Alan Watts - Money, Guilt and the Machine

So a while ago I came across a speech by Alan Watts called 'Money, Guilt and the Machine', and while usually I skip past these very long talks there was something to Mr. Watts way of speaking that was very appealing: a serious and very deep topic explored without any jargon, and laced with a bit of humour.
The topic he spoke about is one about how we view money, the outdatedness of our current implementation of money (value based on gold of which there is a finite amount, while goods and services are ever increasing), and the idea that we as humanity have of how we have to earn that money.

What he suggests at the end of the video is a very interesting idea: money no longer being based on gold, but on the amount of goods, meaning there won't ever be inflation or deflation, and no longer having a need for taxation. In fact, it would become the other way around: people would get a basic income as a human right, a kind of welfare check without any of the obligations and requirements we currently face.
Our industry would become automated, meaning a huge decrease in 'dumb labour', giving us more time for ourselves and our families, and time to pursue our dreams and wishes. The machine would essentially pay for itself, and by giving the people a basic income we maintain a healthy economy.
This is a very rudimentary explanation of what the video is about and I highly recommend watching it for a much, much better explanation. The ideas he puts to us are highly idealistic, but I feel that they are not unattainable. I believe that humanity can make it work, though it will have to be a world-wide decision which is not likely to happen any time soon (when have humans across the world ever agreed on something? :P), but what a wonderful world it could be...

The video I found had a very busy background that was very distracting to me, so I got a hold of the soundfile and added a more relaxing, easier on the eyes image to it. In addition I translated the English subtitles the video had into Dutch, keeping English as an option. If you've got 30 minutes or so to spare, I highly recommend watching it.
It starts off a bit slow with some religious undertones. This is the part where he introduces our concepts of guilt, and you'll need to listen to this as well to fully understand the actual message that comes later on.

Wolf in Agony (a short story by me)

Way back in May of 2011 (apparently, I didn't recall but Word says so, and thus it must be true) I was very bored and I felt the inspiration to write a short story in a fantasy world based on the old Vikings.

I recently rediscovered it on my hard drive and I decided that it was decent enough to be shared online with others, as long as I touched up the English a little. I can safely say that my English has become a lot better since then, and the story as it was was no longer satisfactory to me. It's improved though probably still by no means perfect, but I feel comfortable enough with sharing it (which gives me the added benefit of never being able to lose it again). 

The name of the main character is one I often use in fantasy games since I wrote it, and I always try to roleplay this character as much as I can. It's based on some old Norse I found online that I mashed together, so especially the full name at the end is very hard to read, but  I hope you enjoy it :)

Imagine him looking something like this :)

Original here: Bakarov's DeviantArt Page

Wolf in Agony

Snow was whipping across his face as he ran through the foothills.

A blazing snowstorm had been beating the lands of his clan into submission for two days now, and it wasn't helping the search for his newly sworn enemy.

With a look of agony and hate in his eyes he looked harshly at his surroundings, looking for signs of his prey. 

The wolves had to be around here somewhere. It had not been long since he found the remains of their own prey: his daughter Krystin. 

The entire pack set on his little girl as she walked through the settlement late in the evening, having spent her time at a friend's place.

Now she was lying in her own house under the care of his wife Ingnarin, but it had been to late.

When they heard her screams the men ran as fast they could, but she was already dead by the time they got to her. He would never forgive himself, or the guards who guarded the settlement.

It was a long winter, and many creatures were starving. The people had trouble keeping their guard up. It was too cold, and all they could think about was sitting inside by a warm fire with something hot to eat. 

Pre-occupied by their thoughts, they had been too distracted to notice the threat that had come hidden by the snowswept winds.

They had not noticed the small pack of wolves that snook inside, as white as the snow around them. Before anybody knew they were there, they had found their meal.

Normally wolves would not attack humans, let alone a whole settlement. But the long winter had forced them to undertake an act of desperation, and the small girl who just went home had become their victim.

And now Byrnghaer was out here, in search for the pack responsible for the death of his only child.

The guards shot several of them with arrows as the pack fled from the settlement, after they got startled by the noise of the entire clan awakening and rushing to arms.

But the six wolves lying dead back in the settlement had not been enough for Byrnghaer. He would not rest before he had seen the entire pack dead at his feet, had looked on as their life gushed out of their corpses, warm and melting the snow.

Before anyone could stop him or join him, he rushed past the small palisade with his bow and his handaxes.

He slipped to a halt, and took a look at his surroundings.

As the wind played with his long beard and hair, he found himself at the edge of a forest so big, cold and dark, he shivered under his cloak.

The trees were so big and high that he noticed no movements down below where he was standing. The treetrunks were simply to big. But at the top of the trees the wind had full game, and the tree tops shook around terribly, shaking off their snowy load.

This snow slowly fell down into the forest itself, where there was considerably less wind then outside or in the top of the woods.

He looked at the tracks by his feet, and saw his expectations confirmed: the pack fled into the woods.

Several pairs of yellowish eyes stared at the man standing on the forest edge.

The alpha wolf knew they outnumbered the man, but was in doubt about what to do. The lonesome man should be an easy prey, but he smelled no fear in the wind. And so he stayed hidden between the bushes of the forest, watching and waiting.

One of the other wolves in the pack began to get anxious when he started sensing the unexpected aura of rage that seemed to eminate from the man. He crawled further out of sight, but in his anxiety he moved too fast and brushed along a bush, causing it to lose the snow heaped upon it.

The wolf knew he had made a grave mistake, and with his tail between his legs he made whimpering, apologetic noises and crawled towards the alpha male to try and right the wrong.

The alpha male knew their cover was blown. An instictive sense took hold. In the wilderness a pack is only as strong as it's weakest member. Individuals that endangered the pack could not be allowed to stay. As the cowardly wolf approached, the alpha's anger took over and he bit the coward wolf in the neck, ripping it open. It had been too inexperienced and weak of will, and would never be given the chance to become a full-fledged member of the pack. He would have endangered the success of other hunts when they were most needed, and in a harsh environment like Nordheim every hunt was vital for the survival of a pack.

