kristiansand!

kristiansand has been so amazing!! we arrived here on the 27th and met elin our host. she manages a fabulous restruant in a really great part of town. with elin we went into sentrum and had some pizza and beer then went to her house. a large fixer upper she and her boyfriend recently purchased. three of her coworkers are living in the house for the summer while working at her restruant. john and i showered, while elin went to work then took our bikes downtown and to the island where elin works. the following day we BBQed with elin and the group (swedish meatbal style burgers!) then went to a local norwegian lake in the forest. it was so beautiful and refreshing to swim! we stopped in sentrum and watched a free concert for a bit while eating some tikka masala, then went to her restruant and hung out in the bar with a great a bunch of her cowerkers. a lot of sweeds and other europeans come to norway for the summer to work (thwe icelandic drunks may have been the highlight of the night). she has some really great people/ friends working for her and it was so great to meet hang out with them. around one am four of us went to another bar to play darts. kristiansand is the 5th largest city in norway, yet this is a small country and it has a very small town feel to it. we've had a really great experiance here and it was so wonderful to meet elin and her roommates (vlad, patrick... we love you too ;) ) the two nights here have been truly momorable. but now we must carry on like the vagabonds we are.

well... got out of my tent this morning overlooking the water, removed the tick on my stomach, then changed my second flat tire of the trip. yeah, i'm becoming a pretty good bike mechanic. john and i then got on a train to kristiansand Norway. we are coachsurfing here for the next two days. due to some stops along the way we could not quite make it there in time, there fore we are taking the train. one of the cool stops we made along the way was preikastolen (the picture is of us at the top!!) we hiked almost two hours to get up to this cliff overlooking the fjord. it was so breathtaking. the previous day we had met some really cool aussies biking throughout europe and eventually biking to south africa (yeah biking the entire continent of africa, makes john and i feel like wimps!) so we hung out with them in stavanger norway. norway is such a beautiful country.. they have such beautiful forests, beaches, great rock formations... truly beautiful. and lucky for us... the weather here has actually been warm! i know... i thought it would never come. soon you'll be hearing me bitch about how hot it is and how much i miss the cold!

our norwegian-scottish bagpipin gangsta

john and i have tons of great pictures and stories... but here is one i just have to put up. when we were in oslo we came across this norwegian playing the scottish bagpipes. he was playing along side the road, facing a wall, as if the town had refused his playing and that was the only area he was allowed to play? it was quite peculiar. when he finishe his song we clapped, and he was surprised to see that he had an audiance. he wore a picture of himself in a scottish kilt holding his bagpipe. also, notise his hat... it's the kind of flat bill hat that a rapper would wear? (or someone trying to be ghetto). he was hilarious. we told him we were american, and he played amazing grace for us! john placed his righ hand over his heart in respect? i got it on video.... good times

kayaking through the fjords

for those of you that don't know anything about norway, they are most famous for their breathtaking fjords. john and i took a bus from bergen to the fjord where we we pickued up our kayaks, wet suits, life jackets, and all that good stuff and headed out into the fjord! it was beautiful. and like my mom commented, you do feel quite small in your kayak going through the fjord. we kayaked the entire length of the fjord, then took a hike, then found our campsite were we built a campfire and recounted our favorite memories of the trip thus far while eating carrots. the next morning we just paddled back to the harbor. as beautiful as it was, we decided that two days of kayaking is plenty!! you really don't make too much distance on those things. so know we are back in bergen and have 9 days to ride back to oslo. so for all those who battered us for taking the train to bergen, we're just doing things a little backwards! also...note to self: never drink fjord water again, it upsets the stomach.

bergen

so oslo was one of my favorite cities so far.... except for norway being super expensive, it was great. taxes are very high in scandonavia, and the people are well taken care of. we actually asked a woman working at a store the other day if she makes anyu kind of commision and she said no way, we don't need it, and waiters don't need tips either! hah! that must be nice. the nobel peace prize is given in Oslo. john and i spent almost 5 hours at the nobel peace museum. we just sat in their theater and watched the videos on all the prize recipients. it was very powerful. that night we took the 11:30 train into bergen arriving at 7:30 in the morning. after figuring out where things are in the city we found a park and took a two hour nap on the grass under the sun. we then played in the city and saw a nother world herritage site. this city was one of four offices for the hanseatic leauge in the late middle ages, so theere is a lot of history here. we couch surfed with a man named roger who is SO involved with couch surfing. he has had at least one surfer a week since he joined last february!!! he deserves a medal. we are leaving out bikes hith him for two days and heading north to the fjords this afternoon were we will rent kayaks for two days. there are two fjords that are actually world herritage sites, so we will just float around in the fjord and be one with nature! it's been raining on and off since we got into bergen, so hopefully the weather will be nice up north in the fjord.

paulina.... it was him!!

this is john standing in norway and farting in sweden (what a boy)!. i just wanted to clear my name... it was he who would do such a thing, not I. and if he tells you any other gross stories about me, he's most likely covering up his own idiosyncrasies!!!

