I was brought from Sandness to Stavanger where I met the Dutch Geert Jan and his wife Gry. At night Geert Jan and I went out and I experienced a strange night in limos, free entrances and free drinks. Who am I if I get things for free?
Monica woke me up this morning at 9.30am. When I had my shower I got downstairs in the kitchen and saw that the table was all set for my breakfast.
Monica poured in coffee as I read a note from John where he tells me that Monica will drive me to Stavanger tonight and he already had to go to work. I had breakfast and after playing with the cat it was getting time to get backed again and we loaded the car with my backpack.
Monica drove me to Stavanger, making a quick stop at John Are’s job for a goodbye, and we passed the famous Three Swords at Hafrsfjord, the inlet of the North Sea. The three swords planted into the rock commemorate the historic Battle of Hafrsfjord which took place there in the year 872, when King Harald Fairhair gathered all of Norway under one crown.
Monica dropped me in front of the office of the Aftenbladet newspaper of Stavanger, where a reporter from this newspaper wanted to meet up with me.
After he let me wait 15 minutes, he took me out for a walk. On the streets he talked most of the time and asked a few questions. He said that most of the questions are answered on the website and halfway up to the park we met the photographer who instantly took pictures of me. The reporter thanked me for the quick conversation and had to run to the park with his photographer as he had to report about a teachers’ strike going on there. I’ve never had such an bewilderd interview, ha!
It was 11.15 and I explored the centre of Stavanger, with its wooden houses and small streets. And ended up at the Oil Museum at the fjords inlet. Stavanger has always been a place where people arrive over land and continue by ship or the other way round. It has been assumed that the church was built in 1125 and the city has been celebrating anniversaries based on that. But the year is under discussion now.
Sigurd Jorsalfare – his name means Sigurd the Crusader – was king when the Stavanger Cathedral was built. He donated land for the support of the bishopric. He had been denied divorce by the bishop in Bergen. The Church at this point was too strong for him to just get rid of a bishop. Besides he was a Christian man, a crusader; so the story goes that he bought himself out by installing another bishop further south.
The Vikings, as you know, sometimes behaved badly when travelling abroad, but that is not the whole truth about them. They were also merchants and clever craftsmen. They made lasting contributions to European art, technology and language.
Vikings founded Dublin (twice, actually), they founded York in the first century BA. They established the oldest still existing parliament in Europe, at the Isle of Man. And they brought the word law to the English language.
The Viking era in England started at Lindisfarne. That was where the first documented attack on the British Isles took place in 793. In the South the Viking era ended exactly when the Norman Conquest began, in 1066.
During these nearly 300 years, Norway went from being an area where a number of little kingdoms were constantly at war with each other, to becoming a well organized Christian nation under one king.
The Norwegian seas and oceans have was the heaven for fishermen of all types, and Stavanger has always been an important port to the sea. But when the fishing industry disappeared, oil became a life saver. And still is the main industry in Stavanger.
I called my host in Stavanger around 2pm and let him now I was in Stavanger. He told me that he lives just outside Stavanger, but he’d take the bus and pick me up in the centre. It was Geert Jan who introduced himself to me half an hour later.
Geert Jan is originally Dutch, but has been living in Norway for the last sixteen years. His mother married a Norwegian man and the family had moved back and forth to Holland and finally stayed in Norway.
We walked to the bus stop at the Cathedral of Stavanger and I got to know him better. He once read an article about me in a Norwegian newspaper and invited me over, as Stavanger was not on my places-to-go-list yet.
He once was a graphic designer at the press and information office in the Norwegian military, but when doctors discovered cancer he has not been working since the last four years. For the last four years music has been his therapy and next to listening to it, he also started to compose music. It got him so far that he now has contracts offered by big European record labels who want to release some of his productions, where his sister Lauraine is the lead singer.
The bus took us to his home, where I met his mother, who is his neighbour.
Inside the house I met Gry, Geert Jan’s wife. I had issues in communicating with her as she is deaf and my sign language is as bad as my Norwegian.
Geert Jan and Gry had two young children, Miranda and Emily, named after princesses from Dutch bedtime storybooks.
Geert Jan’s plans were to go out tonight and show me Stavanger. While he let me have a little one hour afternoon nap, he had been arranging free entrances in pubs and dancings and even the local taxi company would send us their limousine to take us to the town centre!
After having dinner with the family, self caught and home cooked fish, I checked my emails on one of their two computers. Gry is a heavy internet chatter as Geert Jan is composing music on the other computer.
At 8.30pm a limousine blew the horn. I hurried in other clothing and joined Geert Jan in this free taxi.
The limo dropped us off at the entrance of Checkpoint Charlie, a rock pub which was pretty crowded for this early time of the night. The deejay played some good rock music and we got, next to free entrance, free drinks for as long as we were there.
A few guests there approached me and said that they had seen my website. One guy even invited me to a party tomorrow. I went on a picture with the bartenders and had a great time here.
Unfortunately, as you can see, I had a disk failure of all the pictures I have made this night. I am sorry, but you have to do it with these lines here only.
From the rock pub Geert Jan and I walked into the rain along the harbour and ended up in Alberts. “Yes, Mr. Letmestayforaday, you can just walk in.”
That’s was strange to experience? Does everybody read the newspapers here and learn them by head? Someway commercial places think it would be good publicity for them if they get mentioned on my website, giving me some nice privileges for this night which I just cannot reject – of course!
Alberts is a fun disco where young folks drink and party. And here a deejay was playing all kinds of very danceable tracks, but I did not make it on the dancefloor there, before we left the place at 23.30 after a few more beers.
From here we walked to another part of town centre and ended up in the Taket Nattklubb. The guards welcomed us at the entrance and Geert Jan told them about my project. “Oh, yes, please come in. Just ask the deejay for a special cocktail; he knows all about you!” And in we walked, for free.
At the bar we found the deejay and I introduced myself and Geert Jan. “So you are the internet traveller?” he asked. “So here you go!” and he gave me a glass of Long Island Ice Tea. “Enjoy!” and he walked back to the deejay box.
I did enjoyed the cocktail as we sad down along the dancefloor and saw how the full two floor place got filled with more people. And when the music got going, my feet were on the dancefloor!
We danced the night away and the deejay gave Geert Jan and me free drinks all night. Suddenly the big man would come up with a mix and said: “Try this, cranberry juice with wodka” or he waved with two bottles of Mexican Corona above his mixing table. “Here! Take!”
It was about 3.30am when this man played his final record and when Geert Jan called the taxi company for a taxi. “Our limo will be at the entrance of the Taket Nattklubb in twenty minutes.”
Outside tipsy and pretty drunk people were realizing it was raining quite a bit. For Geert Jan and me it was the limousine that kept us dry for the road back home.
I enjoyed this night very much, but I am almost happy that things like this don’t happen every night anywhere.
Good night Stavanger!
Ramon.