Although he did not justify it accordingly, the alpha male took out a weak chain under his command, securing the pack’s survival.

Byrnghaer heard the snow fall. Suddenly there was a whimper, followed by a snarl, then gurgling. He knew he had found what he was looking for. Slowly he took the bow of his back and put an arrow on the nock, and quickly took aim.

The alpha male spit out a tuft of fur from the coward wolf’s neck, wich was now lying on his side with his still warm blood soaking the ground beneath it. Though his action would have secured the pack's survival, he had chosen the wrong moment. He had not been keeping watch on the man outside the forest, and the other wolves in the pack were too startled by the sight of their leader killing one of their own.

In this moment of weakness, the first arrow hit home. It punched straight through the lungs of the wolf nearest to the alpha male, and it collapsed on the spot.

Byrnghaer quickly took another arrow from the quiver, and fired it into the bushes.

He heard something bark out in pain, and satisfyingly knew he had killed at least one of the wretched beasts that were responsible for the death of Krystin. Krystin would be avenged.

Suddenly five wolves burst out of the forest edge, and came at him full speed.

He quickly drew another arrow, and shot one of the charging wolves. The arrow pierced the chest and found the heart, and the wolf crashed rolling through the snow.

The pack was getting closer now. He threw down his bow and quickly grabbed hold of his two axes.

In the seconds the pack needed to reach Byrnghaer, the Viking touched the runes inscripted on the blades. 

“ODEN!” Shouted Byrnghaer, “Grant me strength!” 

As the first wolf reached him and jumped at his throat, Byrnghaer yelled in a savage rage and turned to evade his attacker, turning his body to be ready to strike.

When the wolf hit the ground and before it had a chance to turn around, Byrnghaer had already embedded one axe deeply into it's back.

The second wolf saw an opportunity when the man had his back turned to him. He jumped and bit firmly into his target.

Thankfully the cloak Byrnghaer was wearing was made of a thick cloth, and the teeth of the wolf did not get deep into Byrnghaer’s flesh.

The man let go of the axe that was planted in the first wolf’s back, and reached over his shoulder to get a hold of his cloak.

A strong pull forward with his strong muscles made the wolf on his back make a big swing around the man as it held onto the cloak.

Before it could react it was bashed in the head with the blunt side of Byrnghaer’s axe, and it fell down in front of the man. Quickly Byrnghaer turned the axe in his hand and rammed it into the neck of the creature, and yanked it back out. The circulatory system of the wolf would make short work of the rest. A big stream of steaming blood squirted up into the air.

He put his foot on the first wolf he killed and with a hard pull he got his first axe back too.

Turning around he saw the last two wolves circling around him in a careful fashion.

After seeing several of his pack being killed so quick by the furious man, the alpha male became more careful in it's approach, and following the alpha’s example, so did the other wolf.

Byrnghaer measured his position, prepared his body to act.

He measured his opponents. The biggest wolf obviously was the alpha male, and his biggest threat, but the other wolf circled around him and if he was not careful, it would catch him off guard.

Slowly he moved his axes around in his hands to get a better hold of them.

He looked at his foes more closely. The alpha male had a very white fur, and he could easily see the red stains on it's head and along it's jawline.

It was the blood of his daughter, of Krystin. In his agony and sorrow, his hate for the wolves became so big he swoar to take hunt down every wolf he could find. They would all pay for the day the wretched creatures chose Krystin ByrnghaersDóttir to be their prey!

His hate overcame his good senses and he charged at the alpha male.

“Krystin! Your vengeance is here!” He shouted.

The sudden developments overtook the alpha male for a split second. He was startled by Byrnghaer’s yelling. Realising he was in danger, he growled deeply and ran at Byrnghaer.

The sun was setting behind Byrnghaer as he charged at the big wolf. 

The sky became twilight, and it reflected in the wolf’s eyes, and on the glimmering on his teeth. The same teeth that ripped the life out of his Krystin. It gave him a devilish look.

He would wear those teeth around his neck, he would skin the corpse of this hated wolf and wear it in memory of his little girl, and he would hunt wolves where ever he found them.

All this went through Byrnghaer’s mind in the few seconds before Man and Wolf met.

In the next few seconds the wolf did something unexpected. Instead of jumping at the man’s throat he bashed himself into Byrnghaer’s stomach, causing the swing of his axe to miss.

All breath got knocked out of Byrnghaer, and the vengeful Viking fell on his back.

The damn wolf be cursed, to shame him so! Before he could try to get up, he got pushed back almost immediately by the alpha wolf who quickly had gotten up and was now standing over Byrnghaer in an attempt to bite him in the throat.

All Byrnghaer could do was to try and keep the wolf at bay. He had his hands under the wolf’s chest, his axes crossed so he could not strike.

The last wolf in the pack saw the moment of opportunity in this new situation. 

In the seconds the alpha male and the man charged eachother, the wolf had run around the fight and so it took him longer to get into the thick of it. But now he could attack from behind...

The situation was turning grimmer by the second for the proud Viking, as he lay on his back trying to fend off two hungry and angered wolves...

Byrnghaer was staring at the blickering teeth that were trying to reach his throat. 

The harsh environment of Nordheim grew strong men, but he needed all of his strength to keep the large alpha wolf at bay.

Then the second wolf reached him, and bit into his shoulder. 

Byrnghaer screamed in pain, and in his anger and desperation his strength grew so big that he managed to roll over, switching roles between him and the two wolves.

Now it was the alpha wolf who found himself on his back, locked in place by Byrnghaer’s powerful thighs which pressed his legs to the side, and with a sickening snap his front legs broke at the shoulder joints.

He howled viciously and snapped at the man who was holding him down, but his jaws could not reach him.

In the mean time, Byrnghaer disposed of the wolf clinging onto his shoulders. He let go of his axes and grabbed the wolf in the neck, and pulled him over his shoulders. 

He threw the wolf as far as he possibly could.

