Kjerag

2009 Beach Volleyball World Championship

The 2009 Beach Volleyball World Championship is taking place in Stavanger this year! It started earlier this week and will continue into next week. Since I have plans for tomorrow, I spent this afternoon downtown watching some games and taking pictures.

I never really associated Norway with beach volleyball, but they managed to make some pretty nice looking courts right on the wharf. There was quite a crowd out, and again, perfect weather. I walked around gamle (old) Stavanger and took a lot of pictures of the cathedral.

Things are a bit...different here

Victor
Hi Stephan, I just got word that I'll be getting visitors from Canada in mid July. I would like to take a few days off if it will not affect the project schedule. Do you have any issues with this, or is there someone else I should speak to? Thank you!

Stephan
Doesn't matter if it affects project schedule, your private stuff is more important :) I've no arguess regarding this...But I think you should just send a mail tio Peter, to inform him which days you planning to "take off".....put me on as cc

Victor
Thank you!
Definitely a different approach here :)

Stephan
meaning ?

Victor
meaning at my previous company in Canada I would have had to schedule a vacation of more than 3 days a few months in advance, and even then it could be denied at last minute.

Stephan
that won't happend here, beleive me

Victor
:)

Geocaching at Sola

On Saturday I went geocaching along Sola beach with L. We found 6 caches in total, which included my first cache in Norway and L's 99th cache overall. The weather was great, and we got to see some places I may never have heard of otherwise including Domsteinane (the stone circle), some WWII bunkers, and the interesting rock formations along the coast. Here are some pictures:

More pictures here.

Bureaucracy

This morning I completed TWO applications:

1. I applied to the immigration office for my residence permit using the form 'Application for an EEA/EFTA permit'. They estimate it will take 6 months to get the results. I should get a receipt in the post before then though.

2. I applied to the tax office for a tax card using the form 'Søknad om skattekort for utenlandske borgere mv.' which will give me a tax card and a D-Number. I used a salary estimate of XXX XXX NOK per year and ABB as the 'employer in Norway'. Hopefully this is correct. They said that if there were two applications in the system, when they attempt to enter the second one in the system, the first will show up and should not cause a problem. I should have my D Number in the mail within 4 weeks. To get a 'Personal Number' (the D Number is for temporary stays of 6 months or less) I will need to go back to the tax office with my residence permit once it arrives in 6 months.

The residence permit must be renewed every year, so I should be getting all of this sorted out just in time to start all over again! I was in the queue for 3 hours but I feel is was worth it as now I should be compliant with both authorities.

More Nordsjørittet News

Edit: Cool! I found my halfway and finish videos here. A guy passed me about 100m from the finish, and I was like f$#@ that, and passed him on the finish line. For the finish video, click on "Se Malvideo" I'm wearing a white long-sleeved t-shirt and red helmet.

A Norwegian newspaper has a series of articles, photos and videos from the North Sea Race. There's a video of each rider halfway through the race and at the finish!! I can't see it from here at work though. To see it, click here and search for my name.

Video

Images

Results

Trail Map

Articles (in Norwegian):

65 Injured In North Sea Race - The article says this is good because it's less than 1% of the 7000 riders, and how out of 637000 kilometers, 65 injuries isn't too bad. Nothing overly serious it says - just scrapes, bruises, cuts, and about 20 with broken fingers, arms, shoulders, or ribs, in addition to one concussion (my boss, it turns out, destroyed his face. He spent Saturday in the hospital).,

The Wind and the Breeze - Gusts of up to 15m/s (54km/h!!!!!) caused even elite riders to come in half an hour later than expected. The average was 10-12m/s (36-43 km/h headwind! Holy crap!)

They also speak about all the teams riding together and how this was necessary to draft due to the strong wind. I probably should have drafted too. Oops.

Race profile:

Nordsjørittet Results

Edit: here is a rough map, but without elevation info.

The results and photos are up!

