I just wrote 5 postcards and as I was affixing the stamps, I realized that each post card with a stamp cost about US$2. As I noted before, Norway is very expensive. I read in The Lonely Planet that Norway is the most expensive Scandanavian country, and it is about 30% more expensive than the rest of Europe.
The train ride was lovely and we talked a bit to a couple, Lynn and Charlie, who we saw on the train to Myrdal. They live in Newton, Massachusetts and have been on vacation for two weeks in Scandanavia (they also attended their friend's wedding in Denmark). We exchanged email addresses and Lynn gave us her phone number so we can get together next March when we return from our travels.
We got to Hamer at 5:07 PM and had about a mile walk to the hostel. We went by the information center, which is located beside the The Viking Ship (Vikingskipet), a multi-purpose hall which was used for skating events on the 1994 Olympics. The roof of the hall is designed just like the Viking ships from thousands of years ago, and reflects the local Viking ship heritage. The Vandrerhjem Vikingskipet hostel is right across the street from The Viking Ship.
This city is very quiet in July, which is okay with us because we don't plan to spend much timer here. We will take the Skibladner paddlesteamer boa (built in 1856), for the 3.5 hour ride up to Lillehammer tomorrow.
At first we weren't sure about the hostel. It didn't look too impressive and it is the most expensive we've stayed in here in Norway - 190 kroner (about US$28) per night per person, but the room is very nice. We have our own room with bunkbeds, a little sofa,our own bathroom and a TV. (Oh boy, I can fall asleep watching TV). We walked up to a grocery store and bought stuff for breakfast, lunch and dinner tomorrow, and ice cream for tonight. I even bought one large can a Newcastle Brown Ale. I haven't had any beer in Norway because it is so expensive. I paid approximately the same amount, 33 kroner (about US$4.40) for one can of beer as I paid for my half of the groceries, which gave me breakfast, lunch and dessert.
We had a nice walk to and from the store (which took about an hour because we got a bit lost) and now I'm enjoying sitting on the balcony writing my notes and drinking my beer. It's still very hot in Norway and the breeze on the balcony is very nice.
7/19: We cooked a nice breakfast of toast and scrambled eggs, and made hard-boiled eggs for egg salad sandwiches today. It was raining, so we decided to take the bus to the center of town near where we will get the boat. Of course, it stopped raining as soon as we got on the bus, so it will be nice to sit outside on the top deck of the boat.
The boat ride was terrific! There was a group of music school students who played a variety of songs (mostly New Orleans type jazz music) on and off throught the trip. There were 6 of them - drums, keyboard, trumpet, tuba and 2 clarinets. One of the clarinetists also played the saxaphone. They are all really good, especially the young woman on the keyboard.
We got to Lillehammer and walked up the hill to the information center which was next to the train station. There was nothing really close by, and the Olympic ski center was about a half-hour walk. It was really hot out, so we just decided to sit and read and wait for the train back to Oslo. I'm really glad there was music on the boat and that it turned out to be a beautiful sunny day, or I think our trip to Hamer/Lillehammer could have been a bust. We didn't really do anything much except ride on trains and a boat, but I did get to watch TV and relax last night. It's nice to have a private room and to be able to control which program you watch. A lot of the time the TV rooms in the hostels get very crowded and some show is on that I have no interest in watching.
When we got back to Oslo we booked the train reservations for our trip to Stockholm on Tuesday, then we bought some groceries and walked back to the hostel. We didn't get there until about 9PM, and they had cancelled our room reservation because we hadn't called by 6PM to confirm late arrival. Luckily, we were able to get a room, but we have to change rooms which is a pain because we will have to pack up our stuff and put it back in storage when we go out tomorrow.
I've also decided I don't like their "kitchen system" here. They apparently don't have many sets of kitchen stuff to give out because there were a number of people who wanted them, including us. We decided we would just cook Ramen noodles, and we would use my pan. For bowls, we used the little plastic containers that held the lunch pasta we bought in Bergen. We are very resourceful.
There was only one person in our room when we got there and it was a little cooler than last time we were here at the hostel, but it was still very noisy outside for most of the night. Our "roommate" left about 4:30AM and it had cooled down and was very quiet outside, so I had a nice sleep from then until about 8:30.
7/20: We had breakfast (corn flakes in our little plastic bowls), made sandwiches to take for lunch and put our stuff in storage, and took the bus out to the Norwegian Folk Museum. It's partly an open air collection of more than 150 buildings (houses, shops, a church) that have been tranferred from other parts of the country, and partly an indoor museum with various exhibitions. It was very interesting and a very well laid out place, and we were there from about 11:30 to 4PM. At 2PM we got to see a half-hour folk dancing performance and after that I tried some "lefse" which they bake in one of the houses. It's sort of like a pancake made with flour and sugar. They roll out the dough into a big circle and then cook it for about a minute on each side on a hot cooking stone in the fireplace. It is cut into triangles and served with butter. I figured I had to try at least one type of Norwegian food while I was here. It was good, but not as sweet as I would have expected.
It was a beautiful day to walk around outside, and the museum was sort of like our Sturbridge Village in Massachusetts. There were some people in period costumes in some of the buildings, performing daily activities and explaining life back in the 18th century in Norway.
We took the ferry back to Oslo and then walked back to the hostel. Unfortunately, we are in a room with 2 people who look like they were really settled in. They weren't in the room when we got here, but they have stuff all over the place. I'm sure they are here for at least the 2 nights we are staying here. Oh well, life in a hostel can be challenging.
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