Am writing on my laptop, will post on blog later. It's 8:52 on wednesday, and travelling up here is turning out to be more expensive and complicated than i thought. Not only are bus tickets quite pricey, but money seems to simply whoosh out through the neat double hole spelled by 'room' in 'room and board'. For instance, both in Nordreisa and here in Alta i couldn't find any free space at the couple of pensions and one youth hostel i walked to after getting off the bus. Apparently, there's quite a lot of tourism here at this time of year, and i should have made reservations... In particular, since wind chill was about -15 when i arrived yesterday night, i didn't get to check all the places i'd written down, and... Well, let's say that the only reason i can't really say i've been robbed is that the clerk at the reception wasn't actually holding a gun... Wouldn't have been surprised if she poked my eye out with her pen, though.
Tourist information office opens in half an hour; will ask them about bus schedules in Finnmark. According to what i found on the net, only way to get to Finland from here is through Karasjok, which i wouldn't mind visiting, except there is only one bus per day from Alta, and by the time it gets there, the daily connection to Finland has already left... Also, the only housing available in Karasjok seems to be this really fancy "Rica" hotel, which would again be heavy on the wallet... but which is also completely booked out for tonight, according to the website...
Dang it! I'd really like to visit Finland. Maybe i could even get to Oulu and surprise Anni... Let's see what they say at tourist info.
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It's now 11:50 and am at Alta library. At tourist info they confirmed i do indeed have to overnight in Karasjok if i want to get to Finland. Bus leaves Alta at 14:20, arrives in Karasjok at 18:55, and connection to Rovaniemi is tomorrow at 9:25 (finnish bus company goes by musical name of "Eskelisen Lapin Linjat" and their time table is labeled "aikataulu" which i don't really know the meaning of. "Time table", perhaps? Anyway, i love this abundance of vowels! It's a good change after consonant-heavy english & norwegian).
Guy at tourist info was friendly – and cute as hell! Big fat wedding ring on his finger, though. Funny how rings can be read as "KEEP OUT" signs... Perhaps that's the way they're supposed to function. Digression aside, he gave me this magazine with data about accommodation throughout Lapland, and it turns out there are places to stay in Karasjok other than the Rica Pocket Rippers from Hell Hotel. I rang "Annes Overnatting Motell og Hytter", and a single room at their place costs 300 kroner per night, which is not that bad. They're not near the bus station, but the man who answered said i should call him back when i'm about to arrive, and he'll go pick me up. Very nice of him, isn't it? Also, the whole conversation was in norwegian, and managed to say and understand everything i needed to! Am still in shock.
After that, i walked around the city for a little while. The temperature on the big digital panel outside one of the shopping centers reads -5, but again, it's quite windy today. There are very few people about, but i don't know if it's because of the weather, or simply because few people live here.
Couple of tableaux that made an impression: construction workers at a building site, going about their business in the sub zero air. Imagine having to work outside for months on end at such temperatures! I've seen this in Tromsø, too: road works that don't stop even when it's very cold, or snowing a lot. And yes, i know that noticing this kind of stuff says a lot more about where i come from than about life here. "There is no bad weather, only bad clothing", the norwegian saying goes, and although i've been hearing that for years, it's only been here in the north that it's finally sank in: people truly live by that rule!
Also, on my way to the library, i noticed an ambulance very badly parked right in front of a supermarket doorway, blocking it. I wondered if there'd been some kind of emergency inside. Then, from the library window, i saw the supermarket doors slide open, and out came the two paramedics, one after the other, dressed in red and fluo-green overalls with "Helse Finnmark" stamped in big white letters on their backs. They seemed to be in a hurry, each carrying a white styrofoam container... that obviously held their lunch. Before getting in, one of them spat on the icy sidewalk. This last gesture in particular seemed very undoctorish to me, but after all, why shouldn't a doctor spit? As long as he doesn't do it on his patients...
