From my place at Liv and Gabriel I travelled to Sandness by train. My next host John Are took me out on a very unique picnic this night. The Vikings might have been jealous…
Gabriel woke me up for breakfast this morning. Buenos dia! The dog Artus was already jumping on me and giving me those young dog bites in my toes on my way to the shower.
It was 7.15 am and I had a good sleep.
After breakfast I packed my stuff again as Gabriel dropped me and Liv off in the centre. I thanked them for inviting me and letting me stay and Gabriel drove off as Liv entered the local bank.
It was 8.30 and I already knew that my first train to Sandness was going to leave at 11.20am.
That gave me sure enough time to walk around the town centre of Kristiansand. I walked from the centre towards the little ships boulevard and back again on the main street.
Within a few hours, the empty and clean city center transformed into a flourishing and lively place as shops opened their doors and clothes were hung on racks outside.
I sat on a bench and watched as a new day began for all the people working here. A local man, looking very perplexed, started a long conversation with me in Norwegian.
As I got no space to say I am not understanding him, I just nodded and said nei (no) and ja (yes). When he told his life story he stood up and shook my hand.
One block up the shopping street he found another victim on a bench. He probably started all over, but the lady sitting there ran away from him as he sat next to him.
At 11.20 I made myself present at the train station of Kristiansand. My Scanrail Pass would take me all the way to Sandness, where I would arrive at 2.10pm in the afternoon.
The view outside distracted me from writing my report on my paper notebook. And every time when I saw something very nice flashing by, I was already too late for a photo. Suddenly there were tunnels, trees or just high rocks along the tracks.
But I did manage do make some shots which will remain in my collection forever. This is Norway!
I arrived in Sandness at 2.35pm and as my host for tonight would pick me up at the trainstation around 5 o’clock as he’d come from work.
As the temperature dropped, I slipped on a sweater and leisurely strolled through stone-paved shopping streets and quaint, roofed malls.
I noticed that this town had a lot of young people around. They either still had summer vacation or just spent their free hours from school.
I noticed that almost every young woman here does something with her hair. A blond paints it purple, a black haired dyes is blond and some had shaven some sign in their short clipped hair. Some new Norwegian fashion, I guess.
I walked around town and found the local library, located in an old factory, but totally redesigned inside. The lady at the information desk first asked if I was a member of the library, because only members could use the internet for fifteen minutes. I told her I am just a tourist, staying here for only a day so a membership wouldn’t be any good.
She looked at the empty spaces in the internet corner and gave me a blink. “Go ahead, but remember the 15 minutes.”
She was kind of right with that timing. I managed to read and answer some emails and before I knew she was standing behind me. After 14 minutes. I smiled, logged off on the computer, loaded my backpack on my back again and left the totally deserted internet corner in this library with a smile and a “Thank you” in Norwegian.
I was sitting on a bench at the trainstation at 4.45pm when my new host John walked up to me. He was my host for the night, together with his wife Monica.
I loaded my stuff in his car and we drove to his apartment, just outside Sandness.
John is economical advisor in Sandness and had read about me in a Norwegian newspaper. When I asked him “Why” he invited me over he said: “Well, I think I am just a spontaneous person. I just typed my address and confirmed it. And here you are!”
He lives on a hill which currently is a big construction site for new apartments. A whole site of the hill will be build full with rows of wooden houses within a year. He and Monica have just been living here in their new house for just a year.
At their 3-floor apartment I met Monica and the cat. In the kitchen oven a pizza was being heated as we talked about my project. About how inspiring it all is as I meet so many different people almost every day.
The pizza was going to be a little snack as John Are would take me out on a typical Norwegian picnic later this evening. I also had a little nap this beginning of the evening. Just to reload again after this fine day of town walks. It recharges my battery.
After this John and I got ready to go out. We got into the car and drove to Ölberg, on the west coast near Sandness.
This was were the early Vikings would look out over the sea and where they took off to find England, Scotland, Iceland and even America.
However the Vikings did not seem to survive their time in what is now Canada and the US, Christopher Columbus became the first person to reach and really settle there. (But yes, the Vikings were there first…)
We arrived at this little harbour, with very small holiday cabins in a row (John told me that almost every Norwegian person with some money has a cabin at the coast) and we walked on the rocks towards the still water of the North Sea. We climbed on the rocks and found a place with a good view where we sat down.
It was about 15 degrees Celcius and it was raining. Not hard, but just rainy.
John opened his bag and made hot chocolate. Then he got two plates out of the bag and started putting food on it. First some dry salty meat, sour cream and Norwegian flat bread. This is what the early Norwegian used to eat and we were drinking it on the shore of the Norwegian coast while trying to find Scotland.
Our talking ended up about my website. I write these reports every day and I put a lot of time and effort in it, just to tell you how it is to travel around like me.
On the way back in the car, while I found his Beatles CD collection. As we were listening to Paperback Writer and Tomorrow Never Knows the night fell in as the rain fell down harder now.
On the third floor was my guest room, next to a bathroom, a little work room and an open living room. This living room has walls with CD’s, all on alfabethical order and with great names!
When John was a student, he spent most of his student loans on music and he still has to pay back a lot of CD’s to the state. But his collection was enormous!
Neil Young, Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, Black Sabbath, The Doors, etcetera. Including lots of bootlegs.
When the night really set in, Monica and John went to bed and they let me work on my report in the office room.
Just turn on a Bob Dylan album in your stereo, turn of the lights and start typing your heart out. That’s how it feels to travel the world and write to you.
Good night, Sandness!
Ramon.
