I flew from Amsterdam to Oslo at 7am which was pretty early for me, but I wanted to get the most out of my day. I've traveled to the Czech republic in the evening once before and I felt that I didn't really do anything that day other than waiting and traveling.
My plan was to take the rental I reserved (and paid for in advance) and drive my way from Oslo to Kristiansand along the coast. Here's a map to give you some idea of that:
Oslo is in the top-right corner and Kristiansand is in the bottom. I booked s hostel in Horten, which is by the coast along the way, for the first night and another at Froland wich is a bith North-East of Kristiansand.
I had flew with KLM and had a much better flight than the one I took to Barcelona last year, aside from the fact that once again my ears were killing me when landing.
I picked up my luggage and went off to pick up the car. This is where the big screw-up took place.
When I arranged the car (with a Dutch company) I noticed in the conditions that I needed a creditcard to pick up the car to make a deposit of 1.000 Kronen (127 Euros, 183 dollars). I told them that I didn't have a creditcard but that I could just pay the deposit with my bankcard. The agency told me this really wouldn't be a problem. Fuck them.
When the lady at the counter asked me for a creditcard I took out my bankcard and said I could pay my deposit with that. No go. Without a creditcard there was no way in hell they were renting me the car. Even though it was payed for and everything. I told her the agency assured me it wouldn't be a problem but it just wasn't going to happen. I made some phonecalls witht the agency but aside from apologies they weren't any help besides assuring me I'd get my cheddar back. I was really frickin' rustled off here but seeing as the lady there was really nice about it I didn't want to give her my crap. Not her fault anyway.
So there I was with no transportation, no idea how I was going to get where I was supposed to be and still pretty angry. Me and Sailor Moon decided we'd try to see where the public transportation could get us. It wouldn't give us as much freedom as driving ourselves would, but at least we'd get there (we hoped).
We met the only unfriendly Norse person there at the airport, the lady at the bus-information desk, who pretty obviously didn't feel like helping some stupid tourists who didn't even know how the local busses were driving. The only thing she could tell us was to get to Oslo central station and find our way from there, so we did.
A note about the public transport in Norway: Even though it doesn't exactly go everywhere and/or takes a really long time, everything does go on time and the personel (aside from the example above) is exeptionally friendly and helpful. We spoke to several conductors and clerks on our trip and we felt like they really took their time to make everything clear to us in pretty good English. It's also nice, clean and comfortable. The trains we took even offered free internet! The only downpoint is that it's all really expensive, but most anything in Norway is.
The trip can be described as this:
Everything in Norway is fricking beautiful.
From the central station in Oslo we took a train to Holmestrand and from there went by bus to Horten where we needed to be. I'd printed a map of the streets surrounding the hotel and I knew we had to be somewhere in the North-West of town but we still had some trouble finding it. Luckily, when we asked a guy there if he knew where we needed to be he up and offered us a lift. I don't know if this is normal over there but we weren't used to this and the guy struck us as probably the nicest guy on the planet then and there.
The hostel was really nice, clean and modern and the girl working there was also really cheerful and friendly. We got to our room and I took the chance to take a showed and get some of the residual anger out of my system. Mostly thanks to some protective blankets of soft and nice:
Also, the view from our room was pretty nice:
After that we walked around the town for a bit and ate some pizza by the shore. Like I mentioned, everything is expensive in Norway and food is no exception. We noticed that we could buy a decent pair of shoes for less cheddar than a good pizza. I took my chance to take a picture of the fattest sparrows I'd ever seen:
Luckily for me the hostel proved free internet so I could plan our trip for the day after. After a lot of trying and searching I just couldn't find a good way to get us to Froland so eventually I gave up on that and looked for some good alternatives. We decided to just go straight on to Kristiansand by bus and train and luckily I found a really good hotel there that still had a room available for 2 nights.
The next day we took the bus back to Holmestrand and bought a trainticket to Drammen from where we could get a train directly to Kristiansand. The conductor there gave us a break and gave us both a studentdiscount instead of just Sailor Moon, which saved us about 50 Kronen. This is only about 6 Euros (10 dollars) but by now the trip was starting to cost us a lot more than we had planned so we were pop flyin' with anything.
In Drammen we found out we just missed our connection and we had to wait 4 hours. Luckily the weather was really awesome so we found us a nice bench in a square beside the station and spent the time relaxing, reading and just looking at the people there. It was here we noticed that either 90% of the women there are really hot or there was somekind of gathering or Norways most beautiful women going on. I'm told the guys were equally well represented.
In the train we noticed how the Norse must be balls-to-the-wall-bad-booty seeing as they built their railway straight though mountains, forests, quarries and who knows what else. Nores decide where the fuck they're going. Not the trees, not you and certainly not some pussy excuse for a mountain. Here's another picture I took from the train:
After the trainride wich also took 4 hours we got a cabride to the hotel seeing as the busses weren't going there after 7.30pm. The driver was an older Norse guy whose English wasn't all that good but we still had a bit of conversation. I work at an airport and I've heard and experienced how most taxidrivers aren't that nice and if you don't agree on a price beforehand you're setting yourself up to be screwed. He told us it would cost about 300 kronen to get there and he was pretty much spot on.
The hotel I picked was apparently some kind of resort where a lot of families and handicapped people also went but we mostly spent the next day walking around the countryside there and chilling the fuck out, which we hadn't done a whole lot there before. Here's me enjoying the view I guess?
The next day the hotel arranged a taxi for us to take us to the airport. The driver happened to be a really nice lady who I really got along with during the 20 minute drive. She was also, par for the course, really pretty.
At the airport we did some more waiting and seeing as the airport was pretty small, I got some time to finally play some Suikoden Tierkreis on my DS which I had been putting of for a year or so.
I'm pretty glad to be home but I already decided I'll be going back next year or the year after to do a trip that'll (hopefully) pan out more the way I planned. Here's some more pictured I think turned out pretty okay:
Somekind of rock dam I guess?
I didn't put that there.
Some of the waiting I did.
Some nice greenery.
