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Reports

During my travels, my compensation for free accommodation for one night, was for me to write a daily travel diary. Of how I got to my next location, the people who would host me, the food I was offered and everything else. Below you find the archives of the highly extensive reports. Know that English is not my native language and most reports were written at high speed around midnight. Enjoy.


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Sunday, 26 August 2001
--> Oslo (N) 6th day

After last nights enjoying evening (the bar fight did not spoil it at all, I am too much an optimist), everybody in the house slept in late into the early afternoon.
I think the rest needed it because of the alcohol, because they drunk a lot more than me. And I needed it because of my travelling. And because it was Sunday.

O.J. made bacon and eggs on toast for breakfast, which was eaten around 3pm. Great time to have breakfast for a difference and it was good!

After this meal everybody just lounged around. Watching television on the couch, playing music on the stereo, playing games on the computer, while the only thing working in the house was the washing machine.

I managed to write my previous report about yesterday and even found the time to contact my backup team in The Netherlands and discuss my near future possibillities in Scandinavia.

Untill now it seems I can travel around Norway pretty good (I hope I will), but getting through to Sweden and Finland to eventually end up in Russian Saint Petersburg will be very hard.

For Sweden and Finland I only have a total of 8 places to stay - and that's not exactly in big central cities.

Scanrail wanted to support my travelling through Scandinavia by offering a free Scanrail Pass, which will allow me to use trains, busses and ferries in Scandinavia for free! Ain't that generous of them?

After a Dutch sponsor of this project lost its faith in my journey (it would not deliver enough business to the company), it is very inspiring to notice how Scanrail just finds out about Letmestayforaday.com and believes in supporting me and even gives me a free pass.

And they have a great flashy website by the way! (No, this is not spamming, because I was really impressed by it.)

As everybody in the house was watching different games of the pre-matches of the European First Division soccer championship on television, I was mailing with my friends in The Netherland and planning ahead on my travels.

Because wherever I end up in Scandinavia, I need to find out a way to get to some mainland again. From Sweden or Finland it's quite easy to get to the European mainland again, but it will be much harder if I finally make it all the way to the capital of the Russian Federation, Moscow.

I don't see myself hitchhiking from Moskou into Europe again, as that area is very uncontroled and corrupt.

Even professional truck drivers have to be prepared for troubles if they travel from Poland to Russia. You sometimes need a lot of money to pay vague policemen until they let you pass.

No place for me and my thumb, though! And I haven't even started yet about getting to another continent!

Time will tell and possible supporters can ring my bell.

Around 8 o'clock I arrived with my backpack at the Grand Hotel in Oslo centre, as Sirri brought me to this location thanks to a friend of her who is a taxi driver.

At the Grand I met my host for the next night, the Dutch web developer Remco Brink].

Remco had just arrived in from the north of Norway, where he visited his girlfriend Birgit, and invited me last week to stay for a day.

He had heard about my project since I launched the website in March, but never really invited me until he heard that I had arrived in Oslo last Tuesday.

Because we both had not had any dinner yet, he took me to an Egon Restaurant on Karl Johans gate (gate is Norwegian for street) and treated me with a great finger licking spare rib course as we freely talked about things in Norway and The Netherlands.

Remco has been living in Norway for the last three years - it was the girlfriend that eventually let him stay here.

He works as a systemsdeveloper for SOL Børs. He got this job here after he moved from Ålesund (in the North of Norway, where he had lived since he moved to Norway in August 1999) to Oslo in July 2000.

In the little free time he has, he works as a CTO for Blyfri AS - the company formerly known as Allycards.

When he is not working, something he should definately try more often according to people close to him, he tries to spend as much time as possible with his girlfriend.

In the summers he enjoys going to her family's cabin to enjoy the Norwegian nature and in the cold and snowy winters he likes to go skiing.

Next to this Remco also has his own website on the internet at http://www.rc6.org, where he made portals on almost every Scandinavian webcam on sights in Norway and of people and where he publishes his own personal weblog in English.

In the lively Dutch weblogs society Remco is known as one of the three Dutch 'webloggers' in Norway, next to Ruben van Tienen and Taco Teunissen , who I hope to visit soon too.

After dinner we moved on to a sport bar around the corner of the street, which was nice and quiet on this Sunday evening. Televisions were showing the current soccer games as we talked about a lot of things.

About my project, his life in Norway, about music and the Norwegian nightlife (No, it's not always like yesterdays') and we played a few games of pool.

It was eventually pretty relaxing to spent time with somebody who talks Dutch (as our background is already known) and who I also knew a little bit as I am also a Dutch weblogger.

I used to log my websurfings on the website of the Studentmagazine SMOEL from my hometown and I currently have my backstage log running in Dutch.

We left the place just a little bit tipsy long after midnight (still with my backpack and stuffings) and we took a taxi to Bergkrystallen, a neighbourhood in the southeast of Oslo.

Here Remco shares the apartment he lives in with another person who was already sleeping, but he is a metal artist. I will meet him tomorrow.

As Remco has to travel to Stockholm tomorrow morning for business, he has to wake up early and he told me that I could just sleep in as long as I want.

Therefore I already gave him the Letmestayforaday-present. As Sirri Holmsen got here present from my previous host Bjørnar (a funny wooden duck that looks down if you place it on a table or high closet) Remco now got The Gift from Sirri.

This time it was a little green frog laying on his back. The little statue was once made my the sister of Sirri's flatmate O.J. and was something personal to them.

I overwhelmed Remco with the present, because he had no idea (yet) what to give me to forward to my next host.

And I can tell you that won't be in Oslo, as I will be heading into the rest of Norway tomorrow.
Six days in this capital is probably enough - as I know a lot of people want to see me moving faster.

Remco got to bed and I checked my emails on his computer, published todays photographs and wrote this report.

You don't want to know what time it is now, but I am expecting my twice a week phone call with Dutch radio pretty soon.

Good night Oslo!

Ramon.

In the media today:

Sunday Times (British):
"A globetrotter tells his tales "

LBINews.com (Spanish):
"Un estudiante recorre el mundo alojándose gratis gracias a Internet "


Where am I at this moment?
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