Land of the Vikings

After spending short times in Malmö and Göteborg, we were finally heading to Norway, one of our most eagerly anticipated destinations of the trip. Arriving in Oslo, we were surprised to find the capital one of sunshine and festivals as apposed to the snow land we may have expected. A marching band played down one street while on the opposite side of the high-street was a stage where Norway's answer to U2 were performing.

I'm doing them a disservice, they were far better than U2

A night train to Stavanger followed, with the spectacular fjords (and suicidal landmarks Kjerag and Preikestolen) our main reason for visiting. We were staying in a small town named Ganddal (nicknamed Gandalf) with a couch surfer named Marthe. We'll dedicate a quick sentence to her as she was the bossest person who ever resided in Norway. Epic breakfasts, free raincoats and she took us to a Norwegian dinner party on our first night there, where we met Hugh Grant. AND she made the greatest meal ever for us after we came back from a tiring hike one day. She's mint.

Megaboss Marthe

The first of our hikes was a 8-mile round-trip up steep, slippery rocks which made a mockery of our belief that we could complete this wearing trainers, shorts & t-shirt. Fortunately we were able to borrow gear. Some of the views were incredible (see the pics), and at times during the walk up the mountains you did just stop, look around, and think "Wow, England's really crap." After a couple of hours or so we reached Kjerag, a rock, wedged between two cliffs, and hanging over 3000ft of solid stone.

Kjerag

Looking over the edge of the drop was bad enough - it's (shock horror) a lot more terrifying when you're actually there. There was another group who'd arrived just before us and a few of their number were too scared to go on the rock - but you couldn't really blame them. Just to get on the rock, you had to side-shuffle along a one-foot wide rock shelf that sloped into the chasm below. The rock once on it, was incredible. Quite simply one of the most intense adrenaline rushes ever imaginable, and that was before Dave decided to do a handstand on it, before nearly falling off.

So essentially, Kjerag was awesome. And neither of us died. Which was a huge bonus. The next day though, we'd be tempting fate again as we headed to Preikestolen, a huge (near-flat) cliff edge, that stood 2000ft above nothing but rocks.

Preikestolen

The hike up Preikestolen was hugely easier than the Kjerag one (Myles even wore shorts) and just over an hour or so after we set off, we were once again hanging off cliffs, dangling over the edge, despite the ridiculously strong winds that were trying to push us off (we were sort of sat on the wrong side of the rock...). Sadly though, tragedy did strike this time, and after a couple of leaps on the edge of Preikestolen, Myles fell off the top to what would kill a lesser man. Myles escaped with just a grazed knee though, as our time in Norway was sadly coming to an end.

We'd only spent five days in Norway, but they'd been absolutely incredible. The fjords were simply incredible and the pictures sadly don't do them justice (check them out on FB anyway though). It was Lord of the Rings on steroids. We stopped off again in Göteborg and Malmö (and even managed to see a pretty awesome beach in Sweden - who would've thought?) on our way back down (staying with the same awesome couch surfers we met on our way North), to where we're currently residing for a few days - Berlin. With Prague, Oktoberfest and Amsterdam coming up, it remains to be seen if we'll be sober enough to complete a blog in the near future, but if not, we'll just write you a drunk one.

Going North

Hi everyone! It's been the best part of a week since our last update, but we've finally managed to get a bit of extended internet time, so here's what we've been up to since we left the story at Rome. We'd just stayed in the dreadful Hotel Michigan, and decided we needed a little relaxation, away from the slightly over-the-top busy life of Rome. So we booked in a few nights into Camping Tiber, a couple kilometers North of the centre. The place was absolutely awesome. A bar, a restaurant, beautiful weather, a swimming pool, clean sheets... and all for just €9 a night. It was ridiculous.

On the way to the campsite for the first time, we walked through the North of Rome, and at a good lookout point of the city, a Japanese lady came up to us to ask if she could have a picture with the city in the background. Not a problem! The strange thing being, she also wanted Myles in the picture. So we did the only thing we should've done, and got a picture with her on our cameras too. We're unsure if she thought Myles was a celebrity or not - answers on a post card please, though suggestions of Rik Waller will be frowned upon.

Myles with a fan

Camping Tiber was only a 30 minute trip into Rome (and only €1 - take note London), and on a later excursion to Rome, we popped into the Pope's house, as well as seeing sights such as the Pantheon (awesome) and the Trevi Fountain. One of the other great experiences of Rome was Della Palma - one of the many ice cream shops in Rome. This particular one had about a million (probably underestimating..) different flavours, and while Dave went for the sensible (and delicious) combination of banana, chocolate and melon, Myles was a bit of a tool, and struggled through a champagne, amaretto and mars bar flavoured one.

Dave had fun with his ice cream. Myles struggled.

After a few days of drinking cheap white wine in Camping Tiber, we got the train up to Pisa where we spotted the most unoriginal collection of people in the world, all posing exactly the same way - pretending to hold up the leaning tower... Then we joined in and discovered it was actually awesome fun. Besides the (surprisingly impressive) tower, Pisa was an utter dump, so we hopped on another train soon after, where we were spending the night in Florence. After getting lost (even despite having a compass...) for an hour or so, we managed to find Locanda David - the hostel where we spending the night. The problem being, no-one was in. Ah.

Mad skills

As if by magic though, the woman who ran the place turned up around five minutes after we arrived, and after a brief language struggle with her, we were all checked in and ready to hit the town. That night was the first 'proper' meal we had - pizza! It wasn't quite as impressive as the chap on the table next to us, who'd ordered a traditional Tuscan steak (around 30oz), but considering we'd been living off bread and plastic cheese the past week - it was delicious. After the meal we headed into the city at night, and both discovered Florence was amazing. The buskers were good, there was a hilarious comedy act in the middle of town, even the tacky crap being sold for €1 was better than the typical tacky crap. The following day we popped up 400+ stairs to the top of the Cathedral in Florence, which was tiring, but worth it once up there. After an evening McDonalds of three cheeseburgers, and two fries each, we had to sadly leave Florence and were off on another night train, this time to Munich.

Loving life in Florence

Unfortunately, we accidently booked seat tickets, instead of beds. Which was rather unpleasant. Also, the train got into Munich at 6:30am, again, not the nicest thing in the world. But we were soon off again on a (ridiculously nice) German train up to Berlin, where we staying with Dave's mate Matt for the night. Germany was tough for Dave to start with. The only German he knew was "Guten tag", and so was using it for "Hello" (good) and "Goodbye" (not so good). Dave then managed to get in a fight with a pelican at Berlin zoo, before Matt (and his girlfriend Jess) treated us to a BBQ in the evening.

Typical Galloway...

And up till now, we've largely been on trains as we head up through Scandinavia to Norway. Yesterday we stayed in Malmö (after our train decided to get on a ferry - bizarre) with a couple of couchsurfers - Malik and Fredik, while we're now in Göteborg for the night staying with our host Caroline. Aside from Dave becoming an insomniac, and Myles developing an all-body rash, life is "straight-up bossing", and hopefully that will continue as we head to Norway tomorrow. Guten tag!