Thursday, December 31, 2009

Climbing Vjellveien

So i decided to climb one of the mountains by the city today. it took about an hour to reach the peak that looks over the city where all the tourists go to. then i decided to go farther, i found a trail of snowshoes through the woods going up the mountain and followed. i wish i brought my snowshoes because the snow quickly became about 4ft deep and made trekking very hard. eventually i made it to a good lookout point and took a break. then i noticed the rock pillar marking the summit close by (pic provided) and climbed some more. the summit was infact the second tallest summit and was quite secluded, i dont imagine many people at all go up there other than the random cottage near the real peak that the now shoes led to. i have no idea how they built a cottage up there, with no roads and no easy trekking (lots of climbing) it must have been air dropped piece by piece. anyways i have some pics of where i got to and a good video that would be uploaded to youtube if the internet here was capable. the trek down took about 30 min :P and i wish i had a sled, all the norwegians were climbing to the tourist summit and sledding down a zig zag trail on the mountain that takes about 20 min to complete! so i think when stores open im going to buy a crazy carpet and give her a whirl

I'm off to eat some fresh fisk from the fisk market and maybe if i feel brave enough to afford it, have a drink with a french couple and some other people i have been hanging with in the hostel (avg beer = 12 bucks canadian) ive been living off the beef jerky i brought and mr noodle packs which are 3 for about $2.5 CND

happy new years to anyone reading this :)

pics are at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonmader/sets/72157623107706196/detail/

Meeting some peeps

So the stay in the dorm with 12 beds is going well. meeting some people from all over the world traveling through, i would hang with the more, but their budgeted activities far exceed my own :P Ive met a girl named Stella from Crete in Greece who is a university professor of technology interfaces and music, a girl named Astrid from Indonesia and a couple from england as well a bunch of frenchmen from France.

I went to the shipping docks last night to find some professional fishermen that were fishing for sharks, their rods were 10ft long and had 4500 kg test line on. cool to watch but unfortunately no action while i was there. I went to the fisk market today and bought a hot smoked salmon as a new years celebratory dinner for the folks at the dorm (well the ones i like anyways) and the rest are buying some champagne and such, it should be a good night.
Im off to see my school for the first time, its a little ways out of the city centre but has a crazy view from a cliff overlooking the ocean, so im pumped, but unfortunately it will be empty and im not going to get in :(

pics at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonmader/sets/72157623106605520/detail/

