You're gorgeous, but what's with the hair?

Zo staat het in mijn agenda geschreven:

APRIL
2
donderdag
+/- 12u: Karen & Morgan komen aan
15u Grimsk Grenka – afspraak Karen en Morgan
Durf ik hier wel met mijn sjoffele broek op die bank gaan zitten?
Vigeland & haven
Stappen stappen stappen …
Dinner @ Isabel’s --Isabel, Marilen, Toon, Gerd, Karen & Morgan
Do you want to go and drink a whisky?

APRIL
3
vrijdag (Karen D. verjaardag)
etentje met Karen en Morgan 17u30
Tullin’s Café
eerst nog wat winkelen: zonnebril (sunshine) en pull
13: Akerhuscastle
22u47 --trein (10’ ervoor Oslo S gehaald)

And this is where the adventure begins…
I promised my Swiss travelpartners I would write about these days in English, so that they could read it as well. I will try and do my best girls.

-First stop: from Oslo S (10.47 p.m.) ‘till Stavanger (7.26 a.m.):
Toon and Isabel, Gemma and me and Marilen and Stina (who appeared to be a singer performing in a club in Stavanger Saturday night) crossed the Norwegian country side by night. Some slept well, some could count every hour passing by, while others enjoyed the view. Luckely, due to the 'sleeping kit' you get in these kind of night trains (blanket, earplugs, little pillow and something to cover your eyes with), I signed up for the first group.

Saturday:
After Marilen’s-homemade-bread-breakfast and searching Isabel’s wedding dress in a bridal magazine, we went to the first place every tourist visits after arrival (besides the toilet): a tourist information centre. It seemed like the sun joined our wake up walk, because suddenly the grey clouds disappeared.
If the lady behind the counter in such an information centre answers most of your questions with ‘I don’t really know…’ there is only one way out: search for yourselves. After we decided we wanted to climb the Pulpit Rock (Preikestole), we needed some place to stay during the night ('all hostels are open during the summer months' –woops). “Let’s ask somebody if we can stay at their place,” Marilen said. A few seconds of hesitation and some doubtful looks later, Marilen, Toon, Gemma and Isabel -well somebody had to look after the luggage, right?- approached people on the street with their rather unusual question (Can 5 students, who you don’t know, but can be trusted, stay at your place tonight?). Positive thinking is one of the most beautiful phenomena I know (and which I will try to do as well from now on), because 10 minutes later Gemma and Isabel came running down the street with a big smile on their amazingly happy faces: they did it! Islen, working at a bar, didn’t mind having 5 strangers in her house, neither keeping their luggage at her workplace for a day nor taking those 4 heavy bags (4 girls and a boy + a trip = 4 large bags and a tiny little one) to her home when she finished working.
The phrase to describe this trip the best could be ‘Why are we so lucky’. After catching the night train in 6 minutes, the sun shining in Stavanger, bumping into Islen and catching the ferry in 15 minutes you shouldn’t be surprised. But wait, there is more…

The ferry brought us to Tau, there the bus dropped us in Jorpeland and, after 'the first pick-nick on the grass' of the year ‘09, we hitchhiked to the Pulpit Rock. Gemma, Marilen and Isabel were lucky from the start, they got a ride almost immediately. And after 30 minutes of shaking knees and a heart beating a bit faster than normal (mine) Toon and I arrived as well.
I don’t think my words (and especially these English ones) can describe what we (and I) experienced during our more-than-5-hours climbing adventure. Pictures cannot describe what we saw either.
Rocks, walking, green, smiling, grey, shouting, blue, red dots and stripes, grey, stones, singing, swamps, green, climbing, brown, melting-ice-waterfalls, brown, watching, breathing, green, jumping, lakes, grey, tears and fears, 604 meters above sea level, blue, snow, brown, sun, Why are we so lucky? …
Well, I tried.

Around 7 p.m., when the sun was losing its warmth, we arrived at the foot of one of the rocks and discovered that cars driving by were very rare at that time of the day. We took a cab back to Jorpeland, went with the bus to the ferry and ‘ferried’ back to Stavanger. Time flew by, it was already after 9 p.m. when we began searching for TOU SCENE, the club Stina Stjern (the girl who Marilen met at the train) would play that night. After a lot of ‘gleen cully’,’shlimps and flied lice’ and a black cat, we arrived at the old industrial mill which was transformed in a very nice hang out place and music hall. Unfortunately, an entrance fee had to be paid. The guy at the entrance tried to persuade us with a student discount, but still we weren’t convinced. Marilen tried calling Stina and a few seconds later she came down the stairs explaining the guy she met us in the train. The guy, not that happy about the fact that Stina persuaded HIM, gave us a stamp for free. Why are we so …
Even though Stina usually sings with a band, we didn’t notice anything missing during her performance and enjoyed her singing a lot.

