Today I exchanged Lillehammer for my last destination in Norway: the little town of Rygge. My host here, Frank, took me out fishing and to the cinema.
Horvard woke me up at 9.45 this morning. Of course I made it much too late last night.
After I had a shower I quickly made breakfast and lunch for on the road and Horvard also gave me a big bag with bananas, apples, cherries and a bottle of fizzy orange.
We arrived at the train station at 10.45am and I met up with Trond and Annegro, whom I met last night in Peppe’s Pizza. They especially came to the train station on this Saturday morning to say goodbye to me and wave me off.
I said goodbye to Horvard when it was time to get on the train. I thanked him for his hospitality and for letting me use his computer during the night, which made it possible for me to write some extensive reports. And I thanked him for anything else I might forget.
I gave Trond a good hand as he wished me luck on my journey and gave Annegro three kisses on her cheek (the Dutch custom) before I settled on my seat in the train towards Oslo.
After the waving ceremonie at the departure of the train I eventually dozed off again. Halfway the ride I woke up and heard my stomach rumble. I had my breakfast, ate half of the fruit and enjoyed the train ride.
The train arrived in Oslo centre around 1 pm and I had to wait almost two hours for my next connection to the little town called Rygge.
I spent the time contacting my future hosts of this week, walked around and spent some time in the various media- and bookshops.
At 3pm I boarded the train that took me to Rygge, a quiet little town along the Oslofjord, in the south of Norway.
50 minutes later I was walking from the train tracks towards the house of my new host Frank, while passing an active soccer game of the local club.
I met Frank in front of his house. “How are you doing?” he asked me when I arrived inside and dropped down my backpack. He offered me a glass of apple juice. “I planned to go fishing today, do you want to come with me?”
In the car from Rygge to the coast I talked with Frank. He once read about my project in the Dagbladet newspaper and decided to invite me over.
But he never thought I’d come over, because he had read too that I would go to the north of Norway – probably hopping to Sweden and Finland.
Frank is a mechanical engineer at the Peterson papermill in Moss, the first bigger city up north. Besides his work he likes to travel, but therefore he says “I have to sell 8 hours per day to working, in order to be able to travel and life”.
And he prefers to stay active, so he plays table tennis a lot. He loves speed sports, “because these keeps you sharp,” he told me.
We arrived at some rocky coastline and lined up for the fishing. I already got the hang of it after my last time in Bodø, but unfortunately there was no fish in the water today…
Some relatives of Frank had also joined and prepared a little barbeque on the rocks. We had upmost difficulties of creating that little fire in that aluminium box, but with the help of a little wind we could heat up some Swedish sausages and ate them with brød and ketchup.
It were a few hours of relaxing during that fishing trip. I felt different when we left the seaside again after a few hours. Like if the wildness of the windy ocean had made me at ease or something…
Back home Frank and I drank coffee and he talked about how amazed he was about my project.
A little later I did a little email check on his internet connection and Frank came up with the idea of going to the cinema tonight.
Moss just opened a new cinema theatre and there were two films available for us tonight. Swordfish (with John Travolta) and Antitrust (a movie about datahackers).
Frank let me decide and we went for Antitrust. With me as a travelling web nerd (as my friends at the Dutch radio like to call me) I can’t skip a movie about datahackers.
It took us 15 minutes to drive from Rygge to Moss and we settled in the right movie room around 9.30pm.
After the movie, Frank treated me on a burger and we drove back home again.
As Frank got to bed when we got home, he settled me behind his computer and arranged a guest bed for me.
Good night Rygge! Good bye Norway! Thank you for everything!
Ramon.
