1600 kilometers in three days
Driving across Norway was pretty cool. And although it was filled with some hassle – mostly due to my idiocy – it was totally worth it. I got the car on Monday morning. They upgraded me from a Ka (the car so big it doesn’t need an ‘r’) to a Peugeot something or other. That was cool. I took the subway to the rental agency, which was right across the street from the station at Enjso. Easy. This create an inherent problem that arose as soon as I pulled out of the lot. Turning right, towards the city, I realized I didn’t have a map or a clue about where I was. What I did have was a general idea of where I lived, namely: right. So it took me an hour of driving through this small city to find my way home. Three dead ends and two circles lead me, eventually to something I recognized and then to home. I loaded up the car and headed out. But with the detour and the screwing around before hitting the road, I was late leaving. About an hour and half or so. I figured it would be fine, what are they going to do, lock me out? It was 6 hours to drive to Bergen, my first stop. I left at 12:30. So I’d only be a half hour or so late for my check in at 6pm. No problem. 6 hours was conservative anyway, for all those saps driving the speed limit. I am, if perhaps only in the arena, not a sap. I like driving fast. So I got on the Ring 3, this is the outer of three roads that, well, ring Oslo. The Ring 3 to the E18. The E18 to the E16 and then I’d be riding that all the way to Bergen. Pretty straight forward. The Ring 3 and the E18 are both four-lane highways. At least around Oslo. And the E16 is the major highway between Oslo and Bergen. This is like driving from Seattle to Spokane. The implication, even on the map, is highway. But as soon as I turned onto the E16 it presented itself as a two-lane road. And this only changed when the yellow centerline disappeared and it became, arguably, a single lane road. Now with the exception of the speed with which you can go on this highway (the posted speed limit is 80km/h. Through towns it’s 60km/h. That’s roughly 50 and 40 mph respectively) it was awesome. The road winds its way across the country, up into the mountains, down along fjords, through small bergs. Beautiful. Several times I wanted to stop and take pictures, but the other thing about the roads is there is no shoulder. There is road, white line, and pavement ends almost immediately and then earth and grass usually at some sharp incline either up or down. There were provided turnouts, but these were often at dull places along the journey and not where I wanted to take pictures. Ultimately, it did turn out to be a good thing that I could take pictures.
I drove and drove and drove. The other thing about these roads is that you can go pretty fast, I mean relatively. I could do 100-110km/h. Twisting and turning and having a good old time. But inevitably I would come upon some Norwegian doing the speed limit. Or worse, some Norwegian camper headed to some holiday campground that could only do a fraction of the speed limit. This was compounded by all the winding and twisting and turning. I have to wait behind these people for a clear straight away to pass. These were few and far between. All told, with the late exit from the city and the driving conditions I ended up rolling into Bergen at 8:45. Almost three hours past my check in. Keep in mind; Bergen is like 450klm away from Oslo. (Roughly 270 miles.) Like driving across one state right. When was the last time it took 8 hours to drive across Washington? Never. 5 hours from Seattle to Pullman At the outside. And that’s over 300 miles and half of that is also on a two lane road. I got a buddy who did it in 3 hours and 45minutes when I was an undergraduate. 8 hours? I felt like a sucker. But whatever.
As I pulled into Bergen I realized I forgot the directions to the place I was suppose to park. I had asked the Hostel and they gave me a reasonable place to leave the car for the night. Also, my map of Norway does not include a side map of Bergen. It has a side map of Oslo, which is fine. And then it has one of Stockholm and one of Malmo, two cities not in Norway and of little help. Any rate, I had the address for the Hostel and I had my Lonely Planet and with these I promptly got lost in Bergen. And then I swear to god I drove around in a circle five times trying to find the street. I mean I would think I was going somewhere different and I would end up back at the same intersection no where near the street I was looking for. A good 45 minutes of this finally found me where I needed to be, which was good cause I had to pee and I was starving. A quick check in and then food.