The library is very well stocked, and has a cozy atmosphere. I'm sitting at a table by a window from which i can see a forest of naked trees, rocking in the wind, and snowy mountains in the distance. I imagine some would call this landscape bleak. For me it's magical, though. Rough, but beautiful. And best of all, the feeling of being contained in this little pocket of warmth. It seems incredible, almost impossible, that nature should allow it.
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Ehm..... How dumb can a person be? More to the point: how dumb can I be? It's 15:06 and i'm indeed NOT on my way to Karasjok, nor will i continue to Finland tomorrow. Half an hour before the bus was to depart i decided to take a look at the map on the magazine i got from Cute Guy at tourist info, just to check the geography i would be moving through. As i was munching on my brødskive med øst and sipping from a warm cup of gløgg, i noticed on the map an unobtrusive black dot labeled 'Grensen', which of course, means 'Border'. "Good command of vocabulary, Mariano!", i said to myself, while my mind wondered how many passengers would be on the bus tomorrow, and how long the identity check would take...
...And that's when i remembered i don't have neither my passport nor my norwegian identity card with me. DUH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Guess this travel-on-a-whim thing only works if you pack at least some brains. Lacking that, one should at least have two bodies, so that one of them can kick the other's ass, which is exactly what i wanted to do to myself for a while there.
But, it passed. Yeah, i'll miss on Rovaniemi and Oulu (sorry, Anni!) but at least the system here is that one buys tickets on the bus, so i didn't lose the $. Plus, i'll be back some other time. Promise.
An additional upside is that i've walked to Bossekop, a little suburb of Alta, and found a nice little lodge to spend the night in, all rough-cut wood panels and overlooking the Alta fjord. They have a sauna, too, so i'll go there before dinner, then for a drink at the pub below. There's also this movie i downloaded while in Tromsø, "Crustacés e Coquillages", which i may watch before going to bed.
Tomorrow... Well, i don't know. Either keep going, or start going back...
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9 comments:
Hahaha Mariano on the wedding ring issue, I managed this summer to hit on a girl that was engaged ( and now I know to look at the hands before getting mesmerized by eyes:)
Enjoy life,
Nikola
OH MY GOD, Querido Mariano!!!
I don't know what to say! You know, when I read your first two paragraphs, I didn't figure out I shall read the WHOLE story and I was already typing a message to Vera to inform everyone here that you're coming! And I was about to pull out the matrice onto the floor so that it'll be here waiting for you, and I was panicking about my schedule for this week and next and cancelling my appointment for Friday and... huh, This was so close, Mariano! Our northern reunion... and as far as I know, they hardly ever check passports on the border since the border is hardly noticeable...
I'm speechless. My systolic pressure is going up and down for the excitement and intense reading of your post.
But I'm thankful that you had INTENTIONS to visit me! We'll figure out something and have a lovely rendez-vous at some point. But let me know in advance, since with a bit of planning you don't have to pay a single euro for accommodation down here - or anywhere inbetween this city and Tromsö! Take care! :)
Mariaaanooo!
You must come down to Pori :) And see the beauty and gloominess of south western finland..
will email you soon and update you a bit :)))
Dios mío Mariano, ¿dónde te has metido? Cuatro puntos que me han impactado de tu ir y no ir por la geografía finlandesa:
1) Recepcionistas con pistolas? No suena nada bien!! Y mucho menos un recepcionista por aquellas tierras de civilizados e índices criminales mínimos, desde luego lo que no te ocurra a ti…
2) Con respecto a los anillos… no estoy tan segura de que sean señales de KEEP OUT puesto que con estás modernices y excentricidades muchos ya no parecen ni de casados y una termina flirteando no sabe bien con quien, por eso mejor si no llevan anillos ni nada. Estoy con el del primer comentario: mirar a las manos siempre.
3) Que horror ese doctor escupiendo, me parece un gesto tan vulgar y horroroso, sobre todo en un par de amigos que lo han cogido como costumbre y no paran de escupir cada cinco minutos como si fuese una necesidad vital… ahhhggg!!! El médico se cargo con su escupitajo la magia del paisaje….