It landed on it’s feet and immediately rushed at Byrnghaer again but the Viking got hold of his axes in time. Right in the middle of the jump the wolf tried to stop and turn around.

If Byrnghaer had not been in so much pain over the loss of his daughter, he could have laughed at how the wolf suddenly stopped his attack in mid-air.

But now the beast was escaping from him, and he could not let that happen! In a rage Byrnghaer got up and charged after the wolf.

The alpha male could not get far on broken front legs. It would not get away. But he would be damned if he didn't get the whole of the pack responsible for his daughter's death.

The wolf was fast, too fast, and Byrnghaer ran as fast as he could. In his determination, he exerted himself like he had never before. His legs and lungs were burning. They could not deal with the cold air so well, and he started getting chest pains. The world went red before his eyes. Slowly the wolf was getting farther away from him. He realized he would never be able to get within striking distance.

”ODEN!” He yelled, “Guide my axe!” And with all the strength in his arm, Byrnghaer threw an axe after the wolf.

The wolf, in his fear, ran as fast as he could. He knew the man was coming after him and this terrified him more than anything else he had previously experienced

But when Byrnghaer’s axe hit home and plunged itself deep into his hind leg, it knew it was done for.

Howling it looked at the forest edge where he might have found safety, just a few meters away.

It crawled on it's front legs as fast as it could, but with the heavy axe embedded in it's body, it couldn't manage more than a slow crawl. 

When Byrnghaer reached him, the wolf was howling with such terrible desperation, it chilled Byrnghaer’s heart. But he would know no mercy. 

It was in the nature of the animal to hunt and kill, but Byrnghaer cared not. He would have Krystin avenged.

He took his remaining axe into his right hand as he fell onto his knees and quickly slaughtered the wolf that almost got away.

Then in a quick jog he got back to the alpha wolf.

It had been trying to get away as well, but since he could not stand upright, it had been trying to plow itself through the snow headfirst.

The man let his weapons drop, and walked over to the wolf that was now helplessly within his command.

He grabbed a hold of the wolf’s neckfur and pulled it up to his head, so it could face the man who would kill him and look him in the eye as he did so.

The wolf was in terrible pain and could not prevent itself from being lifted from the ground, and he could not claw at the man with his legs broken.

But he could put up a last defense, and that he did. In his desperation the wolf tried biting the man once more, even though he would never be able to reach him.

Byrnghaer looked the enraged wolf in the eyes. They were brownish eyes. Then he laughed at the wolf, but it was no happy laugh. It was a laugh as cold as the winterstorm they were standing in. It held all the sadness and bitterness in the world.

Then he spit the wolf in the face, even though it would mean nothing to the creature as it would have to another man. But he had to ventilate his resentment for the beast.

“So you are the one who killed my daughter”, he said.

“After I kill you, I will wear your skin in memory of my Krystin. The meat I rip from your bones will burn on the same funeral pyre that will take my daughter up to Valhalla, up to Oden where she belongs. Know that your pack is dead, wolf. Know that all your kind will be hunted by me. Know that I am your death, and that I am the death of your kind.”

The wolf howled at the man in answer, and with a quick powerful hit, Byrnghaer broke the wolf’s neck. It was over. 

Byrnghaer threw the corpse of the creature onto the snow.

For the first time after he had seen his young daughter dead, he could think of something other then hate and revenge. 

The sight of Krystin's mangled body covered in wolf-bites flashed through his mind and then froze in place. Slowly he fell to his knees, and tears rolled down his face and froze in his beard.

It was not common for a man to show his emotions so clearly, but he was alone, and he was not ashamed of the love he felt for his Krystin. 

In agony, he howled like the wolves that killed her.

“KRYSTIN! Krystin, my girl, my beloved little girl!”, he cried. “Why did they take you? Why did you take her Oden, Allfather? Why did she have to suffer so? Why could you not take me instead?” 

He wanted to sit there forever and not stand up. For hours he wanted nothing but to freeze to death. But he realised he could not allow himself to follow his daughter into the afterlife. He had to return to the settlement and comfort Ingnarin, his wife, who was caring for the body of their beloved child. He had to make sure she got the funeral she deserved, his daughter, sweetest of them all.

He took up the corpse of the alpha male and hung it over his shoulder, bound together the feet of the other wolves. As he dragged the wolves with him and set to return home, he thought of how much he’d like to cut them up, to grind them into a bloody pulp and leave nothing left of the wolves’ existance.

But he did not do so. He would skin them at the settlement, and he would make clothes of the pack. He would tear out the teeth that ended the life of Krystin, and he would wear them around his neck. And out of the alpha wolf, he would make himself a cloak, from wich the head would be placed on his head, and the paws would hang over his shoulders.

He wanted to let everybody know, to let every wolf know, that Byrnghaer was reborn into a new life. 

At the age of 28, he had all he had wanted in life: a beautiful wife, a daughter he could love. Now his family was torn apart, and his life would never be the same.

Byrnghaer the hunter was no more.

As time passed on, the people of his clan would call him by a new name in secret. They would not dare confront him openly, as all could clearly see the man was not the same anymore and feared what he would do. A darkness had come over him. 

His obsession for the killing of wolves would earn him a new name among his people over the following years.

Byrnghaer GyloirinSvioi was born: Wolf in Agony…

The Forest Prince and the Pig Man temporarily available for free!

Today I got a message from Craig Constantine telling me that for a short while his hitchhiking documentary called "The Forest Prince and the Pig Man" is publicly available.
Previously it could only be seen through Vimeo's 'On Demand' service, where it was 'rented' for a price.

The documentary goes into the history of hitchhiking while showing the current day travels of Billy Jack as he attempts a cross-country journey in the U.S. It asks the question: is hitchhiking actually dangerous, or is it not?
It provides a nice insiders view to my own experiences as I hitchhiked across Canada and the U.S and I think that anybody who follows my travels would also be interested in watching this!
So, without further ado here's the movie!

The full documentary:

Note that the movie can actually be downloaded through it's Vimeo page. Be sure to do so if you want to watch it again after it's no longer publicly available!