Quick was not in the cards. First off, I found the building, it had a huge sign on the side that said “Dorm.com” That’s where I was staying. I also lucked out and found parking on the street just up the block. Sweet. I got out and walked to the door I thought was the Hostel, which turned out to be a bar. And the address, Kong Oscars Gate 40 was not what was above the door. The address here was Kong Oscars Gate 44. “Oh, It must be across the street there in that…no that’s K.O.G 38. Well then maybe it’s over there…no.” So I went into the bar and asked. As I waiting for the bartended I checked the address again. Kong Oscars Gate 46! “Oh, it’s just the other side of this bar. Right, well that makes sense…” I told myself as I exited the bar and headed to the hostel. “I should have checked the address because here is 46…but it’s all papered over and locked and that doesn’t say anything about a hostel.” I went back to the bar and the Bartended was like “Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s down the block and to the right, because we’re 44” Right, but down the block and to the right was across the street and no longer on Kong Oscars Gate. There was a hostel there, but not the one with my reservation or deposit. I went hunting. I walked up and down a couple of streets with no luck. And then I had to pee. I had to. And eat. At this point I gave it up and decided to sleep in the car. I walked down to the water. Figured I pee in some restaurant and then get some food. And I found a lot of restaurants but they were all so damn expensive (and you thought I wasn’t going to bring this up) that I couldn’t bring myself to eat at any of them. I eventually found a public wc and used the hell out of it. And then went to 7-11 and got some waters and figured I’d eat a sandwich form the food I’d packed. As I was walking back to the car I got a hunch that the hostel might be through a little gate behind the bar where I asked for direction. I walked in, there was the door to the bar from the patio and there, not ten feet away, the door to the Dorm Hostel. Awesome. I’m set. I wish she had said so before, the bartended, I mean I could actually see the door from where I stood and asked her for directions. If I’d only knew what I was looking for. And I reached out and turned the knob I found that it didn’t matter. It was locked. All the lights were actually off and there was no one behind the counter.
Back at the car I made a sandwich. I drank some water. I tried to figure out if I sleep in the car or get a hotel. I can afford a hotel, but I didn’t want to. I could go to that other hostel around the corner, but I could just as easily sleep in the car. Peugeot, as the guy said at the car rental, knows how to make comfort. Not quality, but comfort. As I finished my sandwich I decided I’d head up the road towards the Glacier Museum, the Fehn building I was planning on seeing on the trip. I would drive as far as I could and then find a place to sleep on the road. Then come back the next afternoon and sort out the bed. So this I did. I drove for another hour. Found a parking lot in a small berg and fell asleep. Here is a picture of the hostel I didn’t stay at:
And here is the Parking lot I did sleep in:
It wasn’t bad, but after a while it wasn’t comfortable anymore. I woke up at 6am, rested at any rate. And headed up the road. I figured the Museum was about 2 hours away. Turned out to be 4 and a half hours away. Still, beautiful country. Part of the time was spent on a ferry, which was nice. When I got to the museum it was awesome. I had seen pictures in books, read about it. I knew the building, but here it was. I pulled into the parking lot and got out of the car, pulled out the camera and went to work. It’s a great building. Here is a picture of the buildng and a view of one of the glaciers:
After an hour out side, walking around the building, taking photos and drawing, I headed inside. And it was while I was taking pictures inside that the next hassle presented itself. I am lining up a shot when the battery light starts flashing. It was running out of juice. I had charged it a couple days before and it was usually good for what I had planned, but here it was dying. I had brought my computer so I potentially had an infinite number of pictures I could have taken. (I only have one SD card at the moment.) But if the battery died I was done for. There would be no need to go anywhere else or do anything else. It would be wasted. I bought a hot dog at the museum café and sat down for a think. (I tried out my Norwegian on the girl behind the counter. I said “Polse med brød.” The girl looked at me like I was retarded. I said “Hotdog with bread.” She smiled and said “Oh, yeah.” As I ate I drew a couple of details of the building and thought about my options. I could go back to Bergen. But without a camera I could get little work down. I could draw, which is fine, but I needed to take pictures of specific buildings. I decided to head home. I figured I could stop at a couple of the stave churches on the way; I had planned on doing this anyhow, and take as many photos as I had juice left to take. At home I could charge the battery and then go see another building north of Oslo, the Aukrust Museum.
After 3 hours at the Glacier Museum I hit the road again. The first stave church I stopped at was a treasure. Not necessarily for the building, which was simple and pretty cool in it’s own right.
This is Kaupanfer Stavkirke:
But the guy taking money at the door came in while I was figuring out how the thing was put together and we started talking. He gave me some great information the best is that he turned me onto the preservation society. So I’ll go see them next week and get permission to take pictures on the inside of the stave churches, which is now prohibited unless you have a piece of paper saying it’s all right.
At the next church the battery died. I filled up most of the SD card, though. After this I was on the road headed home.
Borgund Stavkirke:
6 hours later I pulled into Oslo. This proved to be a good move given the situation. I charged the camera and got a good nights sleep.
The next morning I headed north with the intention of seeing the museum and then going to Røros, which is farther north. I’d spend a day and half at the old mining town, get some good photos, it would be great. The Aukrust Museum turned out to be fantastic. Even if it took 2 hours longer to get to then I estimated. The museum itself was such an elemental and simple building that it was totally worth it. I have about 150 photos on the camera and I ended up taking 130 of this building. Usually I run about 50 photos a building. Elevations, perspective, elements and details. That’s about all I need to get pretty good documentation. When I was leaving the house for the second time I had balked at taking the computer. It made me nervous to leave it in the car the previous leg of the tour and it’s heavy to lug around. I figured I’d have enough photos for the one building and a preliminary survey of Røros. But 20 pictures, it was not worth the additional 5 hours of driving (plus the 2 extra hours that it would actually take to get there). I decided to once again come back to Oslo.
