Friday, October 14, 2011

Adventures in Hellesoy

Today I decided to take a bus to the end of the line and see where I ended up.  The bus I chose went to the west of Bergen to the Sotra islands.  Actually according to the Bergen guide, the Sotra island area is an archipelago of 1550 large and small islands.  The bus took about 1 hour 40 minutes to get to the end of the line.  In that time, we drove through some dramatic landscapes & over many bridges.  The chain of islands is narrow and runs in a north-south direction.  Most of the time we were on a narrow road that I thought was one-lane until we met a car going the other direction.  There is really only one road, so it's easy to not get lost, which was bonus for me and my directionally-challenged self.  I took some photos with my iPhone out the window of the moving bus.

Taking pictures this way reduced the motion from the bus and cut down on the reflection from the window because I could hold the phone right up to the window.
See it was a nice day.
The farther north we went, the worse the weather became
Until we reached the end of the line, where it was full-on raining
Aha, so now I reached the end of the line, in the rain & the wind was cold. I was happy I had worn two pairs of pants, 3 sweaters, a fur-lined hooded sweatshirt, a raincoat, ski gloves, and earmuffs.  Ha ha, yes I know, I'm a baby since it wasn't cold enough to be snow, just rain.  So for about 20 minutes I wandered around, trying to act like I had a plan, not that there was anyone around to notice.  I think this place is probably more of a summer place.  I couldn't even find a tiny grocery store.  Then I found this map, which was almost helpful.

The blue line on the left is where I came by bus. Which I already knew that part.
Unfortunately all the bits about what there was to see was in Norwegian.
Which I haven't quite learned much Norwegian yet. I know most food words, but not really much else. The only section of this sign that was in English was a bit that said that Hellesoy and the nearby islands used to be important for fishing and seafaring.  At some point I decided the best plan was to stick near that main road. That way whenever I got ready to go home, I could just catch a bus.  The rain stopped after about 30 minutes or so, and even the wind died down, so it was actually pleasant.  I took a lot of pictures.



The landscape was amazing


A lot of the inhabitants have boats

I'm convinced the entire area is inhabited by these guys since I didn't see any other humans

Twins
The curly-horned ones issued a warning
What happened to all the humans
Warning: entering fart zone
A troll jail--hey you didn't think I could go a whole post without mentioning trolls did you?
Well after I was tired and my feet were wet, I decided to call it a day.  I got back on the bus headed to Bergen, and had a nice conversation with the driver whose daughter is currently an exchange student outside of Kansas City, Missouri.  He said she liked it there a lot and that people are very kind to her. The only thing she can't get used to is all of the fried food. 

2 comments:

  1. I'm enjoying your spirit of adventure~~ Can't wait till you meet some trolls, though.

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  2. Thanks! I can't wait to meet some trolls either. I have my weapons all prepared. Mmmm...troll soup. :)

    ReplyDelete