I placed 280 out of 435 in my class (Men 25-29), 3713 out of 5387 men, and 4122 out of 6764 total. My total time was 4:58:55 (3:18 min/km, 18.27 km/h). I figure if I had my clipless shoes and was prepared food-wise, I could have placed around halfway. For reference, the top place finisher overall (elite men category) got 2:51:36.

There were many racers from ABB. Our office manager got an amazing time of 3:24:48! Others did well too. The guy that signed me up for the race got 3:45:09, and the engineering manager got 3:45:10. The guy that takes me orienteering got 5:23:36, but he told me just after the race that he'd beat me at orienteering next week to make up for it.

For some reason my boss got a really bad time of 10:42:46. I'm guessing he got injured or had mechanical problems and walked to the finish. I'll definitely have to ask him tomorrow.

Pictures are posted here: http://www.nordsjorittet.no/fotogalleri/category/C14/

Just keep clicking 'Sist' (next).

My results

The dreaded Tubakken hill

My boss passing some riders

Nordsjørittet

Can't move. I just finished the Nordsjørittet (English info), or North Sea Bike Race. It was 91km, and the closest I can come to drawing the route is this:

http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=29132979 (Edit: Looks like gmaps-pedometer isn't working right now. Route is 91km along the coast from Egersund to Sandnes. 0m to 212.6m elevation.)

Many parts of the actual route don't show up on the drawn route because they were on trails through forests, not roads. There were multiple rocky hills where *everybody* got off their bikes, as you had to basically scramble up the rocks with your bike. Impossible to ride. Definitely the strangest bike race I've ever been in. There was also a swaying bridge where everybody dismounted. I was probably off my bike for nearly 2km of the race, just walking it over rocky ground or up a congested hill.

Given the distance, I was expecting a time of 3.5 hours or so, but actually took around 5 hours due to the brutal terrain (both rocky and hilly) and nearly constant strong headwind. Despite this, I'll have to see the results but I think I did OK compared to my age and category group. I was also one of the very few riders (that I noticed) with regular shoes and pedals (as opposed to clipless). There is no general consensus on how much efficiency gain is realized by using clipless pedals - the estimates range from 0% to around 90% gain!

Norwegians are definitely into looking good. Just about everyone had a freshly-shined bike, matching riding clothes for themselves or their teams, professional level helmets and shoes, etc. There were even entire teams that all had the same bike! I'm not speaking about professional riders - just regular riders with too much money. The only new item I was wearing were socks.

Given how tired I was, I was dreading the "Tubakken" hill which is the killer hill of the race and comes around kilometer 70. It's about a 75m ascent at a crazy steep angle. About 90% of cyclists dismount for the hill, but I forced myself to ride it (albeit on my lowest gear).

It was also great to see how much public turnout the race produced. All along the course there were families and groups from small villages out cheering and swinging bells.

A few beefs: I was expecting more food and water stations. In 91km, there were 2 food & water stations, and 2 water stations. The food stations just had bread and bananas - no power bars or chocolate or other quick energy foods. I was hungry enough just before the second station that I picked up someone's discarded half-finished bag of trail mix. There was no water available at the start of the race so I had to bike an extra km to find a gas station that would give me water.

The race organizers were releasing groups of too many people. This caused a lot of congestion for the first 10km of the race. There were multiple hills that I could have ridden up but was forced to dismount due to congestion. A few people fell when they tried to ride up the hills and were forced to come to dead stops while clipped in due to the sheer number of people. For a timed race, this was quite frustrating.

The race organizers provided excellent transportation from Stavanger to Egersund in the morning. There were dozens of buses, and our bikes travelled separately but were waiting in numbered rows when we arrived. All very well organized and efficient. However, no provision was made for getting all those people back to Stavanger after the race! We ended up crowding the regular city buses, paying double fares because of our bikes (about $11CAD), and annoying the bus driver and other passengers who were forced to leap over the many bikes in the aisles.