If you've seen the documentary and find yourself craving more, there is another hitchhiking 'documentary' that I can highly recommend for you to watch as well. In fact, it's called "Only Kindness Matters" and I've actually linked to it before: http://a-wanderers-soul.blogspot.nl/2012/05/only-kindness-matters.html
And if you want even more after that, there is also "This Time", which takes you through Finland, Norway and various other places!
http://a-wanderers-soul.blogspot.nl/2012/05/date-and-documentary.html  

A trip to Norway - Part 4

Man, it's high time for this last part of the Norway trip, isn't it?
I've been meaning to do it much sooner, but besides being a procrastinator extraordinaire I did have some valid reasons for putting it off haha. I've spent time over at friends, got too busy working or had other distractions. Despite that, I could have done this sooner and I didn't. It's been gnawing at me all that time.
So no more! It's time to wrap this up.

When we woke up at the hostel we went for breakfast in their cafeteria, which was quite good.
We didn't waste much time though, as there was a time limit on the passes we had gotten from the two girls the previous day. We wanted to visit a museum, and two options caught our eye: the National Folks Museum and another one that had old Viking ships. We decided on visiting the National Folks Museum because it seemed to have the most diversity and could teach us the most about the country. It was somewhere on the other side of Oslo, so we needed to go back to the busstop and make sure we got there in time.
Along the way we stopped at a supermarket to buy some food and drink, and after two bus-rides, some walking around trying to find the boat that goes back and forth between the harbor and the museum area, we got on it and made it to the right place. After getting off the boat it was just a short walk to the museum.

The museum consisted of two main parts: some main buildings with several exhibits containing clothing, tools and weapons from several times in the history of Norway, and an outdoor area containing buildings in the old style that you could watch, and some of them were enterable too. In some locations they had actors living out that history.
We left our backpacks at the foyer and started exploring the inside exhibits first. They were pretty interesting but there were a lot of clothes that didn't hold our attention for a long time. Before long we found ourselves outside, where we could get a glimpse of the actual living space the items we had seen inside were worn or used in.

It starts out in a time closer to the modern day...

As evidenced by this oldtimer car.

But things got more interesting quickly!

Here, a farmer and his 'wife' were cutting the grass with a scythe.

Some very nice-looking farmland.

And as I said before, some of the houses were enterable. This one was very nice, with the fire and stove in the centre of the room. The boxes left and right are the beds. Not a lot of room but with the deer skins and other furs on top they did look pretty comfortable still!

This is the outside of the house in the two pictures above.

Close by a new house was being constructed.

The kids were helping out and were instructed by this man. I suppose they are children belonging to other museum employees, though I'm not sure.

After spending several hours in the museum we decided to get out of Oslo that same day. Our bus-tickets had timed out by this point, and so we gathered our packs and started walking the road back to the highway closer to the centre of Oslo.

It didn't take us too long to get there, and we set up shop at an on-ramp. And so the waiting began.

We stood there for quite a long time, though I can't recall the exact length of time we stood there without being paid attention to by anyone other than any passers-by. We were in a bad spot for getting to where we wanted to go, the plan being to be in or near the border of Sweden by the evening, as we were somewhere in the west end of Oslo, while we needed to be in the east end.

After a while we got restless, we wanted to try something different. Maybe we could catch a bus still? We had noticed the busses being pretty long with a rear entrance, and the checking of tickets was pretty loose. So we decided to risk it, and waited for a bus to take us to Oslo Central, where we might be able to catch the metro out of the city. We got in just fine at the back of the bus as more people were waiting for that same bus, and we could get in unnoticed. The metro was less busy but again there weren't any check-ups, and we managed to ride it to the eastern-most station.

A small walk later we found the highway and a good on-ramp near a gas station. At the gas station we met another two hitch-hikers, a couple from Poland who were trying to sell cigarettes they had bought in their home country where they were much cheaper than in Norway. They could sell them at a discounted price compared to the cigarettes in Norway while still making a nice profit to keep them going. We talked for a little while, and then after some directions from  the gas station attendants put ourselves at the side of the highway, hoping to catch a ride before the police would kick us off.

Thankfully one came along, and we managed to get out of Oslo thanks to Sulvei (I'm not sure if I spelled her name correctly, not the first name and not the last name to keep me uncertain), who dropped us off at another gas station a half hour out from where we started. I went inside to find more cardboard to write on, as this close to cities it helps to specify short goals and getting us more rides. I came back with a big box, which we had to tear up to be able to do anything with it. We would be good for the next couple of days with the amount of cardboard pieces we stuck between our backpack rigging.

We stepped over the highway railing and onto the emergency lane again, and stuck out our thumbs to catch the next ride. The sun was setting but we could get further still.

Proving us right were Uni and Elena, a very interesting couple that were very good to us. They offered us diner at their place, and a place to sleep in their bus that had a double roof that you could put up to create a sleeping area on top of the vehicle.

Elena was from Romania, and created a national dish for us that tasted absolutely fantastic. She had met Uni through a dating website and had actually swindled him for money the first time they were supposed to meet. She had promised to come over to Norway if he would send her money, and obviously she kept it and never came. But Uni wasn't one to give up and actually managed to find her again, didn't care about the money, and made the relationship work, and they were now happily living together. Elena's sister was over too, to work in Norway for a while before moving back home with the money she made. In Norway she could  earn in a few months what she would earn in Romania in an entire year, on just a regular waitressing job.

Uni and Elena had similar plans, to save up for a few years in Norway before retiring in Romania ending up much richer than they would have been if they simply stayed in Norway. 

The minimum wage in Norway is around 20 euro's for entry level jobs, cleaning, painting and other such things, where in Holland the minimum wage is pretty much half that. But living costs in Norway are much higher, so you end up spending more money on food. Uni and Elena were close enough to the Swedish border to drive there for groceries though, where food is cheaper than it is in Sweden. There are no border patrols to keep Norwegians from doing this or to stop them from taking more than a specified amount, so this is pretty much a common practice along the entire border.

