Month: December 2014 Page 1 of 2

Monday morning was filled with xmas shopping and eating mostly. I managed to not miss breakfast today and went walking around Tromsø looking for gifts. All I had to find was a blues bottle slide, a book on tractors and chocolate. Strangely difficult considering it was xmas season.

But the weather turned good and I decided I would do it on the way home and jumped on the bus to the Cable car up Fjellheisen. Once I got to the top of the 4 minute car ride of 420m to the top station I head upto towards Tromsdalstinden the highest peak in the area visible from the city. read more

After a day of Snow mobiling, reindeer sledding and dog sledding in -16 I was feeling a bit tired so Saturday was a bit of a quiet day.

Pretty much spent the day chilling at the hotel and eating buffet food.

Day 53

Sunday was a nice clear day that I spent walking around Tromsø and caught the Polaria tour I missed the day before. Wow Polaria was a sad place. A giant tv projector, and a crappy seal tank. I kinda felt bad for the seals the tank was tiny and the seals were all fat.

The water side outside my hotel was amazing. Northfacing and mountain facing it was pretty awesome. read more

With a 5.15am start, a car ride and a train I got to Oslo Airport on time only for the plane to delayed but it gave me some time to take a few photos and start listening to my new audio book about the history of Marvel Comics.

It was possibly one of the most amazing flights i’ve been on. The country was literally blanketed with snow. The only thing that wasn’t white was cliffs and ice lakes. The colours were incredible out the window. But I started to realise even at 30,000ft the side barely breached the horizon, its going to be dark at midday when I land. read more

I was hoping to start the morning early by catching a ride into Oslo with Janet on her way to work, but I felt like crap and all the shops don’t open till 10am. Turned out to be a good decision as it started to snow.

Almost missed the train trying to run though the snow (now ice) in -7 deg. But got on just in time and managed to use the time to finish up some of my blog posts that I had to catch up on writing.

With a bit more of an idea of what Oslo was like I grabbed a day bus ticket and started walking. Came across the Dig Dipper record store. Spotted a copy of Jimi Hendrix Blues but couldn’t figure out a way to get a record home on the plane without breaking it. read more

Monday started off nice and easy with a drive into Oslo in the little Nissian Leaf with both Anders and I wondering it if would make it on the battery left.

First stop was the Holmenkollen Ski Jump in Oslo. Rather impressive jump that sticks up off the mountain and you can see it from the otherside of town.

After the strange sideways elevator you get a pretty impressive / possibly the best view of Oslo central.

They also had a wee museum as well. The ski’s on the left are the ones they use for the jumping. Massive different from the cross country skiis. read more

Well the weekend started off well with a homemade breakfast at Anders’ parents house.  After that we head upto a lake house that belongs to their family. I have to say its one of the most amazing things to see, a lake starting to freeze over.

On the way back home we stopped by a very traditional house. Built like back in the old days. The base of the house are on piles shaped like triangles. This is to stop the rats getting into the food and crops.

We spent thie night chilling out drinking beers and watching Youtube videos. Anders’ brother Mats and his girl friend Christina came over which was cool to hangout and chat. read more

Mjøndalen is about 50mins away from Oslo by train which makes one plan days ahead. With Anders at work and Janet and Jacob sick it made things trickier. But spent the first real day in Norway just relaxing really and sorting out a local sim card and some actually warm gloves.

But on the way round I spotted the latest Marshall Amps radio/stereo. Sadly I very much doubt it will fit in my bag.

A small observation from the first Scandinavian country I visit is that all the dirty mags in mall are just, on the shelf. No shits are given with boobs etc just on display. read more

Last day in Edinburgh was a nice. Scored some great weather yet again and was perfect for walking around.

Went down to Leith Walk which is the longest road in Edinburgh. Pretty nice walk with a big shopping mall at the end.

After the wee walk at 1deg I caught the bus back into the city centre to check out the music store “LiveMusic” that I saw the night before whilst killing time during the carols. They had some nice lefty stuff, an old 50’s Guild acoustic and a ’74 Baldin bass guitar. Took a few photos on the way back of a few hotels and the University. read more

Day 38 started off rainy and boring, but the B&B was great with a whole table to myself.

The plan for the day was to travel back to Edinburgh via Lock Ness. The snow had passed and now it was just heavy rain and low visibilty. But the rain didn’t put a damper on the views.

The first two big stops was Loch Ness. Its so strange driving through Scotland, everything looks very familiar yet so different. I could easily live in this country.

And for Paul and Cailor’s information, I did not find Nessy, I did try to take a blurry photo of a duck to snapchat but it looked to duck like and I knew you wouldn’t buy it. read more

A quick walk upto the Royal Mile and we were away. The tour covers The Highlands, Isle of Skye and Loch Ness. One good thing about off season travelling is that the group size is usually small. This time we have 6. We picked up a few in Glasgow the headed off into the Highlands of Scotland.

The other great effect of a small group is we can stop rather often for little things along the way and the van is much faster. First photo stop was the 3 sisters rocks.

We passed a vally that we were told the RAF use for test flights and Mark our guide showed us the tree a jet hit on a low pass (its the right hand one thats shorter). The jet was fine but it flying very low. read more