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Dec 29th – Bergen 1st day

I woke up around 8, packed camp till quarter to nine and made my way into the city with Norunn’s (exchange coordinator for the Bergen school who is supposed to set me up with my apartment) phone number. I found a payphone and was about to lift the receiver when a bumbling drunk knocked into me. I checked my pockets real quick and then we attempted to make conversation amidst poor knowledge of eachothers languages, heavy accents and drunken slurs. It turned out he was at a party in Denmark last night and woke up somewhere in Bergen this morning. He said it was a good night, and judging by the fresh cuts on his face and twisted bloody nose id say that was either a very large under or over statement. I saw some coins in my hand and forcefully begged for them to make a phone call to the hotel in Denmark where his girlfriend and him were partying last night in hopes that she would still be there. In any case he failed at operating the payphone, threw the leftover change at me and took off bumbling on about something while staggering 5 ft left to right. Finally it was my turn at the phone, I also failed because the number that Norunn gave me is not in service, or at least that’s what I think the phone said.
I made found some breakfast, 2 chocolate bars and a small jug of OJ for 40NOK (about 10 bucks) and realized that I had to use the toalet badly. Because of the hot jerky I knew I had a real noisy one coming so I didn’t use the toalet in Enke’s quite house in fear they may kick me out sooner than expected. i had not used the toalet since I left Detroit 2.5 days ago and there were no public washrooms in sight, so I sucked it up and thought about what to do next. I went to the ritzy hotel and talked to Nina who was still working and asked how to correctly use the phones in Norway, she helped me dial and looked up some info to find that NHH and SIB and the YMCA hostel (the cheap place to stay) were all closed until jan 3rd ( 4 days from now) she was curious where I went last night and had was taken aback when I said I hiked up the mountain to tent. She said it was getting much colder tonight (it was plenty cold enough last night for me) and gave me a list of some more hotels and said if they all fail she’ll find a spare room for me in the hotel. (again tusen takk (thank you very much) mom and dad for the Canada tags) and again, its all in the smile 
I took off and found a hostel that was open, dorm.no, which had one 15x15 room, 12 beds for 220 NOK (about 45 canadian) and dropped my bag off and used a toalet, oh, that was glorious. I toured the city and found a park near campus to walk through, bad choice. A group of 20 people or more all sketchy looking came flying out of the bushes offering weed, estacy, pills, coke asking what kind of drugs I had in my camera bag and were grabbing for it. It would have been bad to run, its their territory and its far out of sight and sound of anyone else. I had to get on their side. I clutched my bag and thanked them all for the offers and said I wasn’t carrying anything right now ( had to make it look like I was a druggie or they might get un-easy) and slowly walked through smiling and wishing them a good day saying id be back later. As I walked farther into the park I watch people weigh out their pills and hash, I watched people tie off their arms and shoot up, saw I guy snort a line off a rock, but I think he got some snow in there because he complained it was cold. I found a cool spot to take a shot of the sunrise 5ft feet from a couple of guys shooting up, carefully blocking view of the camera with my body and then found a cool willow tree for some pics a little father. And that was as much as I felt comfortable with in the drug park with my camera on me. Nice to know its only steps from campus….
The rest of the day was pretty normal, I bought course book on how to speak Norwegian and went to the fish market and saw life crabs and a large ugly fish called a Mok fish. I also saw my first starfish, it was drinking from a beer bottle and I got a few shots of it. I also bought the cheapest softdrink I could find for 20 NOK (6 bucksish) and it was so carbonated my mouth went numb in a few minutes. I also priced out some food at the grocery store. it looked like the only diet I can afford is potatoes, boiled and frozen spinach, water and the fish I catch from the fjord. This made me a little sad. Especially with the way the store smelled. Then I found an asian store that sells 20kg bags of rice for 220 NOK (about 45 bucks) and that made me happy. Well im in the dorm room right now and im mighty tired, jetlag and lack of sleep from partying with the Germans and freezing on a mountain have caught up to me. Looks like tomorrow I start my residence permits with the police (if they are not on holidays) and if this hostel is not open on new years eve I might take Nina up on that offer for a spare room in the fancy hotel or try and talk up Morilyn some more. Good night.

check out some pics at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonmader/sets/72157623103620350/detail/

Dec 28th evening – Bergen (B air – gen)