Uni had a very interesting background prior to his stay in Norway.

He grew up in Malaysia. He told us a little about his childhood in a small village and how he and his friends used to go into the jungle and would often find wreckage from battles fought in the second world war.

Burnt out Japanese tanks would often be found in their 'playground' that were never reclaimed or moved, and sometimes they would still find skeletal remains and old rifles, as well as unexploded ordnance.

Still young, he decided he didn't want his future children to grow up there and decided to move to Europe.

But how was he to do that? All he had was 40 U.S dollars (this happened somewhere during the 70's, so I would imagine it was worth a bit more than now, but it's still not a lot) or the local equivalent, but he spoke of Dollars. That wouldn't get him very far. But this being a hitch-hiking blog, you can kind of guess his solution right? 

Yeah, he hitch-hiked from Malaysia to Europe, through Thailand, Burma, India and eventually ending up going through the Middle East, making his way through countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran before ending up in Eastern Europe. He then hitch-hiked through nearly all of Europe and all of it's countries before settling down in Norway. He had a great story for pretty much every country he had passed through.

We were thoroughly impressed, as well we should be! The amounts of miles he has traveled, the danger and the adventure he had seen... This was a man with tons of life experience, yet completely humble and inconspicuous. He's a hero to me. I wouldn't mind making the same journey he made myself, though I have a feeling going through Afghanistan as a white guy wouldn't be the smartest thing to do right now.
On this trip we've heard lots of good things about Iran though, so.... We'll see!

Anyway, we gladly accepted their offer to stay for the night and had a good night's sleep in Uni's bus.

When we woke up the next morning Uni was ready for us and called us on inside, where he had been preparing breakfast for us: bacon and eggs on toast. Now I'm not the biggest fan of eggs but didn't dare tell him, but I have to honestly say it tasted great. The added taste of kindness, maybe?  :P

After breakfast they drove us to the Swedish border, where we thanked him for a great evening and all they had done for us. Back to hitch-hiking!

Our next target was the city Göteborg, where we would get on the ferry to Frederikshavn in Denmark.
We spent some time waiting for a ride but eventually we got lucky, and we got a ride from Emmelie and Prebben who happened to go all the way there. They dropped us off at the ferry terminal before moving on to get to the theme park they were going to.
We had to wait a while for the ferry that would take us to Denmark, so Willem and I settled for a game of chess, then played some more chess on the ferry. It was around dinner time when we were done and we were hungry, so we went to look for some food. We found a truckers diner on the ship that was obviously reserved to truck drivers, but Willem used his charms on the cafeteria lady who allowed us to get in and eat a really good pasta dinner.
Once the ferry docked we made our way outside past some drunk truck drivers who were swaying their way outside, and started to look for a decent place to hitch a ride.
We walked to the edge of town and set up shop at some stopping lights. We got a ride pretty quick from a guy called Christian. I can't quite recall where he took us, but after he dropped us off we got another ride from a man called Jonas, the final ride of the day.

He was a guy who worked with the homeless, a very interesting and friendly man. I think he dropped us off at Vejle, just north of Kolding which is where originally started our trip.
He let us off at a gas station that had a playground and a big wall in the back running the entire property.
We decided to camp there for the night, and climbed that wall to set up our tent behind it.

Clear night behind a gas station... :p

The following morning.

Next morning we broke up our tent and climbed over the wall again, dropping down right in front of some playing children and their bewildered parents. We walked over to the gas station all casually like nothing was unusual about the entire situation and went to get some breakfast. Thankfully no scene was made haha.

After breakfast we had to walk a short distance to the highway on-ramp, where we got the first ride of a very busy day from Ilya, a truck driver. He dropped us off at a gathering place for trucks, hoping that we could catch a ride all the way into Germany from there.

That didn't happen. After waiting for a while we decided to pack up and walk to an on-ramp somewhere, and hope for the best there.
It didn't take long from that location for the next ride to come along from a guy called Jerry who took us to a gas station along the highway close to the German border. We got some food there and positioned ourselves at the gas station exit. We waited for an hour or two, eventually trying the emergency lane on the highway before deciding to head back to the gas station and simply wait there.
Car after car passed us until eventually a convertible that had passed us stopped on the highway entrance and went into reverse. We ran up and talked to the driver, Aage, who felt bad for leaving us standing there and offered us a ride to Stedesand, even though he had very little room in his car.
We made it work though, stashing Willem in the back with the backpacks while I sat in the front seat next to Aage. He was going to drive us across the border into Germany.

Aage was an older man with grey hair and weathered skin, but in a very good physical shape and very muscular. It turned out he was an adrenaline junkie and the owner of a fitness centre in Stedesand. At his fitness centre he offered training to people with agression problems, so they had a place to work out their frustrations. He was very big on natural training, and would kick away anybody caught doing anabolics.
I liked that, and Aage and I spent the entire ride talking about it, as well as exciting stuff like sky-diving and my experiences with it in Canada, while Willem sat in the back unshielded from the wind, unable to hear anything because the wind was blowing past his face with 80 kilometers per hour, pretty much incapable of even so much as opening his eyes.

Like this.

When we got to Stedesand Aage gave me his business card, suggesting I'd get in touch at some point in the future which was a very nice gesture, though I don't think I will be passing through Germany again soon.
He dropped us off at a bus stop close to a supermarket, so Willem and I went to get some food first before setting up at the bus stop.
It turns out Stedesand was a pretty small place with hardly any traffic, and quite a bit removed from the major highways going to Hamburg, our goal for the day.
After sitting there for an hour Willem started to get pissed off, but before too long we got a ride out of there from Dieter who drove us to the next place along the road we were on. I believe it was Husum, but I'm not sure.

When we got there we decided to go west from there, to get back to the main highway to Hamburg.
We stood on a T-section waving our sign when a truck stopped. As I started to move towards it I saw it didn't stop to pick us up, but to let somebody out. Out came a pretty girl, who was hitch-hiking her way home after a trip to Istanbul. We had a short conversation before she walked away to move home.
I regret not asking her for her email adress or her Facebook, she seemed like my kind of girl. But I let the opportunity slip, and I haven't been able to find her again. I really need to stop doing that haha.

