Circumspencing the Globe

On Day 11, I awoke in my elf room, fixed breakfast, checked out and headed for the Svolvær town center.  It rained again much of the day.  I passed the time mostly hanging out in Cod Stew again.  There I met a couple American brothers, one of whom is actually training for the decathlon in the next Olympic games.  I was quick to graciously share with him everything I know about athletic competition, especially my personal experience in maintaining a disciplined work-out routine.  For the sake of the USA, let’s hope he disregards everything I said.

The Lofoten Islands are connected by bridges, and I took an evening bus from the island Svolvær is on to a town called Å (pronounced Oh) on the southernmost island.  Because the sun set during the trip, the views were gorgeous.  (Unfortunately, I can’t upload photos due to the wiring configuration of the computer I’m using.)  I stayed at a hostel in Å, and when the proprietor showed me into the kitchen, I was delighted to find a group of fellow travelers congregating there, chatting and fixing food.  Among them were the two German guys I’d met on the boat from Narvik to Svolvær a couple days earlier, Marius and Stephan.  The others there included a couple American guys, a Canadian gal (who is trained in mixed martial arts and is a fan of the UFC’s Jorges St. Pierre) and a mixed group of other Germans.

The next morning (Day 12), I explored Å, with its stilts-perched fisherman shanties and surrounding cliffs.  Then I hiked to the harbor in a place called Møskenes.  (By the way, the keypads in Norway are the coolest, with options like å, æ, ø, ¤, µ and sometimes y.)  Marius and Stephan met me in the harbor and we road a ferry together to Bødo on mainland Norway.  Then we hopped on the overnight train to Trondheim, the third largest city in Norway.  At the moment, on Day 13, I’m writing from the library in Trondheim.  Marius and Stephan are using internet terminals on either side of me.  All three of us are pretty groggy.  On the train, we had only reclining seats, not a sleeper car.  I “slept” in an aisle seat and had my daypack on the window seat beside me.  In the middle of the night, I sensed someone near me, flipped off my eye mask, and saw a hand reaching over me for my pack.  I yelled, “Hey!”  If I were fluent in Norwegian, I would have unleashed the expletive “ø浤ø¤æ!”  I’m glad I didn’t, though.  When I looked up, I saw the face of a frightened young man peering over me.  In a small voice, he pointed to the seat my bag was on and said, “That’s my seat.”  I demanded to see his ticket, and he promptly produced it.  He explained he had gotten on the train at one of the late-night stops and was only trying to remove my bag quietly so as not to awaken me.  Thankfully, what I perceived to be attempted larceny was only attempted courtesy.  As Chuck G. would ask his prosecutors, “Is there a lesson here?”

It’s cold and rainy outside.    We have yet to see the sights, but the centerpiece is the Nidaros Domkirke, Scandinavia’s largest medieval building, dating back to the 12th century.  I’ll be hanging out with Marius and Stephan all day and then riding the overnight train south to Oslo with them.  Maybe even sleeping some.  Hopefully the sun will be shining in Oslo.

Tags: Å, Bødo, Lofoten, Norway, Svolvær, Travel, Trondheim

This entry was posted on Monday, September 17th, 2007 at 4:51 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.