oslo

gobybus bus cruised into the bus terminalen in oslo just around dusk. i had to check the internet place cos i forgot to write my host's address in oslo... so first to the overhead walkway to the shopping centre for a spot of busking... within half an hour i had made 100kroner. emails checked, tourist office found to get a map, and then the walk through the harbour dockyards and the main road and finally i locate my hosts in oslo. rosy and her 2-year daughter live in an ex-squat, a big yellow wooden house on ormsundsvej, about 3kms from the city centre. she and her flatmates made me feel very welcome even though they were in the middle of big renovation works to the first floor kitchen and hallway, and the other rooms on that floor. i got to stay in the wagon in the back yard, it was a bit cold the first couple of nights until i got the wood-burning stove going... and then it was like a sauna! i helped out as much as i could, learning how to plaster with an ecological clay and sand mix, fixing the electrics in their bogs. busking-wise, apart from the stint near the bus-terminalen, busking was a slow affair. many many gypsy beggars sitting on every corner it seemed, and when i did find a good spot, not many drops. every busking stint, the hard skin on my hands would dry up more and the crack on my right hand would open up again. painful drumming. i met up very briefly with marit for a coffee the evening of my first full day... strange to see her without her dreads. and then i woke up one morning from the wagon and decided i would go to copenhagen. i checked my mail one last time and got one from sigve... he wasn't in oslo, he was in copenhagen, and was inviting me to a party. "i'm on my way", i wrote back. so i said my goodbyes to rosy and the others, and as their place was not far from the main road south out of oslo, i only had a minute's walk to the hitching point to gothenburg.

it was a long wait, i was asking at the petrol station from time to time and then waiting at the entrance road, and after three hours of waiting, i finally got a lift. andreas and his son were driving south to sweden, with a stopover at stromstad. andreas was from germany and living in norway for some years now, working as an engineer. he was telling me his theories about how the nordic folks were really difficult to get to know as friends. i drummed for them now and then, before andreas agreed to drop me off in the centre of gothenburg. he was driving 100kms further but to the middle of nowhere place, where from bitter past experience, i knew better not to try hitching from such places! not that i had better luck from gothenburg in the past, but if i did get stuck, i could always do some busking and take the bus.