Aukrust:
And that was the trip. All things considered I got some great images. I saw some excellent architecture. I really liked Bergen and I’ll go back on a separate trip. I also plan on visiting both these museums at least two more times. Now that I’ve driven it and know what it takes I can make better plans. I turned the car in a day early because it was rather expensive. Worth it, but there was nothing I could see in a day so it wasn’t worth keeping it.
The whole trip got me excited about being here. Being out in the countryside, seeing those buildings, it just made me feel good about what I’m doing. I will be putting together a more detailed report about the various buildings I’ve seen in the last month and what they mean to my thesis for Tun. This should be up next week if you want to check it out.
For now, I’m in Oslo. I’m going to start planning another trip. I was reading about a prehistoric village near Stravanger. That might be next on the list. In a couple weeks I’ll rent another car and go driving some more.
The car I drove in front of Aukrust Museum:
I drove and drove and drove. The other thing about these roads is that you can go pretty fast, I mean relatively. I could do 100-110km/h. Twisting and turning and having a good old time. But inevitably I would come upon some Norwegian doing the speed limit. Or worse, some Norwegian camper headed to some holiday campground that could only do a fraction of the speed limit. This was compounded by all the winding and twisting and turning. I have to wait behind these people for a clear straight away to pass. These were few and far between. All told, with the late exit from the city and the driving conditions I ended up rolling into Bergen at 8:45. Almost three hours past my check in. Keep in mind; Bergen is like 450klm away from Oslo. (Roughly 270 miles.) Like driving across one state right. When was the last time it took 8 hours to drive across Washington? Never. 5 hours from Seattle to Pullman At the outside. And that’s over 300 miles and half of that is also on a two lane road. I got a buddy who did it in 3 hours and 45minutes when I was an undergraduate. 8 hours? I felt like a sucker. But whatever.
As I pulled into Bergen I realized I forgot the directions to the place I was suppose to park. I had asked the Hostel and they gave me a reasonable place to leave the car for the night. Also, my map of Norway does not include a side map of Bergen. It has a side map of Oslo, which is fine. And then it has one of Stockholm and one of Malmo, two cities not in Norway and of little help. Any rate, I had the address for the Hostel and I had my Lonely Planet and with these I promptly got lost in Bergen. And then I swear to god I drove around in a circle five times trying to find the street. I mean I would think I was going somewhere different and I would end up back at the same intersection no where near the street I was looking for. A good 45 minutes of this finally found me where I needed to be, which was good cause I had to pee and I was starving. A quick check in and then food.
Quick was not in the cards. First off, I found the building, it had a huge sign on the side that said “Dorm.com” That’s where I was staying. I also lucked out and found parking on the street just up the block. Sweet. I got out and walked to the door I thought was the Hostel, which turned out to be a bar. And the address, Kong Oscars Gate 40 was not what was above the door. The address here was Kong Oscars Gate 44. “Oh, It must be across the street there in that…no that’s K.O.G 38. Well then maybe it’s over there…no.” So I went into the bar and asked. As I waiting for the bartended I checked the address again. Kong Oscars Gate 46! “Oh, it’s just the other side of this bar. Right, well that makes sense…” I told myself as I exited the bar and headed to the hostel. “I should have checked the address because here is 46…but it’s all papered over and locked and that doesn’t say anything about a hostel.” I went back to the bar and the Bartended was like “Oh, I don’t know, maybe it’s down the block and to the right, because we’re 44” Right, but down the block and to the right was across the street and no longer on Kong Oscars Gate. There was a hostel there, but not the one with my reservation or deposit. I went hunting. I walked up and down a couple of streets with no luck. And then I had to pee. I had to. And eat. At this point I gave it up and decided to sleep in the car. I walked down to the water. Figured I pee in some restaurant and then get some food. And I found a lot of restaurants but they were all so damn expensive (and you thought I wasn’t going to bring this up) that I couldn’t bring myself to eat at any of them. I eventually found a public wc and used the hell out of it. And then went to 7-11 and got some waters and figured I’d eat a sandwich form the food I’d packed. As I was walking back to the car I got a hunch that the hostel might be through a little gate behind the bar where I asked for direction. I walked in, there was the door to the bar from the patio and there, not ten feet away, the door to the Dorm Hostel. Awesome. I’m set. I wish she had said so before, the bartended, I mean I could actually see the door from where I stood and asked her for directions. If I’d only knew what I was looking for. And I reached out and turned the knob I found that it didn’t matter. It was locked. All the lights were actually off and there was no one behind the counter.
