Trondheim Sightseeing
The next day I woke up quite late. Hmm, I guess being on a holiday doesn't change the fact that I like to sleep-in. As I was sleeping another couch-surfer had arrived, Laura. She is a girl studying in Tromso (one of my later destinations), originally born in Germany with middle eastern roots (I think Lebanese) who grew up in Holland. She was going to fly back to Holland for vacation, and because she was changing flights in Trondheim she decided to visit the city for a few days.
After having some breakfast (from the fridge of artefacts left by other travellers), we started walking towards the city for some sightseeing.
We then decided to walk up the hill to see the city's fort. While walking there we encountered the famous Trondheim bike lift. I must admit, the hill was pretty steep, up and down. Cars going down the hill look really scary. Walking up the hill, we passed by an old man who was riding his bike, without the lift! It sure impressed us. And going the other way was a thrill-seeking kid who probably wanted to see how long and fast he could go without applying brakes.
Unfortunately my batteries ran out after that picture. Half an hour after that, it started raining, hard. So we took the bus and went back to Hanne's, to sit around, talk and watch TV. And eat dinner.
The next day we did a bit more sightseeing. Hanne joined us and took us to a nice little café in the old town area. I had a chocolate drink, and chocolate cake, which was too much chocolate goodness. The weather outside was cloudy and cold, so it was great sitting in that warm café and being full, I could've had a nap. Hanne had to go to work, but she sugested we walk a walking trail next to the fjord, so Laura and I did that. We took the bus that went a bit outside the city, and after following a path through a, well, garden, we were in, what I felt was wilderness, despite the fact it was so close to civilization.
Come to Norway! See the Fjords!
Loooong Panorama. Not much to see though.
We walked for a few km's, taking pictures along the way, I tasted the water (it was salty, yes it's really the sea although it was surrounded by mountains), but after a while we decided we should head back, to get some food at a supermarket so we can eat at home (i.e. Hanne's place), because we planned to go see The Simpsons Movie later that evening.
So we took a turn into a direction which looked like it was civilisation, and we walked into a nice area with a lot of office buildings, but with high fences around them... it turned out to be the psychiatry department of the local hospital, i.e. a mental hospital. I hoped nobody would mistake us as escapees.
We walked some more, and made it to sane (I presume) civilisation, went to a big supermarket, which somehow still felt remote - the place felt like a satellite city - found the bus stop, and made it back home.
After a short meal at "home", we went out again to the cinema, to see The Simpsons Movie! Hanne was meeting us at the movie theater, and she brought along 3 of her friends, Anne-Marie which I met 2 days ago, and two others which names I unfortunately can't recall anymore.
We went to the cinema with the biggest movie hall in... Norway? well it had bragging rights, and it was, well, pretty big. If I recall correctly it fit 350 plus people (or is that nothing to brag about?). It was quite fun watching a movie with so many people. The movie itself was in its original language of English, with Norwegian subtitles (not like in Germany, where the movies are dubbed and come out 1 or 2 months later than in the rest of the modern world), and it was interesting because sometimes there were delays in the laughter, maybe because the readers were still processing the subtitles wheres the listeners were already laughing.
For me, The Simpsons Movie itself was worth it, it had a rapid fire of cheap jokes, in my opinion they came so fast that you had to laugh before you could think about it, because if you do, you'll miss the next joke. The cleverest one was when Bart rummaged through a suitcase on the train, put a black bra on as a hat and said "Look at me, I'm a mascot of an evil corporation!"; he was mocking Mickey Mouse and Disney.
No Smoking
The great thing in Scandinavia was, they had implemented an indoors smoking ban when I was there (Norway had theirs since July 1st 2004 according to Wikipedia), and I was surprised when I could breathe freely inside the pub! What a pleasant thing!
Afterwards we went for some drinks in a goth pub which was in a building basement, where I had a glass of the famously expensive Norwegian beer (39 NOK, 5 Euro). After that I walked home with Hanne, Laura having left earlier. When we went into the theater (and when we left) it was raining, luckily we walked home in dry conditions.
