Gary Writes A Blog

I used to think Swedish was hard and English was easy. Now I’m not so sure…

Swedish: Tre häxor tittar på tre Swatch-klockor. Vilken häxa tittar på vilken Swatch-klocka?
English: Three witches watch three Swatch watches. Which witch watch which Swatch watch?

Swedish: Tre könsopererade häxor tittar på tre Swatch- klockknappar. Vilken könsopererad häxa tittar på vilken Swatch-klockknapp?
English: Three switched witches watch three Swatch watch switches. Which switched witch watch which Swatch watch switch? 

In the third and final installment of our thrilling series on my trip to Norway, we find out what we did on the Saturday. Did we survive, or am I writing this from beyond the grave? Read on to find out….

On the Saturday we got up at about 5:30, had breakfast and went down to the harbour to catch the ferry which sails up the Lysefjord. We got a bit of a guided tour as we passed under the pulpit rock which we had been to the day before and headed up the fjord to a place called Lysebotten. When we were close to Lysebotten we passed the highest mountain in the Fjord, called Kjerag. This was the mountain we were here to climb.

The mountain is 1110 meters high and is one of the favourite places for BASE jumpers from all over the world. These guys and girls strap on a parachute and take a run and jump over the edge.

While we were at the bottom, in the boat we saw half a dozen jumping from the highest part, free fall for 15 seconds, look like it was too late to pull the cord and then out came the parachute and they drifted safely to the bottom. It was exciting for the people in the boat, never mind those doing it.

Anyway, we took a bus up the edge of the mountain along a very alpine like, James Bond chase scene road and it dropped us at the beginning of the walk up Kjerag. It was a 5 hour round trip walk and if we missed the bus back we would miss the ferry and have to sleep at the bottom of the mountain.

The walk in was tough, we had to pull ourselves up the more “cliffy” parts by holding on to chains. The views were excellent though.

When we were about 3/4 of the way up we saw this guy strapping himself into a brightly coloured flight suit which had little wings underneath the arms and legs.

He got himself ready, moved to the side a little, composed himself then turned round and dived straight off the edge of the cliff (that yellow thing jumping off the cliff? That’s him, you can click the picture to make it bigger)

He disappeared and was nowhere to be seen for about 15 secs and then suddenly re-appeared using his wing suit to FLY across the fjord. He was flying relatively horizontally and until he got above the field/campsite in the picture below and then he pulled his parachute and 10 seconds later was on the ground. In the picture if you really squint, you can see a yellow spot flying over the sea about 1000m below. That’s him.

We carried on up the mountain to our goal, the famous Kjerag Bolt. This is a large boulder which has fallen into a crevasse at the top of the mountain. The boulder is roughly 2m by 2m and the drop either side is 1000m. Of course, the main attraction is to go and stand on it.

I was determined to go and stand on it, but I have to admit, when I was about to put my foot on it, I just couldn’t move. I was too feared. This is as close as I got and this was the view I saw…

Some people were a bit braver through…

We decided that having a nice sandwich was a better idea than standing on what we nick-named the “Rock of Death”, so we went to the plateau close by and had enjoyed the view.

It was a tough walk back and we only made it with 10 mins to spare. We slept most of the ferry and bus back to Stavanger, had a sauna again back at the hotel and then flew back to Stockholm the next day.

On Sunday we were at an open day in Ulriksdal park, which is just 10 mins walk from our flat. I found out many interesting things which I will keep up my sleeve and share when the opportunity presents itself for me to be a smart arse.

One of the things I learned about was that the little stream which flows through the park, Igelbäcken, is one of only 8 places in Sweden where you find the fish Grönling (better known to people from Scotland as a Bairdie or Stone Loach).

This type of fish is not native to Sweden and in fact was introduced from Asia by one of the kings when he used to live in Ulriksdal Palace. The reason it was introduced was because it is considered a delicacy when placed into a glass of Rice Schnapps (Sake) and allowed to die in the liquid before being eaten whole.

Unfortunately, a lack of rice schnapps prevented me from trying out one of the tasty treats…

Now I’m getting around to posting some of the pictures from day of our trip to Stavanger in Norway (from the second week in August). We took a lot of pictures…

The weather was great, blue skys and we went on a boat to visit the Pulpit Rock (Preikestolen). You start the hike up to the Pulpit Rock from sea level at the beginning of the Lysefjord.

The first part of the hike was meant to be the worst, but this was just to fool you. Actually about half way through it got a bit tough, but the views were getting nice…

As we got near the Pulpit Rock, the path got a wee bit narrow for the amount of people around…

After a couple of hours, we were at the Pulpit Rock. It’s quite a place, a 25sqm totally flat ledge that sticks out from the mountainside. Three sides of the ledge are sheer drops down 604m (1800 feet) into the sea. Once you get over the initial terror and desire to lie down as flat as possible (which takes about an hour) you can enjoy beautiful views up and down the fjord.

Of course, the thing to do is to sit right on the edge with your legs dangling over the side.

With the fun over and no fatalities, we headed back down the mountain and ended up eating fish cakes in Stavanger harbour. Back at the hotel, we took a sauna on the top floor with windows looking out over the sun setting over the city. Top day.

It seems there is a fine line between happiness and sadness.

In fact accoring to this piece of “research”, the fine line is the width of a council boundary. This survey aimed to find the happiest place in Britain and the results were that Edinburgh was the most miserable and that West Lothian was the 3rd most cheerful.

For those of you who don’t know, West Lothian is about a 15 min car drive from Edinburgh city. In the map below Edinburgh is number 14 and West Lothian is number 31.

So for all those miserable souls in Edinburgh, jealous of your happy go lucky next door neighbours, this one’s for you…

On Sunday we were in Djurgården watching the last of Parkteatern, free outdoor theater which has been playing in various parks throughout the summer.

After we came home, it was time to try out Maria’s sushi set that she got on her birthday. We had raw Salmon, Tuna and cooked prawn. And we made sockerkakor and had a couple of bottles of wine. Looks and tasted proffessional

I was searching for some php scripts for a little web project I am putting together when I saw a hangman game on a site. I gave it a go and I have to say the word was a little difficult…

Gonococcus. I looked it up in the dictionary and it said…

gon·o·coc·cus

The bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the causative agent of gonorrhea.

Isn’t hangman meant to be a childrens game, not a quiz for medical students?

I met a Chinese friend today and the talk got round to the Beijing Olympics and the fact that Michael Phelps had won 8 golds for the US in various swimming disciplines.

Kaiyu told me that people in China are joking that they should introduce more ping-pong disciplines such as ‘Right handed Ping-Pong’, ‘Left handed Ping-Pong’, ‘4 square meter table’, ‘8 square meter table’ etc. etc…

Carrying on the Norwegian theme, did anyone see this story about the Norwegian king knighting a penguin at Edinburgh zoo on Friday? Class video…

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/7563844.stm

Another busy weekend. On Thursday morning (very early) me, Maria, Henrik and Celeste took a trip to Arlanda and the flight to Stavanger in Norway.

We got there about lunch time and it was raining heavily. We were only there for a few days so decided to take a walk around the city. It dried up in the afternoon and we were able to walk around the town which is mostly made up of a harbour area, the catherdral area and lots and lots of wooden houses all painted white.

Just as it got to dinner time, the sun came out and the people came out onto the streets. It was very nice nice down at the harbour where we sat outside and had dinner. We were daft enough to order a beer though… £7 a pint!!! (Every sip was a painful experiance :))