Norwegians are fond of picnics and swimming. I forgot to mention that the other day. I saw a bunch of them having picnics and swimming, which constituted my first real impression of them. One of them told me when the central bus station would be, and another of them, or a group of them, decided to put a portrait of Piet Hein, a Danish philosopher, on the airplane in which I flew to Stavanger, which, to my way of thinking, shows that they are societally advanced, as only societally-advanced countries honor philosophers on their airplanes.
Comedy aside, my first day in Stavanger was quite pleasant, as I was able to find the tourist office trivially, bought groceries, and learned that breakfast was included in the cost of my hotel room. The managers of my hotel took breakfast seriously -- they served granola with all sorts of add-ons, such as nuts, raisins, and various seeds; they had three types of yogurt; they had fresh fruit, including watermelon, pineapple, and red and green grapes; they had sausage, bacon, four types of eggs, three types of herring, smoked salmon, and cured salmon; they served all sorts of bread, with various types of meat, cheese, butter, and jam; they had as many hot drinks as one could name; they had a salad bar; and they even served apple turnovers, brownies, and two types of cookies. I ate a great deal at breakfast every day, sticking almost exclusively to the healthiest dishes that I could find (one eventually grows tired of pastries, especially when the alternatives are so good), and I pitied the more finicky eaters who only took a few eggs sunny-side-up with bacon or sausage.
My hike to Preikestolen went off almost without a hitch, which leaves me little to write about. I met someone from Seattle, who agreed that Stavanger was like the Pacific Northwest, with its coastline, mountains, seagulls, and breeze, and I met a Polish couple, who offered me grapes, Polish sausage, pizza, and beer at the hike's official peak, or the large, flat rock at which most people stop. The actual peak of the hike is higher up and is only reachable if one scrambles up a short rock face and across a few rock fields. One is rewarded with panoramic views of the inlets and peaks surrounding Preikestolen, and one is alone with the wind, as very few people bother to go up there. I saw what looked like wild blueberries and cloudberries at the top of Preikestolen, and I got lost trying to take a shortcut and avoid backclimbing the rock face that I had climbed up, as a result of which I had to scramble down a bunch of scree and smaller rock faces to get back to the real trail, reaching which was a major relief.
My hike to Kjeragbolten was a little more exciting, as I met someone from Vancouver, which was like gold to me, and had excruciating muscle spasms in my upper back on the way back down. Going to bed last night was extremely painful, as I experience a stabbing pain when I lean my head back, and I woke up feeling little better, unable to move my head without serious pain in my upper back and neck. I expect that the pain will subside within a day or two, and I will massage and stretch the area as much as I can once doing so no longer makes me feel like crying.
My trip to Bergen, which involved two ferry crossings and took me past numerous inlets, was not actually that interesting, and it was a mistake to go in the first place. As it turns out, the way to hike Trolltunga, or the Troll's Tongue, is to first go from Stavanger to the village of Odda, and then to do the hike on the following day, for a two-day trip. I do not know how much accommodations cost in Odda, but one would have had to plan one's stay there months in advance in order to avoid getting fleeced; in fact, I remember wanting to stay exclusively in moderately-sized cities because of the certainty of convenient transportation into and out of them. I also wanted to take the train from Bergen to Oslo, so it is a little early to say for sure that it was a mistake to come here.
Since I am obsessed with societal progress, I have sought it wherever I have gone, and I think that one can see it if one knows where to look. Gas here does, indeed, cost between 15 and 16 kroner per liter, or roughly two Euros (if I am not mistaken), which, to my way of thinking, bespeaks of people's being able to pay that much in the first place, of high taxes possibly related to the desire to limit people's driving and save the environment, and of the type of taxation that supports all sorts of social welfare programs and other institutions, such as schools, hospitals, universities, and the like. Stavanger feels clean and safe, if that means anything; perhaps the absence of visible problems indicates the city's high level of development. Norway is known as one of the least corrupt countries in the world, which one cannot see one way or another as a tourist (not directly, at least). The buses here have seatbelts, which I had not seen in buses anywhere else. Russians do not use seatbelts even in their own cars; Norway is clearly doing something right.
I did not give the ride to Kjerabolten as much description as it deserved. It took us right along the coast past inlets with such clear, undisturbed water that I could see the sky's and mountains' reflection in them. As we ascended, we came to pass alpine valleys and, occasionally, little villages, and we were soon surrounded by mountains that rocketed out of the water. Wild sheep grazed by the side of the road or, when they were feeling adventurous, ran across it, and the bus was almost entirely silent, so that, when an especially good view encompassing forest, mountains, and an island opened up, I felt a s though I were in a church and it would be sacrilegious to photograph it. Norway is the land of four hundred thousand lakes, according to our driver, and, as we passed one of them early on the drive to Kjeragbolten, I felt that I had found Elysium.