Shortly after we got a very short ride from a guy we don't even know the name of, because that's how short the ride was. He initiated a conversation right away and we kept talking untill he let us out of the car again at an intersection. My German isn't that great but I think I held up pretty well in the conversation.
We walked a short distance down the road we needed to follow after some consultation with our driver, and put our backpacks down at a gardening centre of some sort. Almost immediately after we put up our thumbs another car pulled over.

A woman got out of the car, and the first thing she asked was if we had weapons on us in German. I replied no, knowing full-well we had pocket knifes in our pockets but I didn't know how to tell her that. Besides, we weren't going to use them on her so there was no need to alarm her.
Her boy sat in the front seat, so Willem and I crammed into the back with our stuff. Even if we had meant her harm, we would have been unable to move haha. I was barely able to move my hand.
We introduced ourselves without shaking hands (how could we?), and as it turns out her name was Anne as well. That made her laugh as she thought I was joking with her, but no, that's my real name I assured her.
In all of Germany Anne is considered to be a woman's name, as it is in the rest of the world too, even the Netherlands. Friesland is the only place it's a normal guy's name, so I'm used to this reaction by now. It doesn't bother me though, so I could laugh about it with her. We had a conversation in German as she didn't speak any English. It was good practice, these last few rides!

She dropped us off at an on-ramp to the highway going to Hamburg, where we said goodbye.
She had to drive off quickly as there wasn't a real place to stop her car, which unfortunately also meant there wasn't a proper place for us to stand to catch another ride. We walked up the on-ramp and set up in a bend in such a way that incoming cars could see us in time, but there was also kind of enough space to pull over quickly. There wasn't anything other to do than just try to make it work right there, and we were hoping for the best.
Thankfully we got a ride within half an hour from father Henri and his son Simon, both of whom spoke good English. They could take us all the way to Hamburg and drop us off at a gas station on the highway.
We had come a long way today, but we could go further still. It was late when we got to the gas station where they dropped us off, and the sun had gone down. But we decided to keep trying.

At the gas station we met another couple who were hitch-hiking, but we didn't talk for too long. If we wanted to get any further tonight we had to get into action. The parking lot was very spacious, with a restaurant about a 100 meters from the gas station. So we moved to the exit of the parking lot and tried our luck there. Funnily enough these other two hitchhikers got a ride before us, simply by chilling out next to the gas station. The sky had gotten cloudier and cloudier as the day went on, and now the clouds finally broke and it started to rain. Willem and I first sought shelter at the restaurant, but it being very quiet there we ran over to the gas station.
Hardly any cars were coming through here and so we simply sat down at the gas station entrance with our little sign. We were too tired to make much of an effort anymore, so we simply sat and waited.
Some cars passed by, most ignoring us and some others telling us they didn't have any room.

It was about 22:00 when a camper came by with a couple inside. The woman felt bad for us and talked her boyfriend into taking us along. He didn't say it but we could tell he wasn't too excited about the idea, but he went along with it. Their names were Wiebeke (again, no idea if I spelled her name correctly) and Jesse, and they were going on vacation to France, and they were hoping to get there sometime in the morning.
That meant a long ride for us. They were going to take us all the way to Cloppenburg, which is nearly the same distance from the Danish-German border to Hamburg from where we were at, so this single ride would take us as far as all the other rides of the day had taken us.
We talked for a while but Willem and I sat in the back of the camper and they were sitting in the front, so we had to raise our voices to talk. Eventually we didn't speak much anymore, and we could tell Jesse was starting to get eager to get us out. But we did end up all the way in Cloppenburg, for which we thanked them greatly!

It was now around 3:30 and we needed to find a place to sleep. We started walking around from the place they let us out, and couldn't find anything. Eventually we settled for an open grassland area between two crossing highways, one of them running over the other with an overpass. We had one of the highways to our side, about a 100 meters, and the other below us at relatively the same distance, so we had a pretty safe spot to sleep.
We didn't bother putting up the tent because we thought it would draw too much attention, so we simply rolled out our sleeping mats and bags and went to sleep. In this area it was no longer cloudy, so we thought it was pretty safe and we wouldn't get wet. Thankfully we were right.
We didn't sleep long, and got up shortly after sunrise. Today was the day we were going to make it back home.

We needed to get to Emmen, where Willem had his car waiting for us at his parents' place.
We figured out which way to go from our current location and started walking in that direction. There wasn't a good spot anywhere so we kept walking down the road, eventually settling beneath a small overpass and in front of a small emergency parking spot. This wasn't a very good position to be in, but we had walked for about an hour and didn't get any better, so we decided to try it from that spot for a while. It wasn't a good place to be in. After about half an hour the German police showed up telling us we had to go away from there, but having no means of going anywhere they decided to drive us to the next town.
Willem told them about being in the police academy in Holland, and that surprised them quite a bit. "Du bist ein Polizist?" I guess they couldn't figure out why he would want to hitchhike.
Anyway, they dropped us off at the nearest town which I don't know the name of, from where we tried to get a ride to Meppen, the closest town to the border and Emmen.
Here's where we got into trouble, as the town we were dropped off in was a horrible spot for getting rides. We spent hours in several locations trying to get a ride, first inside of town and later on near an on-ramp to the highway. We saw the police come by a few times, probably to check up on what we were doing.

Eventually we got completely fed up with waiting around and we decided to walk along the highway to the nearest gas station or parking lot, hoping to get there before a cop car would find us.
It was a long and shitty walk but we managed to get to a resting area before we got caught. There were several trucks parked there and we decided to try and ask for a ride, something I normally dislike doing but we were both tired after a short night and dismayed at the lack of progress so far. It so happened that one of the truck drivers was a Dutch man who could take us to Klazienaveen. He wasn't supposed to take anybody along but he wouldn't mind having someone to talk to for a while, and there's no way he could get caught doing this. Finally we were going somewhere again!

