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 possibilities in Scandinavia.
Until now it seems I can travel around Norway pretty well, 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 wants 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!
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.
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.
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.
Remco had just arrived from the north of Norway, where he visited his girlfriend Birgit, and only 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 meal 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. He got this job here after he moved from Älesund (in the North of Norway, where he had lived since he moved to Norway in August 1999) to Oslo in July 2000.
In the summers he enjoys going to his girldfriend’s 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 had 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 and Taco, who I hope to visit soon too.
After dinner we moved on to a sports 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 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 blogger.
I used to “log my web surfings” on the website of the Studentmagazine SMOEL from my hometown.
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.
And I can tell you that I won’t be in Oslo again, 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 on again, ha!
Remco got to bed and I checked my emails on his computer, published today’s photographs and posted 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.
