight for the girls to see in the morning/early afternoon |
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| Enjoying several different drinks while fishing |
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| This is all I can catch apparently |
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| Enjoying the view |
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| You can see me in the distance unhooking the ship I caught |
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| Andrew Unruh, this is Talisman's office in Norway...sign up! |
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| I let the girls straighten my hair one night, good times |
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| Epic 10 hour beer pong day |
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| We started making rules up to add fun to the game |
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| Tall ships races |
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| More champagne and nightclubbing |
I kept trying to leave Stavanger, but every day I would end up finding a reason to stick around. It was a bit surprising for Jason to return home on the Thursday and find that I still hadn't left his place, considering I was meant to be leaving a day or two after he had left for offshore, but he was still cool with it. One of the other reasons I decided to stick around was that the Tall Ship races were coming into Stavanger the next weekend, which is another pretty cool festival. That weekend I ended up heading out with Kjetil and meeting some other new Norwegian friends, and having a pretty awesome time. The one nightclub we ended up going to, the one guy knew the bartender, so he was able to get bottles of Champagne for rather cheap, which ended up being a pretty sweet party, as people would flock to our table to meet us, thinking we were some VIPs or something. I also ended up meeting several ex-pats working in Stavanger for various oil companies, and it was good to pick their brains a bit about living in Norway and the type of work involved.
One other funny incident that happened to me was that I was meeting Kjetil and a few of the others for some drinks on the Saturday night at a bar, but then they suddenly left the place for the more expensive nightclub, as they didn't want one of the American girls that was in their group to tag along, so I ended up hanging out with her for awhile, but then she left, and I was alone, so I went and met a group of 3 more Norwegian girls. One of them was quite amazing, and we hit it off quite well. After the bars were closing, we were walking out of the one bar, and holding hands when of course we ran into Smud, which made for a bit awkward of a meeting ha ha.....So we went our separate ways and I escorted the lovely new Norwegian girl home, but unfortunately other than some passionate kissing, nothing else happened ha ha.
I had planned to leave the next day, as was the case for the previous week and a half, but of course I got distracted again, and ended up going for a nice walk around the area where Jason was living, and taking in the departure of the tall ships. Jason was looking for a good fishing stop, and I was mostly just tagging along, enjoying the terrain, although I didn't bring the proper footwear, so I was constantly slipping on rocks and what not, but it was still a nice little hike. Eventually we just got back to Jay's place, and enjoyed a nice barbecue and the last night of my Stavanger adventures.
The next day I finally made my move, so I decided to head up to Bergen for a few days, where I had a few friends to crash with. So I was off on the bus, and on my way to lovely Bergen. Many people say that Bergen is the most picturesque city in Norway, as it is surrounded by several hills, which makes for a lovely setting. I met up with another engineer from Statoil named Chad, who I had met in Amsterdam earlier in the trip.
It was nice to have a comfy bed at Chad's place, as sleeping on a couch or thermarest for the past few days in Stavanger didn't lead to a whole lot of sleep at times. The first 2 days were just basically catching up on sleep, and hanging out with Chad and Kaily (his wife). We enjoyed a nice walk around the city the first night where I spotted a few potential spots for some owling (way cooler than planking IMO), as well as just enjoying the nice sunny weather since Bergen gets about 285 rainy days a year! They also pointed out to me a hilarious Unicorn statue attached to a bar that has arguably the largest male genetalia I have ever seen ha ha. Chad also gave me some ideas as to places to hike in the Bergen area, as there is 7 peaks that surround the city, so there's no shortage of places to go and explore.
I eventually made my way up the one hiking spot called Floyen, which was a nice easy hike...they said it would take about 1.5 hours to do, but I managed to do it in like 30 minutes, but it afforded me some great views of Bergen. Unfortunately I started really late in the afternoon since I like to sleep lots, and by the time I got up to the top, it was a bit too late in the day to continue on up to another peak called Ulriken, which would have taken me another 2-3 hours and I was running out of daylight, so I just retreated back to Chad's place.
Around this time I was also finally able to get a hold of my friend Guy who I had met several years earlier in Sweden, and who was now living in Bergen. We agreed to meet up on the Friday since he was busy on the Thursday. Also, at this point Chad had to go off to work offshore, but was kind enough to let me stay at his place for a few extra days while he was gone, which worked out pretty good. I ended up meeting up with Guy and his g/f Synne on the Friday, and heading out for a nice pasta and some beers. It was great to catch up with him and hear all about the past few years of his life, and share some stories.We also found that we both had a big interest in the stock market, and were talking stock most of the time.
That night Synne had a friend's birthday party to attend, so we all went there to the party and then off to a pub to enjoy more expensive Norwegian beers....it was a pretty fun night, and we agreed to meet up the next day. Of course I didn't get up until 4 pm the next day, as I couldn't sleep most of the night and ended up watching a boat load of Mad Men, as I've become really hooked on that tv series (check it out if you haven't, it's awesome). So I went down and met Guy, and we picked up some up some funny local beers called Aass which lead to numerous jokes since there were several flavours of ass, including old, pale, and summer! We hung out until his friend from the Israeli army showed up a few hours later, and we went out on the town again.We went to the pub where Guy had met his g/f a year earlier, and it was a pretty quiet place but nice to have a chat anyways. At one point a girl I had met in Stavanger a week before randomly heard my voice and recognized me, and came over and joined our party ha ha, so crazy. Then some Swedish girls came and joined our group as well, as the one girl had lived in Edmonton for a year or so, and we hit it off pretty good talking about Canada and such. I ended up heading back to her house for the evening, but unfortunately just some making out occurred, no shave day, sigh!
I didn't get a whole lot of sleep that night, and got dropped off Chad's place, but decided it would be best to not overstay my welcome, so I made arrangements with Guy to go crash at his house for a few days, as I was invited by the Swedish girls to go on a big hike on the Monday. So I took my things to Guy's place, and had a pretty low key night, gearing up for a big hike on Monday. I met the girls and the dog Murphy who was joining us, and they lead me on to the Ulriken tram, and then on a wicked hike across to Floyen. It took us about 4 hours, but it was a pretty fun hike (as Murphy provided several hilarious moments chasing sheep and what not), and somewhat challenging due to slippery conditions. The hike also provided some amazing opportunities for great pics as seen here.
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| Hiking near Bergen |
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| wtf a purple pepper! |
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| Downtown Bergen |
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| Infamous Unicorn with huge balls! |
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| More Trolls |
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| Bergen from above |
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| The dodgiest looking McDonalds I have ever seen |
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| Norwegian is kind of funny....fag means subject... |
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| Throwing down another owl |
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| And one awkward plank! |
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| Love that Aass! |
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| The trolley makes good fart....which means speed |
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| More owling |
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| Gorgeous hike again |
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| Awesome photo with Murphy and some sheep that he chased off |
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| Hanging with the Swedish girl, enjoying the view |
I decided to stick around for one last day since Kanye West was in town, so Guy and I hung out at his apartment and were able to listen to the whole concert from his balcony since the concert grounds weren't all that far away from his place. We continued to just chat stock and enjoy the last night of my Norway experience.
I couldn't sleep my last night, so I just pulled an all nighter and caught the 8 am bus out of Bergen, off to Oslo and then Goteborg, and thus ended my Norwegian adventures :)
Next update coming soon, I promise!
Rye