When I got to Bergen I realized that there was no readily accessible wooded area to setup a tent, the city was quite vast, and where it wasn’t, it was too steep to climb out of the city. I started to look for hotels. To start the search I went to 7-11 and asked for a map, which they did not have, and it turns out there were no gas stations for miles around the downtown area so couldn’t get directions there either. I found a lot of hotels but could not figure out where the front desks were to ask for prices. Funny enough, I my wandering I found where I am supposed to live in a SIB student hostel building. But there was no one there and I didn’t have a key yet, so on I marched. I walked into a burger joint / convenience store and found a pretty girl about my age named Morilyn working. We chatted for a bit about school and she moved from Olso to Bergen for a boy who just dumped her and how she lived in the same neighborhood that I will be living in and then she pointed by towards a hotel with a reasonable rate. I guess my smile wasn’t that good 
I went to the hotel to find they were closed, in fact according to the manager most hotels were closed for the holidays. He pointed me towards one that was open, of course it was the ritziest looking thing around, uhg. I walked in and found another pretty lady behind the desk, a little older than me, named Nina. I asked about prices and they were waaaaay outta my league, 1050 NOK per night (like $250 canadian). I said goodnight and turned to walk away when she stopped me and asked if I was Canadian, she had seen the Canadian flag luggage tags on my pack (thanks mom and dad!) turns out her fiancé is from Canada who she met while he was vacationing in Bergen. We talked for a bit, I made an impression and was on my way to check out a list of hotels she told me to try. After exhausting the list with no luck I decided to try the bus station, but it closed. I tried to go back and chat it up with Morilyn, but the store was closed. So I looked for the closest edge of the city (which happened to be a mountain) and started walking.
I found out that Bergen has very steep streets, which I could hardly climb as they reached angles of 30-40 degrees as I zig zagged though small cozy neighborhoods towards and up onto the mountain (yes the neighborhoods were built on the mountain). After about an hour I was dripping with sweat, smelled like a well used toalet (toilet), and could hardly walk, infact I was crawling on all fours for some of it. I started to regret bringing such a large pack. I finally made it to the forest, I turned around, look a big piss down the mountain like cityscape in pride and then snapped a few shots of the cityscape for my friends and family back home.
My climb was not over yet. I had to get out of sight in case I was on private property. This meant climbing up the mountain in 2ft of snow in rough terrain littered with trees rocks and logs at about a 45 degree angle. Lets be honest there was no walking, no snowshoeing, this was straight up crawling on all fours, at one point I tried to stand up only to fall backward rolling down the mountain under the weight of my pack. Luckily my fall path was all deep snow. I found a deer trail and followed it in hopes the deer would take the easiest and fastest route to cover and I was right. I found the first flat spot I had seen in a while, it was hidden by large trees and just large enough for my little tent.
After the tent was setup I rolled out my ground mats to find that they were 2 ft too short and that some part of my body was going to get wet and cold. I tried sleeping onto of other items but id wake up soon after closing my eyes with everything sliding out from under me from the incline of the mountain. Guess my perfect spot was not so perfect. I didn’t get much sleep at all and kept putting on more clothing throughout the night to stave off the cold. By morning I was wearing 3 layers and it looked like a hurricane had blown everything to one side of my tent, meaning I had a lot of packing to do and this would be 3 nights now with a total of about 5 hours of sleep and it wasn’t really affecting me (jetlag is weird).

checkout some pics at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonmader/sets/72157622977812437/detail/

thers not many as it was hail and rain and i was too busy to take them :p

Dec 28th – bus to Bergen

Nothing too exciting here, there were two big tunnels that went under Fjords and two ferrys that the bus had to take over its 5 hour drive to Bergen. The tunnels were so deep I had to pop my ears about 20 times on the way down. Each taking about 10-20 min to travel through. The ferrys were very cold and windy making it very hard to take pictures but I still managed to get a few. I made it into Bergen at 9:30pm.

Pictures from the ferrys are at:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonmader/sets/72157623102187494/

