Scandinavia Trip: Back to Sweden

[cjsmith]

*** Tue Oct 1

There was no orange juice at breakfast. Oh well. The only other
occupants of the dining room, we noticed, were about a dozen people
who were all quite old; perhaps a tour?

Asked about Internet access at the hotel desk. He said the library
was the only place. There had been an Internet cafe, but it was
closed.

The library didn't open until eleven. I took a photo of the statue in
front of it: guy skiing away with the infant prince.

Walked along pedestrian shopping district. One shop had good
T-shirts. We bought two moose shirts, for square dancing. I also got
two pewter Christmas ornaments (a snowflake and a reindeer) and a
Lillehammer Olympics pin for Chris. Discovered somewhere in here that
the simple one-handed spade-shaped cheese server/slicer tool was
invented in Norway. Cool.

Still not eleven, so we went up the road to Norway's road museum.
Cars rationed until late 60s. Gal at desk told us that yes, when the
automatic traffic control camera activates you definitely see it; it's
a bright red flash and is somewhat dangerous at night because then you
can't see the road. We signed their guest book and I got to write the
new date: "Tirsdag 1.10.02". (I wrote Tuesday and then didn't know
how to write October!)

Back in Lillehammer, I used the "ten minutes maximum" PCs to check LJ.
No one had left any addresses for me. No comments at all, in fact.
Rats! I wonder why. (Also noticed my paid membership had expired.
Bad timing.) I made a quick entry. This keyboard had
Norwegian-character capability, so I made sure to use some of those.
Took a picture of the keyboard on the way out.

Spent all our coins at the supermarket across the street from our
hotel. Figured it was our last chance. Lemon fizzy water, Ritz
crackers, and Haribo gummy discs for me; a Coke and a Twix for Rob.
Our math was slightly off because the Coke bottles have deposits on
them. I gave Rob an extra kronor for his bottle tax and left my last
one in the change dish at the supermarket.

Long drive toward border. Rob listened to the radio. For some
reason, every few minutes all the stations become useless and new
frequencies must be found. P1 and P4 are some kind of public radio
programs. There's a lot of talk and a lot of American pop music. We
liked to listen to the talk stuff in Norwegian. Near Oslo we were
very disappointed to be stuck at a toll booth. Rats! Here comes some
more coinage. Darn. The second toll booth, much farther east, wasn't
so annoying -- we figured that money was lost anyhow.

Turned out the border exchange took coins. Almost no exchange places
do, but this one does. Cool.

Swedish road signs now look very odd. The background of their warning
and speed limit signs are yellow, where in Norway they had been white.
And the centerline of the road is white! I dug out one of the two
volumes of dictionary lent me by Arne, and started to read the
pronunciation guide. We tuned in a Swedish radio station. I was
surprised at how WRONG the language sounded. It was very definitely
not Norwegian. Odd how I knew that with just a week in Norway.

Saw some fencing along the road, bordering woodland. Gates looked
like they were locked, but there was a door for pedestrians that would
take some cleverness even to latch much less lock. Allemansratt, I
think: you can walk anywhere.

Stopped in Kristinehamn. Expensive hotel. Tired. Crampy. Hungry,
but unwilling to spend time and money on food, much less stand up and
walk.