Back at the car I made a sandwich. I drank some water. I tried to figure out if I sleep in the car or get a hotel. I can afford a hotel, but I didn’t want to. I could go to that other hostel around the corner, but I could just as easily sleep in the car. Peugeot, as the guy said at the car rental, knows how to make comfort. Not quality, but comfort. As I finished my sandwich I decided I’d head up the road towards the Glacier Museum, the Fehn building I was planning on seeing on the trip. I would drive as far as I could and then find a place to sleep on the road. Then come back the next afternoon and sort out the bed. So this I did. I drove for another hour. Found a parking lot in a small berg and fell asleep. Here is a picture of the hostel I didn’t stay at:
And here is the Parking lot I did sleep in:
It wasn’t bad, but after a while it wasn’t comfortable anymore. I woke up at 6am, rested at any rate. And headed up the road. I figured the Museum was about 2 hours away. Turned out to be 4 and a half hours away. Still, beautiful country. Part of the time was spent on a ferry, which was nice. When I got to the museum it was awesome. I had seen pictures in books, read about it. I knew the building, but here it was. I pulled into the parking lot and got out of the car, pulled out the camera and went to work. It’s a great building. Here is a picture of the buildng and a view of one of the glaciers:
After an hour out side, walking around the building, taking photos and drawing, I headed inside. And it was while I was taking pictures inside that the next hassle presented itself. I am lining up a shot when the battery light starts flashing. It was running out of juice. I had charged it a couple days before and it was usually good for what I had planned, but here it was dying. I had brought my computer so I potentially had an infinite number of pictures I could have taken. (I only have one SD card at the moment.) But if the battery died I was done for. There would be no need to go anywhere else or do anything else. It would be wasted. I bought a hot dog at the museum café and sat down for a think. (I tried out my Norwegian on the girl behind the counter. I said “Polse med brød.” The girl looked at me like I was retarded. I said “Hotdog with bread.” She smiled and said “Oh, yeah.” As I ate I drew a couple of details of the building and thought about my options. I could go back to Bergen. But without a camera I could get little work down. I could draw, which is fine, but I needed to take pictures of specific buildings. I decided to head home. I figured I could stop at a couple of the stave churches on the way; I had planned on doing this anyhow, and take as many photos as I had juice left to take. At home I could charge the battery and then go see another building north of Oslo, the Aukrust Museum.
After 3 hours at the Glacier Museum I hit the road again. The first stave church I stopped at was a treasure. Not necessarily for the building, which was simple and pretty cool in it’s own right.
This is Kaupanfer Stavkirke:
But the guy taking money at the door came in while I was figuring out how the thing was put together and we started talking. He gave me some great information the best is that he turned me onto the preservation society. So I’ll go see them next week and get permission to take pictures on the inside of the stave churches, which is now prohibited unless you have a piece of paper saying it’s all right.
At the next church the battery died. I filled up most of the SD card, though. After this I was on the road headed home.
Borgund Stavkirke:
6 hours later I pulled into Oslo. This proved to be a good move given the situation. I charged the camera and got a good nights sleep.
The next morning I headed north with the intention of seeing the museum and then going to Røros, which is farther north. I’d spend a day and half at the old mining town, get some good photos, it would be great. The Aukrust Museum turned out to be fantastic. Even if it took 2 hours longer to get to then I estimated. The museum itself was such an elemental and simple building that it was totally worth it. I have about 150 photos on the camera and I ended up taking 130 of this building. Usually I run about 50 photos a building. Elevations, perspective, elements and details. That’s about all I need to get pretty good documentation. When I was leaving the house for the second time I had balked at taking the computer. It made me nervous to leave it in the car the previous leg of the tour and it’s heavy to lug around. I figured I’d have enough photos for the one building and a preliminary survey of Røros. But 20 pictures, it was not worth the additional 5 hours of driving (plus the 2 extra hours that it would actually take to get there). I decided to once again come back to Oslo.
Aukrust:
And that was the trip. All things considered I got some great images. I saw some excellent architecture. I really liked Bergen and I’ll go back on a separate trip. I also plan on visiting both these museums at least two more times. Now that I’ve driven it and know what it takes I can make better plans. I turned the car in a day early because it was rather expensive. Worth it, but there was nothing I could see in a day so it wasn’t worth keeping it.
The whole trip got me excited about being here. Being out in the countryside, seeing those buildings, it just made me feel good about what I’m doing. I will be putting together a more detailed report about the various buildings I’ve seen in the last month and what they mean to my thesis for Tun. This should be up next week if you want to check it out.
For now, I’m in Oslo. I’m going to start planning another trip. I was reading about a prehistoric village near Stravanger. That might be next on the list. In a couple weeks I’ll rent another car and go driving some more.
The car I drove in front of Aukrust Museum:
posted by jeffrey ottem at 9:14 PM
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