Åndalsnes, Day 1 - Oslo to Dombås to Åndalsnes

Today me and a friend went to Åndalsnes going via the Oslo - Trondheim - Dombås line.  We were going to do the Romsdalseggen hike/climb.  All we need is good weather and signs were encouraging.  This trip was 2 weeks in the making.  I hate heights, so this is just absolutely mad that I'm doing it, but hey you only live once and it's just too beautiful not to do.  How many fake Japanese and Korean people do you know who have done it?  Not that many I suppose.  I was inspired by a work colleague's photos, he didn't do the actual hike but he went to Åndalsnes and took some photos and they were amazing.

6am Woke up, and caught the 7:29am train to Oslo S.  Met the friend and we caught the train at 8:02 to Dombås, taking the Trondheim line.  The scenery along the way was amazing even just from the train.  Reminds me of the time I travelled from Bergen to Oslo in 2011.

12pm Arrived at Dombås and caught the train to Åndalsnes.  The train stops along scenic spots so that was pretty cool.  Each of us were given a booklet on the route and the scenic spots as well.

Catching the train!

Leaving Bjorli

Valley

View from the famous kylling bridge

Trollveggen, Europe's largest vertical rock face at 1100metres

The Bishop, King and Queen mountains

Arriving into Åndalsnes

1:30pm Arrived!  We stopped for a while, took some photos and then we were on our way to the hostel.  It's about an half an hour walk.

At the train station.

Near the harbour, it's a popular stop for cruise ships.

Kaikanten restaurant, unfortunately scheduled to be shut down

Surrounded by mountains everywhere.

It was quite a nice afternoon.

Pretty.

Just opposite the hotel.

Taken on the bridge, rauma river in the foreground.

Direction to home for the next few days.

The hostel.

We were a bit early and the hostel was unattended until 4pm.  So we just hung around the hostel lobby.  I got bored after a while and decided to take a walk around the river.

That's the bridge that we walked on earlier.  The river really smells of salmon!!

Flowers... pretty.

Along the river.

Along the river.

Closer view of the King, Queen and Bishop.

Taken along a street.  Waking up every morning to see this?  Awesome.

Taken near the camping ground.  There's a camping ground near the river.

Finally, this awesome panorama.  Click on it!

4pm Headed back, and checked in.  A friendly Norwegian elderly woman attended to us.  We rested a  bit more then headed out for dinner at one of the very few restaurants around 5ish.  Called Mama Rosa and close to the train station.  The pizza was 254 norwegian kroner.  Crazy.  There weren't even that many toppings.  Ah well that's Norway for you.

6pm or so, we walked around the town and that took only 10 minutes or so.  Then stopped at Kaikanten.  The friend had some local beer, while I sat around and took photos.  Only 3000 or so people live in this village, so there's not much to do.

Back at the harbour...

Around 6:30pm or so the weather was turning bad, so we headed back to the hostel, but not before stopping at Kiwi to get food for the following day.  We were going to pack some bread and misc for the next day's epic adventure.  So that was what we did.  We bought ham, cheese, tomato, bread, some chocolate and some brus, which is soda brewed in another town about an hour away called Molde.  It's quite good I have to admit.  I think it's quite amazing how they have a Bunnpris, Kiwi and a Rema 1000 located all in the same area, considering how big the town is.  Did you know you're not allowed to open any restaurant or shops in Norway on Sunday if they're bigger than 50 square meters or something ridiculous like that, so how companies get around that is that they have multi levels of food, or open multiple shops in the same area but of the same chain, or have some open on weekdays and others open on weekends.  Oh the things the market do to overcome all sorts of nonsense imposed on them by bureaucracy.

For the love of God now I can't remember what time I slept, probably around 11pm.  But not much real sleeping because there were 5 people in the dorm and at least 3 of them were snoring at various points in the night.  It was like a snoring symphony.

One night at Sundvollen - Mørkganga

Today's May 17th, Happy Constitution day to Norway.  Wooo.. So I haven't blogged in a while.  But maybe I'll start blogging again.  And since today is one of those days where I feel like blogging, I will.  Maybe it's a promise I can keep or maybe I can't.  Anyway, 2 days ago on the 15th work organised an event called Techzone, which is pretty much a company wide outing to somewhere, with technical talks held throughout the day, but in the end the reason is pretty much to get drunk.  But before that, there's plenty of activities to do.  The last time this event happened was in 2011 when I was still an uninitiated newbie to Norway.  Ever since then there have been plenty of "micro techzone" events held in the comfort and confines of our work canteen, and we were waiting for "nano techzone" events where we would pit toy figures against each other and watch technical talks on youtube, so this was a big surprise.  But anyway, the day kicked off something like this.

15th May

8:30am - The buses arrived, I was one of the first to show up at work.  Usually I'm a late riser.  Today,  I had to get up early.  And believe me that was a hard thing to do.  We caught the bus which departed at 8:55am and then arrived at the hotel, Sundvolden hotel at 9:30 where we were greeted by a marching band and ice cream.  Impressive, as Darth Vader would say.  There were about 360+ of us, but only 200+ of us were going to stay overnight.  The rest had wives, husbands, babies, mistresses, were either mummy's boys or daughters, and had other affairs to look after, and so could not stay overnight.  The day started out in one word, sunny.  Unfortunately it didn't turn out to be that way the rest of the afternoon.

Between 9:30am to 5pm there were technical talks in all the rooms, and plenty of food and drinks in-between.  Here's a photo to summarise the hotel.

Sundvolden hotel

Yeah there's an indoor heated pool and I spent close to two hours in it later that night.  Read on for the best bits.

In a state of limbo

Currently I'm in a state of limbo in Norway.  What do I mean by this?  Well I'm waiting for the next opportunity to come along.  So right now this is the state I'm in.

Waiting for it all to unfold...

For the past few weeks I've been out of Norway, getting a tan, getting burnt (literally), and doing some extreme exploration.  By that I mean 6 hour walks.  Come Easter I'll be out of this country as well.  Next destination will be revealed soon enough.

Personally nowadays it's very hard to get inspired, at least personally, and being in this country isn't helping, nor is the office.  I've been very fortunate in my life, to have lived here and there, to have been granted scholarships, to have travelled here and there and everywhere, and to be able to see different aspects of people's thinking and lives.  Not even a million dollars will inspire me, so whatever's gonna happen has to be truly different.  The next step is going to have to be really inspiring.  All in due process...