Stavanger, Norway

What are fjords for (when no one listens any more)

Fearing troll-atacks at all times, Sebastian and I, along with a few beautiful natives, braved the fjords and hiking trails near Stavanger, Norway.

The hike to pulpit rock

We first went to pulpit rock (Preikestolen) which is a mountain face that cantilevers 2000 feet (600 m) above a fjord below.  The path was trapped in a cloud which made the stones mossy and moist for the whole 2 hours hike up.  Near the top, dangling a footfall from death, I was appropriately terrified, however the natives were much more brave and viking women allowed their toddlers to play with dogs right at the edge.  There is a reason that Norway wins so many olympic skiing events, on the off chance they survive their childhood, they have no fear of gravity.

Food for a vegetarian here is somewhat comical.  The Lonely Planet has a section in each of their tour books describing vegetarian options in each country.  Norway was the shortest passage I have ever seen for a country.  Effectively, it said a vegetarian traveler’s only option in Norway is pizza, which is “bland, soggy, and expensive.”  After our hike, I was feeling residual bravery and tried the local pizza, which I'm glad to say soared proudly above my exceedingly paltry expectations for it.

Sitting duck for troll attack!

Liquid courage for the hike down

Terror was my tripod

With regards to the opposite sex ... the natives explained to me that, as a foreigner, I had but a few hours to interact with Nordic people.  In general, the porcerlined skinned will not chat with someone that they did not already know since kindergarten.  However, on the weekend, they will drink like prohibition just ended and will talk to all within stumbling distance.  However, at around 3 hours into binge drinking, they will not remember you or anything you talked about.  As such, you must take full advantage of the “golden hours” between sobriety and blackout with the realistic expectation that the social norm is that everyone will pretend to have never met someone that they talked to at a bar the night before.  The general rule of thumb is that you must have 5 bouts of alcohol poisoning in common before a daytime interaction is attempted.

Armed with this knowledge of the local courtship rituals, we all went to a dance club.  I think we were there for around 4 hours and it seemed to me that the exact same euro dance song was playing the whole time.  The male dancing styles observed could be loosely grouped into 3 categories:  1)  I'm just going to sway around holding my drink, 2) I'm a professional dancer on break looking to blow off steam, and my favorite, 3)  I'm going to pump my fist in the air and pretend to punch holes in the floor violently.  Perhaps to let the women know that they are bad boys and that they don't care about rules, the fist pumping and floor smashing was almost entirely decoupled from the musical beat.  Certain woman meanwhile seemed to delight in ‘whapping’ you with their blonde braided ponytail each time they pivoted.  I was poised to used my 4 swing ‘dance moves’ should a jazz song come up, but that genre never seemed to make the rotation.  After the erasure of frontal lobes, all went off for kebabs, which helped thicken the blood of all that thought eating at 3 AM was a really really good idea.

The following day we went to several of Norway's wonderful white sand beaches and then then did a driving tour of the local fjords.  We planed to visit the beaches for lunch, but barely made it there before sunset :)

Special thanks to Sebastian Fish and Ingrid Elle for showing me their wonderful hamlet.

Next stop, Bergen ….

Kids these days :)