Poitiers

On Monday I went to Poitiers, the administrative capital of the neighbouring Poitou-Charentes region about an hour away by train, to meet up with Ella, a French student from Hertford who is a language assistant there.

As a town, Poitiers is immensely dull. In size it is smaller than Tours, which is about the size of Oxford or Luton, with few things to do in the city centre. On the other hand, it was great meeting up with Ella and chatting. We were never more than acquaintances at Oxford: the amount of time I spent talking to her on Monday was probably greater than the amount of time we’d ever talked to one another before. However we did get along well; we would exchange small talk before classes and I could always count on Ella to sign a few letters for Amnesty. She seemed reasonably content overall in Poitiers, except for a few minor issues such as we all have on our year abroad. I was also immensely jealous to learn that she was accommodated by her school in a spacious room with a large common area and kitchen for a mere €135/month! Although the furnishings are a little weird and she has no internet, this is amazing.

I got home from Poitiers, ate, then went out to the Cafe des langues, where we assistants usually meet each Monday evening. However, as it was the holidays, nobody I knew was there! Initially I was disconcerted but then the whole point of the night is to meet new people. I ended up talking to a Libyan with a crazy accent about Gaddafi and then met a young French-Pakistani woman who knows one of my students. Overall this was pretty brilliant.

 

Nantes

Yesterday, I went to Nantes with two German assistants. Nantes is quite a bit further down the Loire, nearly on the Atlantic, and took about two hours to get to by train. It’s also the sixth largest city in France and as such made a very nice contrast with Poitiers; it was very lively, and we actually didn’t have enough time to see everything we wanted. There’s a Chateau there where the Dukes of Brittany used to live when it was independent, which we visited, before heading to “The Machines of the Island”. This is a fantastically innovative development taking place on an island in the Loire. There are three parts, of which one has already been completed: a GIGANTIC MECHANICAL ELEPHANT. Yes, you read that right. It is three stories tall, moves it trunk and ears, and even has eyelashes. Furthermore, about forty people can sit on it at once and it takes them for rides around the island! I am so fantastically enthralled by this elephant that I can barely express myself. All cities have become so similar, with such similar attractions, that something extraordinary like this really enthuses me, and perhaps even makes me feel brighter about humanity in general and our capacity for invention and fantasy in particular. Unfortunately we couldn’t go on a ride because of the nasty weather – lots of wind and rain – but we still saw him. The two other parts of the island should be ready by 2010 and 2016 respectively; the former is a GIGANTIC carousel with several levels composed of various sea creatures, the latter a GIGANTIC metal tree covered in plants with two metallic herons on top which visitors will be able to sit on and, allegedly, fly around the tree on. So, Nantes is definitely worth checking out in the near future.

I also had a delicious Nantais meal – some regional fish for the main and something called crème nantaise which the restaurant may have invented.

The last thing we did was go to a chocolate exposition which was random and a bit of a rip-off, although we did each quite a bit of chocolate.

So yes, despite the quasi-tempest, I really enjoyed Nantes, as did the two girls (who, tangentially, sang Ode to Joy for me). We didn’t have enough time there though, so I will definitely have to go back some time.

8 days of Norway have ended. I am convinced I should live in Norway now; it is by far the best and most beautiful country I have ever been to. Endless photos will be added to facebook soon, and you're advised to look there if you feel some bizarre desire to know about my trip. Here follows a blog that will be entirely too detailed for anybody other than me to enjoy; it will exist mainly to supplement my abysmal memory. So... read it if you want, but be warned.

Arrival in Trondheim - Tuesday 8th September

I flew in on a plane that was largely empty; there were only about 40 people on it, I think. This means I got a window seat. The difference between Britain and Norway from the air is immediately perceptible: every single scrap of Britain is put to use as farmland if it isn't a conurbation. Even tiny islands in the middle of rivers or in the sea are farmed somehow. Flying in above Trondheim, all I could see were forested hills and rivers. It was enchanting.

Getting off at Trondheim was unsettling as it was so empty at the airport - ours was the only plane there. There was one guy checking passports, a couple of people working in duty free, and a couple of security guards; other than this, the place was empty, and a lot of it seemed shut. Kristian later told me that he once came off a plane and went to the loo; when he came back out, everybody had left and the place locked up. It certainly made a stark difference to Stansted Airport or life anywhere in crowded Britain, but that's what you get in a country with 1.5 times the land and 1/13th the population of the UK, I guess.