Comedy aside, my first day in Stavanger was quite pleasant, as I was able to find the tourist office trivially, bought groceries, and learned that breakfast was included in the cost of my hotel room. The managers of my hotel took breakfast seriously -- they served granola with all sorts of add-ons, such as nuts, raisins, and various seeds; they had three types of yogurt; they had fresh fruit, including watermelon, pineapple, and red and green grapes; they had sausage, bacon, four types of eggs, three types of herring, smoked salmon, and cured salmon; they served all sorts of bread, with various types of meat, cheese, butter, and jam; they had as many hot drinks as one could name; they had a salad bar; and they even served apple turnovers, brownies, and two types of cookies. I ate a great deal at breakfast every day, sticking almost exclusively to the healthiest dishes that I could find (one eventually grows tired of pastries, especially when the alternatives are so good), and I pitied the more finicky eaters who only took a few eggs sunny-side-up with bacon or sausage.
My hike to Preikestolen went off almost without a hitch, which leaves me little to write about. I met someone from Seattle, who agreed that Stavanger was like the Pacific Northwest, with its coastline, mountains, seagulls, and breeze, and I met a Polish couple, who offered me grapes, Polish sausage, pizza, and beer at the hike's official peak, or the large, flat rock at which most people stop. The actual peak of the hike is higher up and is only reachable if one scrambles up a short rock face and across a few rock fields. One is rewarded with panoramic views of the inlets and peaks surrounding Preikestolen, and one is alone with the wind, as very few people bother to go up there. I saw what looked like wild blueberries and cloudberries at the top of Preikestolen, and I got lost trying to take a shortcut and avoid backclimbing the rock face that I had climbed up, as a result of which I had to scramble down a bunch of scree and smaller rock faces to get back to the real trail, reaching which was a major relief.
My hike to Kjeragbolten was a little more exciting, as I met someone from Vancouver, which was like gold to me, and had excruciating muscle spasms in my upper back on the way back down. Going to bed last night was extremely painful, as I experience a stabbing pain when I lean my head back, and I woke up feeling little better, unable to move my head without serious pain in my upper back and neck. I expect that the pain will subside within a day or two, and I will massage and stretch the area as much as I can once doing so no longer makes me feel like crying.
My trip to Bergen, which involved two ferry crossings and took me past numerous inlets, was not actually that interesting, and it was a mistake to go in the first place. As it turns out, the way to hike Trolltunga, or the Troll's Tongue, is to first go from Stavanger to the village of Odda, and then to do the hike on the following day, for a two-day trip. I do not know how much accommodations cost in Odda, but one would have had to plan one's stay there months in advance in order to avoid getting fleeced; in fact, I remember wanting to stay exclusively in moderately-sized cities because of the certainty of convenient transportation into and out of them. I also wanted to take the train from Bergen to Oslo, so it is a little early to say for sure that it was a mistake to come here.
Since I am obsessed with societal progress, I have sought it wherever I have gone, and I think that one can see it if one knows where to look. Gas here does, indeed, cost between 15 and 16 kroner per liter, or roughly two Euros (if I am not mistaken), which, to my way of thinking, bespeaks of people's being able to pay that much in the first place, of high taxes possibly related to the desire to limit people's driving and save the environment, and of the type of taxation that supports all sorts of social welfare programs and other institutions, such as schools, hospitals, universities, and the like. Stavanger feels clean and safe, if that means anything; perhaps the absence of visible problems indicates the city's high level of development. Norway is known as one of the least corrupt countries in the world, which one cannot see one way or another as a tourist (not directly, at least). The buses here have seatbelts, which I had not seen in buses anywhere else. Russians do not use seatbelts even in their own cars; Norway is clearly doing something right.
I did not give the ride to Kjerabolten as much description as it deserved. It took us right along the coast past inlets with such clear, undisturbed water that I could see the sky's and mountains' reflection in them. As we ascended, we came to pass alpine valleys and, occasionally, little villages, and we were soon surrounded by mountains that rocketed out of the water. Wild sheep grazed by the side of the road or, when they were feeling adventurous, ran across it, and the bus was almost entirely silent, so that, when an especially good view encompassing forest, mountains, and an island opened up, I felt a s though I were in a church and it would be sacrilegious to photograph it. Norway is the land of four hundred thousand lakes, according to our driver, and, as we passed one of them early on the drive to Kjeragbolten, I felt that I had found Elysium.
The views from Preikestolen are, for the record, better than those from Kjeragbolten, as one sees much more water from it, but the views on the way to Kjeragbolten are better. I am going to send another email tomorrow, assuming that I have time, describing hiking in Norway specifically for people who might one day be interested in visiting it. I hope that my successes and failures on this trip can proof instructional to other people.
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| Views like this are standard issue in Norway. |
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