Thursday 28 July 2011

Rolling on. In the deep : p

I was right, in my odd, wrong way: today was a good day. We drove for a little bit longer than innitially schemed, but it was an easy ride. The weather remains Norse, raining every time I mentioned making pancake at a stop for lunch. We passed Trondheim, making a short movie about it so mum can see it, and Lillehammer, where we at first planned to go see the museums and the Olympic ski jump thingie, but, ahain, it was way too drizzly for creaturencomforts. Instead, I began reaing Gosta Berling to the boys,teaching myself how not to be sick if reading in the car. (Looks like it's working.) They liked it so much - even if it is neither of their's cup of tea - that they wanted me to read another chapter or two even after they retired to their bunks. I am very fond of that book, because it uses that perfect sort of fantastic realism that I favor above all other genres, and the boys like it becausenit's naughty. The kid likesnthe idea of Devil dropping in on drinking feasts, whereas General, spending way too much time with my father, has learned to read sex between the lines. That being said, I am horny as hell. Alas, no go in these circumastances.
       We woke up today in quite a hurry, hearing rain over our tent. Tonight, we chose not to risk it and found a neat cottage in a small camp - all camps seem to be full, which I find to be kind of wonderful, as I like people noise a lot - and these cottages are so super cute. This one is even nicer than the first one - it is more spatious, it has a tiny dining corner, a tiny kitchen corner, some cuttlery and lots of reading lamps. I finally managed to make pancakes and just to make sure I finally poo after four days, Idrank lots of milk on top of it. Boy, did I poo.   o.O.  : p
     Keeping General in check is a full-time job. If I allowed him to drink Red Bull and drive all the time, he would probably get sick in a week's time. I have to pace him with all my might, even if he is cranky for it. He would say 'I can drive for at least five hours more!', until I would yell at him: Well, I can' t! and make him pancakes, which he would have to be forcefed, and force-drank the water, and five minutes later, he would pass out. Afterwards, I can switch off and just write or read or play a game... The sun here doesn't set until around eleven, which can be tricky. If I look outside the hut window, campers and their kids are playing with their dogs as if it's seven.
      Tomorow we have to get up fresh and try to make it to Narvik, though above all else, we have to try and shower. It's remarcable how hungry one gets for not doing anything, and how tired for just sitting in a cushy car, and din't even get me started on how smelly. 
It would be pointless to explain what wondrous sights we've seen, as zou would have to know how to dream about tundra and love vast boggy plains, but it will be easier, much, when I just show you the pickies ;)

Day five

Not the best day for Steampunk. Although I came up with a cute plot for its story, and the ride was lovely, we did get a flat tire (got to give it to the car: it never even swayed when it happened) and in a tunel later on, hit a pair of torn electrical cables hanging off.. Nothing too terrible a damage (General is not the type to panic when the going gets tough, but we do kind of worry we drove 4000 km to the most expensive country in Europe just to purchase a new wheel).. We crossed some of the coolest terrains. I don't just mean that metaphorically - we literally breached the Arctic circle (got the gift shop souvenirs to prove it, too... :p ). There are tundra regions, tajga, birch forests, broken birches forests, toonhigh for trees moss and lichen areas and coastlines, most of which are wormholled by ugly, ugly tunels. Just for the tunels General is considering driving home by another route. Personally I am closer to the devil I know. 
    Two, three more days? There may be a bit of a glitch in our plan, as I failed to notice there's a gap in the road that we fear is a ferry (and there are no alternative routes...) so we may not be able to entirely avoid unecessery costs. The itinerary also miscalculated the path by about a 1000 miles, so we have to see what we can do about that. 
      Tonight we slept in another camp cottage, amidst mosquitos (that spray thingie actually works!!) and seaguls. We are in a gulf and in the morning we picked seashells and took photos of fish skeletons. I know it doesn't sound like a high of any trip, but for some reason the sea is soothing and there is something homely about it. There are high mountains behind us, with caps of heavy, deep gray clouds, but before us is the ocean and it's crisp and bright.  And the tiny villages here are so scarce, you really don't ignore an offer for a free internet :p

0 comments: