Ok, here it is:
There and Back Again
A travellers description of a journey from western Norway to eastern Norway, and back.
Ok so I start out at 18.00 (6 pm) Thursday. (Due to my semi vampiric nature I travel best at night, but this time of year it is daylight for too long for me to wait for the sunset. So wearing a thick layer of suncream I sally forth, heading southeast.
Traveling in Rogaland (my home fylke - fylke being the Norwegian version of a shire) is very nice and easy, with good roads and few cops.
Then, after a while I cross into Vest Agder, the next fylke. Vest Agder is like Rogaland lite. Until you get to Kristiansand. From there on you have those nice traffic control cameras. And as a result of this, and my not being able to afford a speeding ticket (they are really high in Norway), I grow more and more paranoid, paying more attention to the speedometer than the rest of the traffic.
Now if you think traveling in Vest Agder is bad, you haven't tried driving in Aust Agder. During the 80s and 90s there were a lot of accidents in that fylke, and the guys in charge of Aust Agder traffic decided that something drastic had to be done. So they lowered all the speed limits by 10 km/h.
This results in a lot of frustration, cause all your instinkts tells you that this should be an 80 sone. But it isn't. It's a 70 sone.
So in addition to the cameras, you now have to drive unnaturally slow. I mean what's the point in having a motorway (highway) if you can only go in 80 km/h on it?
Somewhere in Aust Agder I had a nap. I mean, that is about the only thing you can do there.
Going east and out of Aust Agder things go back to normal. Well the cameras from the kinky people in the traffic police are still there, but atleast you can legally drive in 100 km /h.
Sooner or later you get to Drammen. A very boring town. One of it's great sons, Herodes Falsk (Herod the False) (yes, I know. Indeed.) once called it a hole in E18, and that indeed sums it up for Drammen. Around the world there are citys and towns with toll rings around them of environmental reasons, road financing reasons or pure greed. All of them have in common that you have to pay to get in to the town. All, that is, exept Drammen. In Drammen you have to pay to get out. Well actually now they have discovered how pathetic this is, and removed the toll ring altogether.
I managed to hit Oslo - Norways capitol - during the rush hour. This is not as bad as it used to be. You see whenever Norwegians hit a traffic problem we have one universal solution: We dig a tunnel!
There is a big mountain where our new road should be?
Feck it, we dig a tunnel.
There is a special pice of landscape or natural reserve?
No problem, we dig a tunnel.
There are tons upon tons of water?
...you get the picture.
So when a town or city is clogged up with traffic, we dig tunnels underneath it that allow you to pop up at your destination without sitting in a jam for hours on end. (Actually that is the one redeeming feature of Drammen: It has some of the best tunnels in the world, with interesting sculptures in them and stuff).
So the ground under Oslo is a Swiss Cheese, with subways and tunnels and whatnot.
Up in relatively fresh air on the other side of Oslo I carry on for about an hour until I get to Langhus where my whife (we are seperated) and children live. For more on what happened there go to my "pics" section.
Monday I returned home, which was like going there, but in opposite order, so read the above backwards for the return tripp.
Right now I am a bit on edge cause my cat is about to have kittens any day now.
Wish us luck.
There and Back Again
A travellers description of a journey from western Norway to eastern Norway, and back.
Ok so I start out at 18.00 (6 pm) Thursday. (Due to my semi vampiric nature I travel best at night, but this time of year it is daylight for too long for me to wait for the sunset. So wearing a thick layer of suncream I sally forth, heading southeast.
Traveling in Rogaland (my home fylke - fylke being the Norwegian version of a shire) is very nice and easy, with good roads and few cops.
Then, after a while I cross into Vest Agder, the next fylke. Vest Agder is like Rogaland lite. Until you get to Kristiansand. From there on you have those nice traffic control cameras. And as a result of this, and my not being able to afford a speeding ticket (they are really high in Norway), I grow more and more paranoid, paying more attention to the speedometer than the rest of the traffic.
Now if you think traveling in Vest Agder is bad, you haven't tried driving in Aust Agder. During the 80s and 90s there were a lot of accidents in that fylke, and the guys in charge of Aust Agder traffic decided that something drastic had to be done. So they lowered all the speed limits by 10 km/h.
This results in a lot of frustration, cause all your instinkts tells you that this should be an 80 sone. But it isn't. It's a 70 sone.
So in addition to the cameras, you now have to drive unnaturally slow. I mean what's the point in having a motorway (highway) if you can only go in 80 km/h on it?
Somewhere in Aust Agder I had a nap. I mean, that is about the only thing you can do there.
Going east and out of Aust Agder things go back to normal. Well the cameras from the kinky people in the traffic police are still there, but atleast you can legally drive in 100 km /h.
Sooner or later you get to Drammen. A very boring town. One of it's great sons, Herodes Falsk (Herod the False) (yes, I know. Indeed.) once called it a hole in E18, and that indeed sums it up for Drammen. Around the world there are citys and towns with toll rings around them of environmental reasons, road financing reasons or pure greed. All of them have in common that you have to pay to get in to the town. All, that is, exept Drammen. In Drammen you have to pay to get out. Well actually now they have discovered how pathetic this is, and removed the toll ring altogether.
I managed to hit Oslo - Norways capitol - during the rush hour. This is not as bad as it used to be. You see whenever Norwegians hit a traffic problem we have one universal solution: We dig a tunnel!
There is a big mountain where our new road should be?
Feck it, we dig a tunnel.
There is a special pice of landscape or natural reserve?
No problem, we dig a tunnel.
There are tons upon tons of water?
...you get the picture.
So when a town or city is clogged up with traffic, we dig tunnels underneath it that allow you to pop up at your destination without sitting in a jam for hours on end. (Actually that is the one redeeming feature of Drammen: It has some of the best tunnels in the world, with interesting sculptures in them and stuff).
So the ground under Oslo is a Swiss Cheese, with subways and tunnels and whatnot.
Up in relatively fresh air on the other side of Oslo I carry on for about an hour until I get to Langhus where my whife (we are seperated) and children live. For more on what happened there go to my "pics" section.
Monday I returned home, which was like going there, but in opposite order, so read the above backwards for the return tripp.
Right now I am a bit on edge cause my cat is about to have kittens any day now.
Wish us luck.
scandi_rose:
yep sounds like a road trip to me. one of these days we'll have to drive it together . 