Oslo

this is john crossing the sweden, norway border!!! we ended up having great weather the last two days in sweden (thanks for the magic paulina!) the ride into norway was quite nice... a lot of rural countryside. we arrived in norway at about 11pm so we found the closest spot we could to pitch our tents. that spot just so happened to be in the parking lot of a park, right behind the restrooms. there was some grafitti on the wall...most likely gang territory, but they must have run off whe they saw us. the following day we rode into a city called fredrikstad where we took a train into Oslo. today we have been biking allover the city seeing all the sites. we will spend tomorrow in Oslo as well, then take a train to Bergen...

skål

you know that typical scene in a movie where a character is standing on the sidewalk and a car drives by/ right through a puddle causing a tidal wave to splash the poor innocent victim on the corner... i was the victim!!! i was just riding my bike when a truck going the opposite direction soaked me! it was great. i was laughing out loud. i was already soaking wet anyways (it rained aaallllllll day) i just wish had been caught on video! to make up for our freezing and wet day of riding through the swedish countryside (we decided we are true cycling bad asses for putting up with the weather today) we are staying in a great little hotel. the receptionist was very excited about our bike ride and really wants to come to california. he asked our names and when we asked his he said Purr. then to make sure we understood he said "like a cat, puuurrrr" while making a hand gesture... funny guy.

skål means cheers in swedish.

pictures!!!

bonjour! just incase you haven't seen/found them...there are a few pictures on our "and we're off" website. ju´st click on the slideshow to view some of our favorites so far...

wet and cold in sweden

john and i left gothenburg this morning. we actually stayed an extra day with inga and ulisess because it was just too hard to leave them! haha. they are such amazing people. it felt as if we were staying with old friends for a few days. the two days john and i were in gothenburg, we didn't get into the city until late afternoon becasue our breakfasts with the two of them would turn into hours of talking and laughing. it was really such a blessing to have met them. plus inga cut my hair which i didn't have time to do before i left....jackpot. when we left this morning it was cold and rainy (paulina, get on it!!!). it was awful. we were quite wet all day. i literally rung the water out of my socks when i took then off this evening...that's the worst! so we are treating ourselves to a stay at a hostel rather than our cold tents. this way hopefully most of our clothes will dry so they can just get wet again tomorrow! yeah it's supposed to rain in sweden until friday :( the west coast of sweden is actually gorgeous, it's unfortunate the weather is so lousy. the country is made up of many small islands in the north west... but i'm too mad that my toes are cold to appresiacte the beauty ;)

thanks for the comments!

i love reading them!!! also we had no idea if anyone would even be reading the blog... so thanks. keep commenting.

we're in sweden!!!!!

i haven't been able to get to a computer in a few days. i'm sure you have all been bitting your nails in suspense, so here's the update. john and i spent two days in copenhagen couch surfing with jakob and marie. the city was great(and carleen of course we saw the little mermaid, she says hello and loves you as well). the most impressive thing in the city which i was not aware of, nor had ever heard of is Christiana. look it up for more information, because it will take me too long to explain, but basically it is an old military camp that hippies have inhabited and been living in rent free since 1971. it's a whole different world once you walk intop the walls of Christiana! absolutely one of the most interesting experiances i've ever had!! after copenhagen we rode north into helsingor denmark were we camped for the night. the next morning we took a ferry into sweden. from helsingbor sweden we had well over 200km to ride and two days to get to gothenburg, the next city in which we would be couch surfing. it was two extremely intense days of riding. yesterday we rode almost 12 hours! we rode about 160km yesterday and 130 the previous day. my legs hurt!!! we had and extra 30km of riding because we are also hitting up every World Heritage Site along the way. we'll have seen 4 after sweden. so now we have two days in gothenburg sweden to rest a bit! we are couch surfing with Inga-Theraesa (who we refer to as mother theraesa, because she is so sweet!) and her boyfriend Ulysess who is equally as kind! couch surfing has been such a great experiance!!! i highly highly recomend it to anyone who ever travels. you get a perspective into a city and a culture that you just cannot get from a city tour. it's been so enjoyable so far. so john and i are going to go see the sites for a bit then meet up with our hosts for dinner!!!

side note...

i'm not blogging at 3:30 am as it states on the bottom of the posts. i'm actually posting these blogs 9 hours later than the time it's posting (blogger.com doesn't know i'm not in the US) ;)

copenhagen

it was so sad leaving torben and casper... i love them (yup... see you in LA). we got into a campsite near roskilde a little after 9pm and the office was colsed so we just found some grass and set up shop. we were good samaritans and payed on our way out! talk about good karma...on our way out of the camp site john got a flat tire and his bike pump wasn't working and of all the people to ride their bikes by us... a BIKE MECHANIC!!! what are the odds. someone is looking out for us. we rode about 70km to copenhagen where we are couch surfing with a couple marie and jakob. marie is french-canadiean and jakob is a danish. they are very sweet and fun people. today john and i walked the copenhagen all day. we haven't walked this much in a while. as i walked through the city i had flash backs from my trip here back in '02. (mom, anna, lynn...what do you remember about copenhagen??) anywho. tomorrow we will see a few more things in the city then start making our way to sweeden!!!