I've got to admit, I have a thing for meeting people online, resp. meeting them in real life later on. My parents have never understood this hobby and were pretty sure I would end up killed somewhere, which was obviously the better option than being sold as (a sex) slave. Anyway, no matter what my parents thought, I went for a road trip to Norway with a forty year old guy and my immobile friend, found my host family in Norway online, twice; and generally met different kinds of people.
I met Ole at interpals.net (great page for meeting people and weirdos from all over the world) just before I moved out from Estonia. We've been emailing each other for more than 7 months before I had (have?) decided to take a bus up there.
After five hours, when I finally got off the bus, nobody was waiting for me. "WTF? Was it some kind of prank?" sounded in my head. I texted him, no answer. There was an old man at the bus station who seemed also to be waiting for someone who didn't come. "I'll be there in a jiffy," suddenly appeared on my phone. Having no idea what "jiffy" means, my head decided to translate it as "in a sec".
In five minutes he was there with his red mini-van and without any plan what shall we do. I thought Sogndal is a touristic place, so there'll be quite a lot to see. Yes, Sogndal is a touristic place but not as I assumed, most tourists don't stay, they continue to Jostedalsbreen, Jotunheimen or just further on into the fjord. Sognefjord is a really beautiful place. Maybe when I turn 60, I'll start to work in local Lerum jam factory and will produce "mormor syltetøy", which is considered to be the best jam!
In Ole's world, unlike in mine, sightseeing meant to visit a local shopping centre. Good to see all the shops one knew from Bergen but not sufficient for two days. A bit later, Ole bought a map and we have decided to take a trip to a one of the mountains nearby. Both of us had totally wrong shoes for the mud, snow and water. But I honestly had a lot of fun getting over all the obstacles on the way. We haven't made it up to the top because it was getting late and there was more and more snow.
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| My dirty palms. |
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| Sogndal in the background |
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| And then I jumped :) |
Ole doesn't eat breakfast and his food supplies were like mine at the university (he's a student). So, when we set out for our second mountain trip, I was a bit hungry. The path was mud-free but not water(fall) free - so, we had to get over some creeks, fallen trees, etc. It was definitely more comfortable than the previous trip. The problem came with missing red mark (Norwegians suck at marking their touristic paths) and a creek made out of water coming down from the top. Neither of us could really read in maps. We kind of agreed that the path continued steeply down, exactly where the water was running down but weren't sure. To make sure we won't get lost, we decided to go back, visit one bathing spot, eat chilli con carne and put me on the bus back to Bergen.
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| Water, water and water. I made my sheep to float on one "creek arm". |
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| My sheep getting ready to get soaking wet :( |
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| My city shoes, totally not suitable for the terrain. |
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| Eidefjord |
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| Eide, bathing spot |
On the way back, it was sunny and I just couldn't stop watching the mountains, waterfalls, etc. around. It was magnificent!
When we arrived to Bergen, my pillow went missing. I've lost my pillow on a direct bus between Sogndal and Bergen :-(
P.S. Did you know that 96% of gasoline price in Norway is tax?
