Thursday 21 August 2014

8 beds, 9 days


Bed 1: we awoke at 6.00am (well Helen did) on Monday to finally leave Nordvoll farm. We had 10 and a half hours on buses to do today in order to get from the farm to the city of Bodo. We were traveling for 15 hours in total but we worked out we only covered around 200 miles. Norwegian roads are very mountainous and slow! 




We had said goodbye to everyone the night before as they were all still in bed, so when we left the farm was pretty empty. It was very similar to how it was when we arrived. After an hour in Tromso it was onto the next bus to Narvik which took 4 hours. Neither of us where particularly impressed with Narvik. The air felt thick and unclean, probably due to the fact that it is still a massive iron making town. We spent most of our time in the shopping centre where we ate our lunch with an incredible view of a sports shop. Then it was onto our final bus to Bodø. We were on this one for 6 and a half hours and it included a ferry ride across a fjord and randomly changing buses for no apparent reason. We hit a low point after around 12 hours of travelling where Helen was almost sick. The feeling when we finally got off that bus was amazing. Once we got to Bodo we had no clue where our hotel was and less than half and hour until check in closed. We showed the bus driver the address on Alice's phone and amazingly he told us to get back on the bus and he drove us to just outside the hotel. We were a bit shocked. we did however later meet someone else who had had this happen to them. Maybe it's a Bodo thing. It was finally time to collapse into bed 2 after a pretty long day. We felt like to still moving way into the night. 

Bed 2
Having breakfast in the hotel just the two of us was a bit strange after eating with at least 7 other people for the last 3 weeks. Not having to do the washing up was good though. We managed to eat and then steal enough for Lunch. It turns out that Helen is an expert at this and even came prepared with sandwich bags and a hoody to hide it in. 
After breakfast we were set loose on Bodo. It's not the biggest city in the world but it was certainly large compared to what had got used to on the farm. We wondered around taking in the harbour where we found a bench right out on some rocks at the end of a jetty. We watched the ferry traveling to Bergen which would pass our farm everyday come in and saw some German men jumping into the water. It was 'Sehr Sehr Kalt' apparently. We also visited the nordland museum which had an exciting dry aquarium which was basically stuffed fish behind glass. There was free tea however which no one can complain about. Before dinner we saw some boats racing which excited Helen. All too soon it was time to get our sleeper train. We had a luxurious cabin where if you sat with your back to one wall you could touch the other with your feet. It was good enough though and we got into bed 3 as we travelled further south 
Bed 3: we awoke on Wednesday morning magically transported to Trondhiem. We got off the train and attempted to find our hosts house. We were couchsurfing which means strangers offer you a couch or a space to sleep in their house for free. Luckily eduroam (uni wifi) in the station saved us again and we downloaded the instructions and made it to Catherine and  Tarjei's Flat. After a mistakenly trying to get into the neighbours house we were finally there. We met Catherine who made us breakfast and then headed into town. We ate lunch watching some people dressed as Vikings dance. Apparently this doesn't happen everywhere but it was a bit weird. Later we managed to get lost looking for the university and walked in completely the wrong direction. We are definitely not studying geography... 

Trondhiem's versions of freshers week was taking place whilst we were there and so there were loads of students dressed as pirates wondering around which was cool. After visiting the university we lay by the river for a while before heading back to the flat. On the way back we decided to follow some people in fancy dress to try and find the party but they kept going into houses. I think we were a bit early. 
Back at the flat we met Tarjei who was very nice and Pi, their very fluffy cat. The evening was spent having dinner and wine with them and a few of their friends. One of them offered us her mums house in Oslo to stay in as we couldn't find a couch surfing host. Unfortunately we had already booked a hostel but it was a nice offer none the less. It was great to meet some Norwegian people even if Alice did mange to spill wine all up their wall. 

Bed 4: Helen was awoken on Thursday morning by having Pi, the cat, lick her toes. It was certainly a different wake up call. This was the first day in almost a month where we actually got a lie in. We stayed in bed (well sofa) until nearly 11am. It was beautiful. Once we were up We headed out and found the students association which is their equivalent of our students union. Our two hosts are very involved in it and it was in fact where they met so we were curious to see what it was like. It turns out it wasn't open until 5pm and was a huge gig venue and restaurant, it looked pretty cool. We had been give the keys to our hosts flat and so had to be back to let Tarjei in from work. In the afternoon we just sat and chatted to him about everything from the Norwegian school system, when we first drunk alcohol to what we would do if we swapped sexes for the day. That evening we were invited to theirs friends flat for dinner which was very nice of her as we were almost strangers. We met 2 more Norwegians there, Norman and his girlfriend. They were all lovely people and we got on well. They were curious about Nordvoll and the difference between Norway and England. We also discovered there is a big rivalry between the north and south of Norway. It was a great evening but unfortunately we had to leave early to get to bed 5, the night train to Oslo. 

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