Around 1 a.m., after a long day filled with that many beautiful and exhausting experiences, we still had to search for Islen’s place. The beauty of the day didn’t come to his end yet. Islen, who we spoke in the morning for not more than 10 minutes, left us, besides her trust, the key for her apartment 'in the letter box in front of the yellow building'. The only thing she asked us, after she had brought our luggage and put all kind of pillows, blankets and other useful things in her bedroom, was to be quite (‘there are living a lot of young families in these buildings’) and put the key back in the box so that she could enter her house as well (she went out to party)… This can sound corny, and actually I don’t mind, but the fact that we met her made me believe that not all people are scared of each other and that there is still some trust left. It made me feel, once again, very lucky, but also more than happy. And again, this is a feeling I cannot describe.


Sunday:
The morning after, we had a chance to get to know our sparkly host. After a long talk and breakfast she asked us if we would be interested to borrow her car for that day, or better, if we would mind if she and her sister (with her two little boys Jonathan and Oliver) would join us to our trip to the sandy beaches of Stavanger. If we would mind … ? I am sure that every one of us, on that particular moment, was thinking the same thing, once again.
That Sunday we drove with the 9 of us through the Norwegian lowland, stopped at two sandy beaches with light blue salty water (and cold it was as Isabel and I paddled with our feet in the sea) and visited Stavanger and the old part of the town.
It looks like Norway has been given a little bit of everything and all shaken up in one. I don't think I need to say it once more, but I'll do it anyway: I fell in love with Norway.

-Second stop: from Stavanger (7.27 p.m.) ‘till Kristiansand (10.23 p.m.)
I felt myself getting smaller (in this big beautiful world) while looking at the scenery: forests, lakes, hills, stones and fields crossing my (and the train’s) path. At a high speed, into the night.
When we arrived in Kristiansand, 2 friendly and talkative girls (who said Norwegian people are closed and cold?!) didn’t mind showing us the way to our hostel. Little did we know that it was located at 150 meters from the train station and that the 2 girls walked us through the whole city to eventually showing us the wrong way. We tried to squeeze ourselves in a small room for 4, Toon sleeping on the floor.


Monday:
When you go on a trip with Marilen and Isabel, you can be sure that it is an adventure, off course, but also that you’ll get a healthy (and delicious) ‘beginning of the day’. So after a long breakfast, we took off to the tourist centre where a friendly woman gave us a 2D-tour through Kristiansand. She recommended us to visit the local fish market, little islands at the coast, walk around in the old part of the village and take a look at lakes in the forest.
And that’s what we did. The salmon we bought at the market melted on our tongues. At the coast we fantasized about witch animal we wanted to be (and so Toon, King ‘Moosh’ Moose was born). We were peeping Toms in the old part of the town, where the little white wooden houses were build right next to each other. And finally we enjoyed the last sunrays at the lakes.
The evening brought us spaghetti on our plates and in Toon’s hair (never knew that uncooked spaghetti could get stuck that easily) and showing of little body tricks (or hiding the fact that you’re not that flexible).


Tuesday:
The next morning Toon got blamed of being a ‘breather’, Isabel climbed out of the window and another delicious breakfast was made. Due to the weather (which had been on our side for the previous days), we searched some inside activities and found them. We visited a bright, partly wooden church where Toon, as being me father, gave me away to Mr. Invisible. Afterwards we went to a South Norwegian Art Museum and because we were (and are) international students, all the exhibitions in the building were for free. Once again, say it with me ladies and gentlemen of the jury (sorry, watched to many Ally McBeal episodes the past few months): why are we so lucky?
After a quick stop at the fish market, we went to the train station and left a cloudy Kristiansand behind. In the train we made ourselves sandwiches with salmon (we apologize to the other passengers on board of ‘vagn 3’ for the smell), and I don’t know what my fellow travelers thought of their dinner, but my sandwich tasted heavenly.
Around 10 p.m. we arrived in Oslo S. Some of us went home to sleep and others (like Toon and I) waited for some visitors.

But that’s a story I will tell another time. In Dutch...