just post the link into the address bar at the top of the page

Arrival in Stavanger (Sta – vahn – air) Norway

The plane to Stavanger was short and boring, it was so cloudy outside and the windows so dirty you couldn’t see much. It wasn’t until we were 10 min out that something exciting happened, HAIL. Tons of hail pelting the plane mixed with rough winds made it quite a bumpy ride. On landing I realized why the plane was so dirty, the moment the wheels touched down loads of muddy slush sloshed over the windows of the plane. I knew right then that my plan to walk to Bergen from Odda (well known for its avalanches) was going to suck. Customs was a breeze, it was quite literally hello here is my Canadian passport and poof I was in.
I spent about an hour taking my 3 bags (2 check and one carry on) and packing them into one big bag that I could carry. Once this was done I quickly realized how much I underestimated the weight and bulk of the bag, it was a chore to walk for 10 min let alone 7 days from Odda to Bergen. It was already 1pm their time and the airport was 20km from the city so I decided I would take a bus to Stavanger knowing I would not make it there until at least 10-11pm walking. On the bus I met a Frenchman working for an oil company in Stavanger. He was nice enough but completely un-interested in talking to me. I also met 2 German guys Felix and Timo, about my age travelling to meet a friend who was also German living in Stavanger. We chatted it up for a bit, laughing at how none of us could read or speak a work of Norwegian. When we made it to Stavanger where their friend Enke (ank – uh) met us. I asked her if she knew of any cheap hostels in the area and was met with a bust of laughter. She said id be better off staying the night with them, so that’s what I did (again its all in the smile  )
We spent the night talking about cultural differences between Germany and Canada and found that they enjoy all north American entertainment and almost no German arts. They listen to all out top hits and watch all out movies. I was kinda disappointed, I was hoping for a bit more of a culture shock. This group came from an area in Germany close to the Netherlands, they in-fact do not eat a lot of sausage and do not like to drink to much, but they were really nice and really funny none the less. I found that the houses in Norway are all small and cozy looking and are all made out of horizontal wood siding and painted bright colours making them look like nice old style cottages you would find in ski towns back in Canada. We went for a walk through the neighborhood and were amazed at the views, Enke was close to the water with a view of the mountains, amazing. I convinced them to try some of the spicy beef jerky I brought (they had never seen jerky before and were quite taken aback by it). I have some good pics of their faces after trying the hot texas style ones, all I can say about those is that they were hot and messy going in and even hotter and messier going out (should have listened to your warning mark)
After viewing the terrain and experiencing the everything weather, and I mean everything from sun, rain, hail, hot cold ALL IN ONE DAY and having to walk to Enke’s with the pack (which was ridiculously hard) I decided against the walk from Odda to Bergen and to take a bus direct instead. 4pm the next day and 470 NOK later I was on 5 hour bus to Bergen. I left short half my jerky and 200NOK for dinner for the other 3 in payment for me stay there, but up a few places to stay in Germany when I backpack across Europe. Danke Shune (excuse my spealing) my 3 friends from Germany.


Check out the pics at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonmader/sets/72157622976683797/detail/

Flight to Amsterdam – morning of Dec 26th Ontario time- morning of Dec 27th Norway time (jetlag sucks)

So the journey started off with a very sad goodbye to my family as I got onto a Robert Q bus direct to the Detroit airport (nothing to do with Louise getting me drunk and making me promise not to walk across Detroit :p ). I met some alright people on the bus, however when we got to the USA border they were both pulling out this I94 document. I don’t have one of those and they quickly became angry with me insisting that I would hold us up at the border and none of us would catch our flights. As it turns out I did not need one and passed through customs faster than they did, so :P
However there was a catch. When I arrived at the airport and collected by baggage from the bus. I found out that the customs officers had decided to go into one of my bags, normally no problem. However these high and mighty officers of the USA decided that they were too good for using drawstrings and had cut my bag open. Ugg, this meant that I could not close it and therefore could not check it with the rest of my baggage on the plane. So with some quick knot tying skills and some greasing up the airport’s check baggage employees I was able to get the bag on the plane. I am lucky people like my smile 
I went to the check in desk by the breezeway for the plane and again did some sweet talking with the guy behind the desk and got him to move me to an earlier flight with a window seat, again its all in the smile . The plane ride was my first in something larger than a sesna, and other than the sweet view from the window and the pretty good FREEEEEEE meals they were serving it was exactly what I was expecting it to be. I have some pics from the window of the plane ride to Amsterdam, but none of the one to Norway because the windows were too dirty to see out of. Could this be a form of foreshadowing….

pics are at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonmader/sets/72157622976574283/

Sunday, December 20, 2009

Testin Again




making sure the pic thing works

Friday, December 18, 2009

Leaving London

So I'm starting this blogger thingy a little early to make sure I know how to use it and all. I'm also trying to get used to my camera before I take it to the mountains, I have a slideshow of some pics from london below if any followers feel so inclined to take a peek :)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonmader/sets/72157622842581510/show/