Once we got to Klazienaveen we went to get something to drink at a gas station before trying our luck again at a roundabout going to Emmen. Thankfully we didn't have to wait for long.
We got our last ride from Imad, a local restaurant owner who was willing to drop us off at exactly where we needed to be. I'd say he's got some new customers now!
Once we were at Willem's parents' place we had to wait for a little while as his mom was out for a walk. We had something to drink and then got into Willem's car for the last drive home.

And thus I will conclude the tale of our trip to Norway.
I'm looking to put up another post at some point in the future with some documentary stuff about hitch-hiking that I've found over the years, as well as some music that I think will appeal to the traveling souls among you.
So keep an eye out for that, and I hope you enjoyed all my posts so far!

A trip to Norway - Part 3

To pick up where I stopped last time, we just hiked back down from the Preikestolen in the early morning.
When we made it back to the parking lot we finally ate breakfast. The hike down took half the time it took us to get up there, which was still a good 2 hours of hiking with heavy packs.
So when we got down my legs were trambling again, and I could really use the food.

The walking wasn't done yet though. The parking lot was still a pretty long way off from where we needed to be to get a ride, as the only people up where we were just arrived and still had to climb the Preikestolen.
They wouldn't be back for hours, maybe even the entire day, so nobody was going back to the main road yet.
After breakfast we sat around a little longer and then started our walk back to the main road.

Hiking to the main road

As you can see the area wa beautiful, and thankfully the hills weren't very steep except for at the start.

Along the way we came across a camping ground that turned out to be run by a Dutch family. This was day 5 for us, and in those 5 days we haven't had a shower. And especially after the hike of the previous day, we really would've liked one. And so we walked up to the reception building and asked if we could take a shower in their facilities, and said we could and would pay for it. But we were denied, which soured our mood a bit.

But that wasn't quite the end of it. We did have access to their public bathroom, which was quite roomy. And one at a time, we simply washed up at the sink inside it. So we still had a 'shower' and got the last laugh in the end. 

We decided to try our luck hitchhiking from this spot, hoping for a camping guest to go back down to the main road.
We set up our position in a less than favourable position, a bend in the road in front of camping entry, but it was the best spot there was. Luckily we didn't have to stand there long. 15 minutes later a full car pulled over, and the driver rolled down her window. She told us to wait, she was taking two guys up to the Preikestolen parking and she would come back down after to give us a ride to the ferry back to Lauvik (which is where we wanted to go).

So after waiting for a while longer she came back down again. We loaded our stuff into the car and started the drive to the ferry. She had her younger sister (Sophia) with her, who sat in the backseat with Willem. I sat in front with Kathrina and had a nice chat with her. She was studying to be an engineer in green energy, and was already promised a job 5 or 6 years from now! (there is a massive demand for engineers in Norway, if that wasn't apparent by now :p)

She dropped us off in time to get onto the ferry, so we hastily thanked her and Sophia and ran onto the ferry. This time we didn't get across for free, but the price was maybe three or four Euro's so we couldn't complain: those 4 Euro's were all it cost us to see the Preikestolen, whereas if we had taken the ferry and bus ride from Stavanger we would have had to pay around a 150 Euro's!

And this time we prepared our sign while on the 15 minute cross-over, and I took it for a walk along the cars before we arrived. Nobody responded, but when we got off and walked up to the road a car pulled over anyway. Maybe they had second thoughts? I don't know, because the English of the elder couple Jarnfrid and Svarre wasn't very good. (Jarnfrid's English was good enough to have a basic conversation, but Svarre didn't even know what I said when I asked him for his name. I had to point at me and introduce myself, then point at him to get him to understand). They took us to Oltedal, where they dropped us off at some kind of gift shop.

We went to get something to drink at the shop, and inside we saw a chessboard carved into the table with the rather large chess pieces already set up. So we stuck around for a little bit and played some chess before trying to get another ride.

Oltedal

That ride came not long after setting up. We were picked up by a couple from Lithuania, Willia and Sigatas (that is how his name sounded to me, I am not at all sure if I got it right haha).
They were on their way to climb up to Kjeragbolten, a place that we had also wanted to visit initially, but after the hard climb up to Preikestolen we had decided to pass by it for now. Maybe next year?
Anyway, if you are curious, Kjeragbolten is up in the Kjerag mountains, and is essentially a boulder stuck in between two cliffs.

I found this image via Google. How is that for awesome? Serious balls of steel on that one!

Willia and Sigitas took us to a small place called Rysstad I believe. It was just a small spot of the map, it's main feature a T-section with a gas station. And that was about it.

Our next goal was to see the stave church in Heddal, which was the largest stave church in Norway.

These stave churches are protected by the government as heritage. There are only 30 left in all of Norway.
And what makes them special is that they are completely made of wood, they have some kind of Viking architecture in them despite being Christian churches. 

The Heddal stave church lies close to Notodden, and to get there I had chosen a route through the smaller villages. I wanted to see more country side, away from highways. As a result, we ended up in an area with relatively few cars. Rysstad was such a place, and we got stuck there for a few hours.
It did give us the chance to fill up on water and food though.

Eventually it got up to the point where we started hitchhiking in two directions, anything to get out of that place. Ideally we would go up north through Valle, but should the opportunity present itself we would have gone south too. It would have been a detour but it would take us back to bigger roads.

We were rescued by Harald though, and he was going up north through Valle, and all the way to Seljord, which is a LONG distance. Harald would prove to be one of the best rides we've had.

He had a story or some interesting information about pretty much every small place we passed through and kept us entertained for the entire way.

Along the way we had several stops as well, the first in the mountains.

And believe it or not, this place actually had wifi. We didn't make use of it though, just some interesting trivia.

Later on we passed through a place called Dalen, which has a famous hotel in which many kings and queens had stayed, so we pulled over there as well, and Harald took us inside and around outside to show it to us.

To give you an idea of the prices, the cheapest room available was 300 Euro's per person, per night! The more expensive ones range in the thousands!

