Fun in the Sun in Oslo

Okay, more like "fun in the clouds and the rain in Oslo", but that doesn't scan well. This past Friday I flew my sister and I to Oslo for her birthday. And, well, we've been having a pretty swell time of it all. Yesterday we split up, her to go shopping with a girlfriend and me to wander the streets in tourist fashion. As well as to find us a place to stay for last night and tonight - found an alright price on a hostel near downtown. If you ever find yourself in Oslo and desperate for a reasonable place to stay, try the Anker Hostel - pretty clean, helpful, handsome staff who may or may not hit on your kid sister. ;-) We've been having a good time here.

In my wanderings yesterday I had a couple of strange experiences. The first was kind of strange, and sort of set the mood for the second. So, here they are:

Wandering the streets, looking for the main square by the water, I happened across a group of what looked like stoned hipster types sitting in a circle next to a fence. It was near the dockyards behind the castle, and I really had no idea where I was. There were no pedestrians around, and very few cars. And now for the strange part: near to this circle of folk was a guy sitting by himself, tying his arm off and slapping a vein. Then he shot up. Ooh, deary, now I have actually seen someone doing heroin. That explained the very quiet circle of hipsters. So, a little freaked out, I just continued walking past them, trying not to make eye-contact. I had with me my laptop, so I was a little worried about my safety in case they noticed it. The walk further was uneventful, although I think I passed three hookers on the way out of that area. For those of you who know Toronto, it felt a little like southern Jarvis Street, but in a more rural setting. I reached the castle and thought I was safe. There were more touristy-type people walking around, which gave me a sense of security... At least someone would hear me scream. And then I had another strange encounter. A seemingly normal looking man approached me saying, "Unnskyld."

"Unnskyld?" Then, remembering that I'm in Norway and that is norwegian for 'exuse me' I said, "Oh, right. What?"

"Are you english?"

"Yes, Canadian."

"Where do you come from?"

"Canada."

"Ah... Do you believe in Jesus?"

A little stunned at the question, I replied, "Eh? Uh, occaisionally."

And then he walked away and started pissing on the side of a rock wall below the castle. I merely laughed quietly to myself.

Comment theme for today: Random encounters! Anyone with strange storíes about meeting weirdos, freaky or no. Cheers!

Sea-sickness and Tromsø

Hello hello!

I love getting emails from people I haven't heard from in a long time. Thanks for the note, Jose! I hope we can connect somewhere in the near future.

Tonight I am staying with some new friends in Tromsø. I met them on the Internet through a service called CouchSurfing.com. Come to think of it, I don't think I have blogged about it yet... A pity. Picture it: Sicily, 2005. It was december and sunny, I was staying at a hostel in Catanya and met some fellow travellers, three Australians and an Indian woman. We all got along great and had a fabulous time, but that is a story for another time. The point is that I had no plan and Mili, the Indian woman, was heading to Malta. She invited me to come with her, not thinking that I would actually go, and I said, "Heck, why not. Let's go to Malta!" Lo and behold, I got to see another country, another stamp in my passport, met some fabulous people, and learned about couching the surf! Mili had been using this service to stay for free in Rome, and was heading to Malta to surf some more. Since then I have actually been to Bristol, UK and Hamburg, Germany with Mili, and I even hosted her on a tour of some of northern Norway! She's a bit of a travel buff with a disposable income, kind of like me. Anyway, I was talking about CouchSurfing. :-) It's a fabulous service where when you register you can offer travellers free accomodation at your home. Otherwise you can be a mooch, like me mostly, and just stay for free in cities around the world. They claim to have members on every continent. There are even a few members with couches in Antarctica! One of these days I am SO surfing couch in Antarctica. I want penguins, dammit! It's a great way to meet people, a great way to cut down on travel costs, and by golly it's a great way to travel. One of the best ways to see any place is through the eyes and experience of a local, and this is a wonderfully easy way to latch onto some of those experiences with minimal effort on your part. The people involved are all generally likeminded and there are some nifty social networking features that seek to weed out the stalkers and maniacs too. It's a well designed service and I advise everyone to just go to the web page and read about it - and perhaps host some travellers! I intend to once I get a couch of my own somewhere... And then I can explore the benefits of hosting even more strange people from even more strange lands. Yay!