Anywho, Kristian (Oxford maths geek, half-Norwegian) met me at the airport, along with his dad, who drove us to his house, which was made of wood, heated by a giant stove and surrounded on all sides by garden. I met his mum and dog too, and his sister turned up later. They were all incredibly welcoming and made me feel most hygellig. I spent the evening settling in, talking with family, taking the dog on a walk to the fjord with Kristian, reading the Qur'an (his mum is a priest and thus had lots of religious books) and playing age of empires.


Trondheim and Hell - Wednesday 9th September

Wednesday morning was spent wondering around Trondheim and later Hell in on-and-off rain after a filling breakfast of caviar / salmon / salad-with-meat on toast. I had a look at the cathedral and Archbishop's residence before we went into the War and Resistance Museum, which had some amusing propaganda from the Nazi occupation. Then we looked at the older parts of town, the harbour and a geeky shop selling board games and Miyazaki-soot slippers. Wooden houses are pretty. I was also struck by how, even in the heart of the city, the wilderness was never far away and you could always see the hills and forests around you.

Hell was only on the menu because of its name, being a small village of about 300 people. The train ride up was quite stunning, following the length of the Trondheimsfjord. In Hell, Kristian noticed a sign in Norwegian pointing to rock carvings; we followed it to find stone-age carving of animals in the middle of a small wooded hill. We then climbed a bit higher before making sure we left to get our train back to Trondheim. I think this was the night that MahJong happened with his mum and I failed miserably.

Hiking - Thursday

On Thursday, Kristian and I went hiking in the wilderness not far from his house. We drank from a stream, which amazed me as I'd never consider doing that in England. However, as he pointed out, there just wasn't that much opportunity for streams to get polluted in Norway. His sister later said it's probably the best water I'd ever get; it certainly was nice. Anyway, we ended up hiking up a large hill and looking back over Trondheim, which was a good view only partially spoiled by electrical pylons. Unfortunately we saw no moose.

Journey to Åndalsnes - Friday

Friday saw Kristian and me take the train to Åndalsnes, a small town of about 3000 people used mainly as a base for exploring mountains. The four hour train ride was stunning and saw me mainly glued to the window, staring at gigantic mountains, pleateuas, moors, streams and rivers. Unfortunately the photos didn't come out brilliantly, but it was amazing watching Norway go by. Apparently we passed through a national park containing musk oxen, although I presume they hide when trains come by. I was amazed to see train stations in the middle of Norway with no houses anywhere around; Kristian said there were probably a handful of people in the vicinity. I was also amazed to see tiny square farms in the middle of huge forests and wilderness.

When we got to Åndalsnes, we walked to our hostel. It was my first time in a hostel and made a very, very good impression. Kristian and I were the only people in the 6 person room, and there was barely anybody else around, so it was very comfortable. We went back to town for dinner at a Chinese place and then headed to bed.

Trollstigen - Saturday

On Saturday we hired bikes and cycled something like 60km up and down mountains in the pouring rain, as you do. Trollstigen, a crazy road built up a mountain, was breath-taking, as were the views from it. It took us 3 3/4 hours to get all the way up, walking much of it as we were too feeble to cycle up the road, and I at least got entirely drenched, but it was definitely worth it for the views along the way. On the way back, we also stopped to look at Trollveggen, a giant wall of vertical rock, before heading back to Åndalsnes for soup, pasta, chocolate desserts, scrabble, chinese chequers and meeting a German who came into our room.

Ålesund - Sunday

On Sunday we parted ways. Kristian went back to Trondheim, and I went on alone to Ålesund. This entailed waking up about 5, getting a bus at 5:50, arriving at 8 and leaving at 9pm. This was entirely too long to spend in Ålesund, especially considering all the public toilets were shut for some reason, none of the supermarkets open on Sundays and it rained all morning.