Dalen from above

Dalen hotel with it's unique style. That's Harald on the left.

The hotel from the back

This was a famous ship too, though I can't recall the specifics.

Eventually we passed through the Telemark area, which is where the modern ski got invented, as well as the Telemark technique (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemark_skiing).

As I said before, we ended up in Seljord that day. Harald dropped us off in front of a camping ground.

We thanked him for the fantastic ride and watched as he drove off. We got some food at the camping cafetaria, but we had already decided that we wouldn't stay on the camping grounds.

Instead we walked across the bridge situated next to the camping grounds and set up our tent on the other side of the river. That night we watched a movie called Easy A.

Camping grounds on the right, our sleeping spot on the left!

Tired after a long day!

The next morning we decided to go for a real shower. We didn't plan on asking for permission anymore though. This time we simply walked over to the camping ground one at a time, and walked into the shower facilities as if we belonged there. Willem went over first, and after half an hour he came back.
Now was my turn. I packed the stuff I needed and slung it over my shoulder in a small bag, crossed the bridge and walked straight to the showers.

The shower required 10 krone coins of which I had two, and each coin gave me about 4 to 5 minutes of showertime. Refreshed and clean I walked back to our campsite to pack up.

Today we were going to try and make it to the Heddal stave church. We hoisted our packs onto our shoulders and started walking to the edge of Seljord.

We had run out of cardboard and had these shitty bags that flapped in the wind. Quite annoying haha.

We tried sticking to the shadows as much as possible because it was very hot. After that one rainy day we've only had good weather, almost always a good 30 degrees celsius. We were already sweating again.

From the location in the pictures above we got a ride after trying for a short while.

We got a ride from a French guy called Jeremy from France. He was on a solo car trip through Europe, so his car was packed quite full. He had to move around quite a lot of stuff before I could get into the front seat and Willem in the back. I could get rid of my backpack but Willem had to have his on his lap, which ended up getting him stuck (it wasn't the first time and certainly not the last in our trip for him to be in this position!).

As we got to talking it turned out that Jeremy had been to the Preikestolen on the same day as us, and he was actually one of the people who arrived in the middle of the night while Willem and me were sleeping on the edge. He hadn't recognized us or we him just by looking, but what a coincidence! He is actually on one of the pictures. I'll show it again:

That's Jeremy in between Willem and the group in the back.

And he had actually gotten us on a picture as well. That's me and Willem packing up our stuff.

Jeremy took us to Heddal as it was along the route he was taking. He was going north from Oslo, and passing through Notodden. As I said before, Heddal was right in front of Notodden, so this was perfect for us.
We took a wrong turn at first, which took a little bit of time to get back from as we noticed too late, but eventually we were back on the right road and saw the church coming up. That's where he dropped us off, and after looking for a minute or so he was back on his way.

Now we had a little break as both Willem and me were very tired. We sat around in the shade of a tree eating some cookies before exploring the church.

And there it is!

Most of the gravestones were pretty recent, which was a bit weird to us.

The church is interesting in that it has an outer walkway inside the  building. You can walk all the way around the walls you see here. If you want to go through this door however, you need to pay some money. Which is weird because the church is not that big, and you can see everything just fine from within the doorway.

See? One meter further and I would have had to pay.

Going around the back

The woodwork is very nice, and overall it looks more like a Viking building than a Christian church.

Now in motion!

There was another building close by with a restaurant in it. In the basement of that building there were some display cases. The one below was interesting. Apparently it was common for people to go to the church with their axes, which they would leave in the walkway outside of the inner building. These weren't for self defense apparently, though they certainly could have been used for it.

Maybe you can read it, but probably not. My camera isn't at it's best inside.

From there we made our next plans.

We were going to try to get to Notodden from there, and move on up to Oslo if possible.

This time we were standing at a pretty busy road again, and we found a bus stop which was ideal for cars to pull over. It only took maybe 20 minutes before Amir pulled over for us. He could take us all the way to Oslo.

Amir was from Kurdistan, and apparently Willem and he had a very good conversation. Unfortunately I didn't get too much from it. Amir was a softspoken man and I didn't catch much, and with the heat and exhaustion from the previous days I fell asleep. I woke up to the mentioning of Amir spending two years in prison. It turns out that Amir went to Iran to fight for human rights. The government didn't like it much and arrested him, and so he lost two years of his life: fighting for the good of mankind. 

He dropped us off in the centre of Oslo, near the central station. 

We looked for a McDonalds but settled for a Burger King, to make use of the wifi. I hooked up my netbook and started looking for a cheap hostel.

Two Asian girls were sitting close by, and I don't remember how but Willem struck up a conversation with them. Turns out they were studying in Holland, though they were both originally from China. They were on a trip of their own, taking the train through Norway. They were going to go to Stavanger the next day, and they had public transport tickets for the entire city of Oslo that they were not going to use anymore, but were still valid for the next day. They gave them to us to use, with the promise that we would send them back by mail. They even helped us finding a cheap hostel, as the oldest of the two knew some good websites.

After a while they took off, and we planned the best way to get to the hostel with public transportation. We needed to get to the far northern side of the city.

We eventually got there by metro and a bus ride after. The bus station was in a kind of decrepit part of the city. The entire area looked a bit poorly and at the bus stop stood a guy that was completely drugged out of his mind with no shirt on. At the bus stop we found a wallet that belonged to a Polish guy, with creditcards and all other kinds of passes and cards. We gave it to a bus driver the next day.

Eventually we got to the final busstop but we weren't quite there yet. We asked a cyclist for the route to the hostel, and went on our way. The area was completely devoid of people. 

After a bit of a walk up hill we made it to the hostel, and booked two beds for the night in a dormitory.
We had only one roommate called Öden, though we referred to him as Odin. He was a philosophy student.

We didn't talk a lot though as Willem and me were both anxious for a shower. (the second that day, but this time I put on a new pair of pants and put the old one in my laundry (read: garbage) bag.

The next morning we went to see the National Folk Museum, but I will tell you about that the next time. :)