Dave's Travel Journals
Goats on the Roof
Oslo, Norway: June 7, 2000
By Dave Fox
My last attempt at sending a group message several days ago in Sweden
was squelched when my e-mail gadget freaked out on me at 1 in the morning
and the message I had been working on for the last 30 minutes got sucked
into a murky void somewhere in a microchip. I have been squandering my
few hours a day of free time on selfish things like sleep.
This "fact finding" tour I've been on has gone well, despite the fact
that I am really just wanting the comfort of a straight jacket and a padded
room at this point. From Ærø, we dove into new territory
in southern Sweden. Kalmar is a very cool town by the sea with cobblestone
streets and a groovy castle.
Our drive into Stockholm was complicated by thousands of people running
the Stockholm marathon. We didn't totally know the best way to get to
the hotel to begin with. Having half the streets in central Stockholm
flooded with runners added to the challenge but we made it.
Yesterday was a LONG drive to Oslo, with a picnic stop in Drøbak.
This morning, Sonja talked me into climbing many hundreds of steps to
the top of the Holmenkollen ski jump, the Eiffel Tower of Oslo. I survived
but my legs are very very angry at me now.
On Friday we head into the mountains... a part of Norway I've never seen,
where rumor has it we will be staying in a hotel with live goats on the
roof. (The goats are up there to munch on the grass that grows on the
roof.) Then we splash through the fjords, hike a glacier, and finish up
in Bergen.
Tonight, a rare "free night," I plan to slip unseen by tour members into
Peppe's Original American Pan Pizza restaurant. I will resist the urge
to hide behind the salad bar with a slice of curry-marinated shrimp pizza
(mmmm) for the rest of the tour. It's called a "Moby Dick." I'm not quite
sure why they have named a shrimp pizza after a whale... but I have no
time to philosophize on that topic right now.
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