By the end of the day, I didn't actually dislike Ålesund that much, surprisingly. It's a pleasant enough place, although admittedly it could easily be covering in 5 hours rather than 13. It was nice to stroll around, look at the Art Nouveau architecture, fountains and statues (including one of Rollo, ancestor of William the Conqueror, who was from the area) and climb a terrifying hill (you should have seen the cracked, dodgy steps) to look back over the city and fjords. I also succeeded in holding conversations in Norwegian, woo!

At 9pm, I dutifully caught the bus to Oslo and went to sleep not too long afterwards.

Arrival in Oslo - Monday

I arrived in Oslo at 6:30am, but check-in wasn't until 3pm. I therefore went straight to Vigeland park, which was utterly mad. Essentially, Vigeland was a slightly crazy sculptor who was given accommodation by Oslo on condition that he donate all his statues to the city upon his death. The park is filled with scores of the oddities. I've photographed a good selection, but they were all quite fantastic and even moving.

Afterwards I had a quick poke around the town hall, was was disappointed to find you couldn't go inside (and see murals by Edvard Munch) due to elections. I wandered around central Oslo for a bit, looking at Karl Johans Gate (the main road) and the Storting (houses of parliament, literally "Big Thing"). Lots of people were canvassing votes, so I made a point of glaring at the uber-capitalist party (who came second overall). Then I headed over to the Akershus castle complex, looked at the castle and popped into the Resistance museum (I am slightly obsessed with world war 2), which I found somewhat underwhelming. Unable to locate the War museum, I went and checked in to my hostel, which was not brilliant, but could have been worse. After dinner, I popped out to look at Oslo's rock carvings (decidedly inferior to Hell's) and then the National Opera Building, which was a pleasant shape.

When I got back, more people had piled into the room until it was as full capacity. This wasn't really a problem though; I slept soundly both nights and met interesting people (an Australian, an American, a German, a Swiss and an Englishman). I am fairly fond of the hostelling experience.

Oslo madness - Tuesday

I had a busy day on Tuesday. I woke up and took a bus to the Viking Ship museum all the way on a peninsula on the far side of town. I got there about 9am and looked at viking artifacts (cool) and two viking longboats (exceedingly cool and perfectly preserved for over 1100 years). It's amazing to think they made journeys across the Atlantic in these tiny things.

I took the ferry back to the mainland, then went back to looking around Karl Johans Gata. Both the Cathedral and the University (also containing Munch paintings) were closed, which was frustrating, but on the plus side there was much else to do. Along one part of Karl Johans Gata, quotes by Henrik Ibsen were laid into the ground. I sorely wished I understood more Norwegian, but the few I could make sense of were all good quotes.

The Museum of Cultural History was my next goal. The sections on Norway in the Viking ahnd Middle ages were superb, displaying stave churches and the insides of churches. The other floors seemed like a random collection of artifacts from around the world. There were some very cool photo displays, but the overall effect was one of jumbledness.

The King's Palace was quite pleasant. It's set in a giant park and, typical of Norway, the park is completely open to the public with no gates or anything. Then I went over to the National Gallery, where this openness and lack of crime further exhibited itself in the way none of the paintings were really protected in any way - they just sat there, hanging on the walls. In fact, Munch's Scream and Madonna have both been stolen in the past, and only these two paintings were protected by screens, whereas Picasso and Cézanne, for example, for free for all to steal. Anyway, the gallery was pleasant, the highlight being the Scream (of which I bought a print, finally realising my desire of possessing a suitable poster), but there was a lot of magnificent Norwegian landscape painting too. The other activity of the day was the War Museum, which was quite interesting, but by the end of the day I was utterly exhausted and had an early night.

Homeward Bound - Wednesday

On Wednesday morning I took a ferry to Hovedøya island. A five minute ferry ride from Oslo, the island combines two nature reserves, the ruins of a monastery and some cool cannons from the 1800s. It was hard to believe how close I was to Oslo, and nice to get away from what's probably the only place in Norway with some hustle and bustle for a short time. After getting back to the mainland, I just wandered around the poorer sector of Oslo before heading to Aker Brygge (a very expensive / fashionable part), soaking in the sun, and then heading back home.

Overall, it was a very worthwhile trip. Norway is beautiful and enchanting (as is the language) and I still think I would like to live there eventually - in fact, perhaps even more now that I've seen what it's like.