Stamsund!!!

Monday, August 13
The Hurtigruten arrived in Stamsund around 9:30 PM. We began the 2 km walk to the hostel thinking we'd missed it along the way...but not, it was just really far. I've never been so happy to see something.


This is the first thing I took a pic of in Stamsund, some old guy cleaning up a fish he'd caught.


By the way, this is without a flash and around 10:30-11:00 PM. It was actually a bit brighter outside.


The side of the hostel... that's real fish drying on a rack. Right after that we ran into Roar, the hostel owner with the toughest name ever and he motioned for us to go up the hill made of rocks, so we did.


Thanks Roar!


This is around midnight.


"The land of the midnight sun" except that it happens in June, so it just didn't get dark.


Us looking kind of scary.


We got beds in the girl's dorm. Apparently Roar looks at you when you get there and decides which room to put you in.


Tuesday, August 14


The view out our window. The hostel is literally on the water.


The other window.


See?


We walked down to the peer and saw where the Hurtigruten come in. Watching them come in is a local past time.


Town.


The water and stuff... it was just amazing.

I looked over the way and saw this:

"Why?"




Ina took this and smelled up her bag with it.


Rorbuer are fishing huts by the water, our hostel used to be one of those.
We got some groceries and headed back to the hostel...where we had to pay $2 for 4 minutes of hot water.



The hostel again. We have like 100 pics of this place... you'll feel like you've been there.

We ran into this German guy, Patricio, who insisted on speaking in German only to Ina (Americans are dumb or something, right?) who invited himself along to our hike. For real? OK well I guess if you know where you're going. He took us down all these wrong roads.

Falsche Weg... and eventually he gave up and told us to meet up with him around 4:00 to go for coffee at the bar. Ina and I wandered around.

For the record I understood 80% of what the guy was saying and stopped listening because he was an idiot.


We stopped to mark our territory.


We did all right.


Ate lunch by a church.


The church.



Views.


I love you Norway.


Secrets?


Exploring!




Awesome.



I love crabs! I love how this looks like it's on pubes and so just massive crabs.


Down in the water.


The road going back... and currently my wallpaper.



This is what we saw from the hill the night before.


How much do you want to make this ridiculous trek?


Lots more nature.




Marshes.






After getting as far as we could, we decided to head back.


Then we spotted these. The elusive cloudberry! It grows near water in northern climates. I bought some jam back in jukkasjaervi, and have since tasted it, not as fantastic as I'd hoped.


another...


As do mushrooms.

We headed back to the hostel...

and passed by a designated pedophile zone.


Cute little houses...


Contrary to popular belief, Norweigans are small... and cuter littler houses.

We hung around reading and such waiting for the German and the two French guys, Laurent and Luic before heading to get some coffee..

Nearby the bar/cafe.


Also nearby, ahem, this means that...?


Ina documented our trip very well...but didn't get pics of us.




That's the bar. While having coffee, it was like my brain. Two people were speaking German and the other two were speaking French and I couldn't follow anyone.


Back to the hostel.. that's the small marina.

When we got back to the hostel to make dinner, we saw this on the table:
SICK! You can see how some tried to make a getaway.

During dinner, we ended up talking to Luic and Laurent again and they ended up inviting us up to the lighthouse, the tiniest one of all time.

To have some drinks and stuff.


We drank "eau de vie" (something super alcoholic) and finished off our Finnish vodka straight of the bottle!


Then we realised that we had to climb back down...so it took us something like 30 mins to get back to the hostel instead of the 15 mins it took the boys. They also didn't make a pit stop in the bushes on the hill. This is well after midnight.

We stayed up late talking.

Wednesday, August 15

Good morning sunshine.


Out the window.


Part of the guestbook, a nice German poem.

Ina and I decided that we'd catch the bus to Leknes, another town on Vestagoy, but we'd missed the first bus so....

Then we climbed that hill again.



We really loved that hill.




Can you blame us though? I mean... look at it!




Over the hostel.


Mandatory mushroom shot.

Then we headed down the other side of the hill, towards the water and not the hostel.



Down to the water... and climb onto a rock island.


Ina kicking back. She had to call her mom because it was such a great moment.


On the rock:



I never want to leave here EVER. But I'm back in Canada, so I guess I did.


Look how happy we are!




This is about the time we realised that...


The tide came in...and the water is fucking cold. And that my legs have never seen daylight before this very moment. Consequently later that night, they helped land a plane.


Shit.

After trying to sneak by all the friends we'd made at the hostel, we managed to run into all of them sitting together, where we had to explain that our pants were soaking wet because we had to wade through water.

We changed our pants and headed to catch the bus to Leknes (Likeness).


On the bus ride.


More bus.

We got lunch:

Wiping the cap off with those pita bread things seemed really familiar to me for some reason.

Leknes was real boring, so we hopped onto the first bus back.

Then the chronciling of the hostel began, we walked around some more to try and capture EVERYTHING about it.


The Kitchen



Out the back kitchen door.


Where families stay.


The front of the hostel.


The pier (?) with the tiniest light house of all time.


What it used to look like.


Back inside... in the living room thing.. it's the room between the kitchen and the hall where the bathroom/showers are.


Then we sat down to write in the guest book. I mean, I did.


Contribution, complete with diagram.



The kitchen.


What greets you upon arrival. "Ask for Roar or dial 6"


Real hostel!

By this time it was almost time to go. The French guys had caught the earlier ferry going the other way, and we had to catch ours later that evening.


We were sad to leave the hostel without saying good-bye to Roar... but then..

he happened to walk by! He's not even looking at the camera! But look how excited me and Ina are!! It's so lame.


Ina took over my camera for the walk down to the port.


My thoughts were likely "Ina, let's go, this bag is fucking heavy." However, I realise now that it was worth it, so thank you.


We wanted to take everything with us it seems.


Theatre.


Tiny house.


Sleazy hotel.




Art Gallery.


bye, bye Stamsund. We'll remember you forever.


Me, German girl, German guy (patricio?)


Stamsuuuund. From aboard the luxurious Hurtigruten. It was raining and cold. We hung outside for a while.


But then we decided that I was getting too sick to stay awake. We pulled out our sleeping bags and like hobos slept on some benches, since we were too cheap to get cabins.