About my day: This afternoon I arrived in Tromsø by airplane after a 4 day journey from Bodø to Kirkenes by ferry. The ferry is called the Hurtigruten, and it is reportedly one of the finest ferry rides on the planet. I did have a pretty good time on the boat, although it wasn't without its lows - and boredom. Can't forget the boredom. The average age of the passengers was probably something like 60. For much of the journey I think I was the only man below the age of 50 on the boat. Which made me popular among the ladies, more on that later. Although the second night I spent talking into the wee hours with a pretty neat guy - an honest to goodness travel author. Yep, he writes for the Lonely Planet guides. He was travelling around Norway "researching" for the next revision of the Scandinavia guide. He was cool. We met on the main deck watching the trolls of Norway yell at the boat and wrestle with each other on the cliffs of Trollfjord in Lofoten. It was incredibly amusing to watch them, and then we turned around and saw that we were very close to an impressive and gorgeous rock cliff stretching high into the sky. Shocking and fantastic. Back to today. I awoke to the sound of my alarm clock in my cabin located in the bottom of the ship, near the water. I believe my cabin was near the broom closet. Gotta love discount tickets.

The boat was pitching and rolling, which meant my bed was pitching and rolling with me in it, which meant that my stomach, my poor stomach, was pitching and rolling with my dinner and caocktails in it, and had been all night. You see, when we were rounding the northern tip of Norway, a winter storm was a brewing just for our cruising pleasure. It did give me the pleasure of sitting in the outdoor hottub on the top of the ship while we passed the northern-most tip of Europe in blizzard. Not something many people have done, and probably with good reason - I was freezing my tits off out there. Anyway, all this pitching and rolling, combined with the many beers bought for me by a middle-aged woman, followed by a couple of stiff gin and tonics prepared by three middle-aged sisters made for a hell of a queasy stomach. I don't usually get motion sickness, but I think these are extreme circumstances. I felt a little green. We arrived in Kirkenes right on schedule, at 10am, giving me a little over 5 hours to get to the airport and catch a plane. I ended up sitting in the airport for those 5 hours talking to middle-aged women who had been spoon-feeding me booze the night before. And one of their daughters. One woman actually owns a bar near London, called The Plough - I'm definitely going to pay that establishment a little visit someday. I was still walking a little funny, and whenever I looked out the window I think I hallucinated a bit to see the outdoors rocking. Unless there was an earthquake, I guess I'll check the news later. Strange feelings. My equilibrium started to spin and spin. And it had been until after going to the theatre here in Tromsø earlier this evening.

I'm definitely telling this story out of order - but I'm extremely tired, I've been hallucinating all day, it's late in the night, it doesn't get dark anymore, I should really be sleeping. Forgive my poor storytelling. :-)

When I arrived at the Tromsø airport I was met by the smiling faces of Karim and her fiance Harald. They are a very lovely couple, both studying at the Tromsø University (the world's most northern university - Norway has a lot of those "the world's most northern" things; I was at the world's most northernmost microbrewery, in Honningsvåg). He is a nerd, like me, and has many cool gadgety toys. We all seem to be getting along famously. This evening we went to the theatre to see this crazy flick, Lucky Number Slevin. An utterly fabulous movie, I highly recommend it. The colours are great. It's been a long while since I was that impressed by anything coming out of hollywood. Before the movie we ate burgers and drank some beer at a local watering hole, the delicious Blå Rock Cafe. I had a burger with feta and bacon called the Pixies Hamburgere. Delicious. All the more reason to love the Pixies - a kickass burger named after them. When we got back to their place we played a crazy Play Station game called "Buzz!", which is a quiz show game. One of the best-selling games in Norway, according to Harald. They are pretty quizz crazy in this corner of the world. The two of them have long since gone to bed, and I am just up catching up on 5 days of non-Internetiness. Huzzah!

Comment theme for today? Uh, tales of motion sickness dread. Got any good puking stories?