Rock Concerts & Car Crashes

We got quite a late start catching the ferry from Moskenes to Bodø. After dinnering to Bodø we planned to stay at a camping and guesthouse place in the middle of nowhere, called Lusøy I think. Upon arriving there, though, we discovered a goddamn week long music festival taking place right exactly where we had planned to sleep. It was fairly late at this point and we couldn't keep going because we had to catch a ferry that didn't operate again until the next morning. We therefore had little choice but to join in the party. We couldn't enter the concert grounds because entry was something stupid like 600 crowns (~$A 120), but there turned out to be plenty going on outside. Specifically, most of the locals were getting so drunk that they couldn't even move, and we were getting offered beer and moonshine from all directions. I slept in the car at about 3:30, but Mike just stayed up all night. As a consequence, I had to do most of the driving the next day on our way to Trondheim.

When we finally arrived in Trondheim, we didn't have the address of our hostel, which was called the "Trondheim InterRail Center". We presumed it would be near the central train station, so we began trying to find that. The traffic conditions in the city were pretty bad. In particular, often there was only one traffic light visible when nearing an intersection and often that was in the opposite corner to where your car is. So at one point I'm rounding a corner, doing maybe 40, when the sun jumps into my eyes. I squinted and spotted a red traffic light at the end of the corner, just as Mike simultaneously yelled "Dude! Red!". I hit the brakes and we pulled up pretty sharply (but nowhere near locking them up) and ended up a foot or two over the line. Mike had time to turn to me and say something like "Be more careful, that wasn't cool", before there was an almighty squeal behind us and a car drove into the back of us doing maybe 30, 35 kph.

The car was pretty undamaged. The lower back panel would need replacing, but that's plastic anyway, and the underlying metal was bent a little. The car was definitely 100% driveable. We pulled around the corner and got the guy's details. Even though I'd driven a bit unsafely, it was of course pretty clear that it was his fault, what with us being stationary at a red light at the time of the crash. He also mentioned that this was his "third accident this year". To be fair, that doesn't necessarily reflect badly on him given the stunning driving we saw in the rest of our time in Trondheim. One time, we were travelling down a main road, when another guy moving in the same direction as us stops, slams it in reverse, and starts reversing down the road at us. Another time, Mike was approaching a red light at which several cars are stopped, when suddenly one just hallucinates that the light has turned green or something, and hits the gas and heads through the red. But my favourite is complicated enough that it requires an mspaint diagram:



We had tried to turn left out of the side road when we noticed the obstacle blocking our path. Mike tried to swing around in a U-turn as shown by the arrow. However, the car in front of us was blocking the turn - but they had space to move forward, which would enable us to make the turn. Mike hooted the horn and the driver of the other car turned around and acknowledged us with a nod. Then, she.... slammed it into reverse and started reversing towards the front of our car. Mike and I both just gaped at this for a second or two, after which Mike had the presence of mind to throw the car into reverse and move backwards. He later admitted that had there been a car behind us, he might well have hit it, because he didn't have time to check. Had he not moved when he did, I think there's a very good chance we'd have been hit, maybe 75 or 80 percent.

When we eventually made it to our hostel, we found it located in the local university student building, which was absolutely massive. The dorms were massive and kind of dirty and the bathrooms very limited and also dirty, but we didn't mind because it was a really cool place. The bar there was great. We hung out in a local guy's apartment, listening to his extensive music collection, then later I slept and Mike headed out on the town. When he finally got back at like 3:30, the door to the hostel was locked. Mike therefore decided to climb in an open window and found himself in a locked private bar, so he just helped himself to the party supplies in there and used the internet until someone came and let him out in the morning. Trondheim was a great town, maybe my favourite in Scandinavia.

After two nights in Trondheim we continued towards Stockholm, stopping for a quiet night in a nice hostel in Sundsvall. We hit Stockholm on the 8th, setting up camp in a very centrally located budget hotel.