4) Dato básico del viajero SIEMPRE LLEVAR EL PASAPORTE!!!! Después de tantos años viajando parece mentira que te lo dejases atrás, eso siempre debe estar en la maleta, cuando uno viaja no sabe donde puede terminar llegando sobre todo cuando los planes son espontáneos como los tuyos.
Aunque bueno, en algún punto tú quisiste ir a visitar el lugar de rodaje de Los amantes del Círculo Polar y la moraleja de este viaje es que como en la película, tú mismo has vivido tu círculo de casualidades e incidentes; porque la vida planeada o no sólo es eso: una sucesión de casualidades.
Acá seguimos con mucho frío y viento también pero bien, apasionándome a esto de los blogs que es como vivir la vida día a día con los que estáis lejos. Supongo que ya escribirás el desenlace de tu viaje, mientras tanto abrígate y pásatelo muy bien. Un beso muy grande.
Lore
I shared my experiences with a Mahindra graduate and we agreed that you indeed WON'T need a passport whatsoever when crossing the border!
I had "confimation camp" in Lapland when I was 15 and we travelled up to Skibotn - half of the group had neither passport nor ID card and I guess some of them had just taken the ID card of their big siblings with them - hoping to be look-alikes.
If you cannot find a bus connection via Alta, you can travel from Tromsö down to Sweden, through Kiruna and then to Tornio in Finland, and then to Uleåborg... Btw, Eskelisen Lapin Linjat means "Eskelinen's Lapland Lines". Good luck with the rest of your adventure, I wish you could make it all the way down here!
You really should try "www.couchsurfing.com" or else just sleep at the trainstations...btw, you rarely need a passport on you when travelling inside Europe...Do you think it is the third world ;-)
a final note; you should try this...
http://kevan.org/johari?name=MQF
Chau!
You really should try "www.couchsurfing.com" or else just sleep at the trainstations...btw, you rarely need a passport on you when travelling inside Europe...Do you think it is the third world ;-)
a final note; you should try this...
http://kevan.org/johari?name=MQF
Chau!
Hey guys! Thanks for all the comments + advice + well, everything... Anni & Vera, my apologies. I just got on a bus on monday eve without any plans as to where to go... And voilá the results. My not taking any id with me is, i suppose, and indication that i have indeed gotten used to living in a country where it's safe to actually not have an id on you, Mads... On the other hand, i still think it'd have been even stupider of me to attempt to cross the border without any document attesting at least my nationality. Yeah, they might not have asked for anything... but what if they had? Or if they did on the way back? Once a whole train was detained for 30 min. at the french-italian border just 'cause my italian passport was made at an italian consulate in Argentina rather than in Italy itself... And this was already in EU times. Plus, you know, i'm dark haired, have a week-old beard, a scar on my cheek, dress like a bum, and my norwegian sucks; even if they didn't ask anybody else's, they would probably have asked me for my passport...
In any case, i saw a bit of Finnmark, and still have 4 more weeks here in Tromsø, so i might still get to Finland via the Swedish route you suggest, Anni. Pori though... That's on the other end, Vera! You'd have to come up to us! Oulu is kinda midway. What do you say? ;-)
Nikola & Lore, agreed, hands must be checked for signs of knot-tieing, but even if they exist, there's still such a thing as aesthetic pleasure, you know? Just 'cause you love looking at a painting at a museum doesn't mean you're gonna pluck it off the wall and run away with it... Just don't stare too obviously, that's all (gosh, the things you people make me write!).
Lore, la recepcionista no tenía una pistola... Digo nomás que me cobraron tanto por una noche de hotel, que como si la hubiera tenido...
Contemporary I would' ve used ChickHen to show particularly firmware to his psp but he updated to 5.55. So I was wondering if the Half Byte Loader program would be able to disparage the 5.50 D3 installer at all, since I noticed the program is beta and apparently as sundry problems sinistral, covet enough to flame firmware without bricking his psp.
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