Litter! So much litter! I have never seen so many discarded reusable cycling bottles in one race. People were drinking them dry and then throwing them to the side of the path. The fact that they are littering is terrible, but did they also miss the whole concept of the bottles being reusable? If they were planning on tossing them anyway, why not just buy water bottles from a grocery store? I must have seen hundreds of bottles. I also saw at least 3 pairs of nice sunglasses, 5 or 6 bicycle pumps, and approximately 87 thousand power bar and chocolate bar wrappers. Yes, it's a race, but if you took something out of your pocket to eat it, surely there is now room in your pocket for the wrapper.

Tomorrow I envision doing a lot of sitting.

Oslo

If Stavanger is a picturesque seaside town, Oslo is its dirtier, busier, more industrial cousin. The harbour area is nice but I would not really say picturesque - sort of like Toronto's waterfront area. There are many homeless people around, which is surprising for Norway. Lots of tourists too, at least in the fancy restaurants in the harbour area where the cruise ships stop.

My hotel was in Helsfyr in old Oslo, so on my way into the city center (when in a new city I walk everywhere) I walked through some of the worst areas and thus got a bad first impression. There were a few areas I was told to stay out of at night which is also a first for Norway. I don't know how serious they were being, because the areas looked fine (if poor) to me. Maybe it's just bad relatively speaking.

A few impressive looking buildings, and it's obvious there is some history here (as opposed to Stavanger which was a fishing village 100 years ago).

All in all, I don't think Oslo is a place I'd want to live, especially if I could not afford to live in one of the nicer areas. Too much of a 'big city' feel but for all the wrong reasons. Buy hey, I was only there from Monday to Friday, and only went out in the evenings, so my impression may be somewhat skewed.

Oslo in Pictures

Hordes of lupins everywhere, mostly purple and pink.


The harbour seen from the balcony of this restaurant.


A pretty meadow in a loop in the road in Ekeberg where The Scream was painted.


A ratty and smelly couch by the tracks in one of the poorer parts of Oslo.


Overlapping railroad tracks passing right through the city.


Multicoloured buildings are fairly everpresent.


The Royal Palace of Norway (Slottet).


Lion statue in front of Stortinget (Parliament)


Statue in the harbour. There are similar statues scattered all over the downtown area.


Private mini harbour in Aker Brygge, one of the swakiest areas of Oslo .


Another shot of the harbour.


Yet another shot of coloured buildings.

Opel Astra Mileage

http://www.spritmonitor.de/en/detail/332701.html

I don't know if it's because I drive 90km/h on the highway here, that I'm doing mostly highway driving, that the car has a manual transmission, a combination of these three or something completely different, but the fact remains that I'm getting nearly as good mileage with this beast as with my 2001 Honda Civic!

I'm leaving for Oslo tomorrow, for a week-long training session on ABB Safeguard. The taxi is picking me up at 4:45am (urgh....) but I'll be seeing Oslo for 'free' which is cool! As I wrote earlier, I was going to stay the weekend in Oslo to do some real touring but I have a bike race on Saturday. They've modified the bike race route and now it has increased to 91km.

Currently listening to the American Recordings collection by Johnny Cash. I was lent this album and it has jumped to one of my favourite albums of all time. The passion in his voice in If You Could Read My Mind is incredible.

If you could read my mind love
What a tale my thoughts could tell
Just like an old time movie
bout a ghost from a wishin well

Hike to Dalevatn, Dalsnuten and Lifjell

The hills North of Sandnes on the East side of the Gandsfjorden are a constant tease. You can see them looming over the water from any high point from Stavanger to Sandnes. They offer the closest major hiking area to Stavanger that I am aware of.

M and I finished some errands around 2:00pm and headed for the tiny village (or so we thought) of Dale. When we arrived, the first thing I commented was that this "village" looked like a mental hospital. There were no houses or shops, just institutional buildings of all shapes and sizes. There were very few cars or people around, despite that it was a sunny Saturday afternoon. We eventually asked a father-daughter pair who confirmed my guess that Dale used to be an asylum. It is now a home for "refugees and other random things" (his words).

We left the car and headed in the direction of the trail head to Dalevatn (Dale Lake). After a false start through a VERY recently fertilized field, we followed the well-marked trail for about an hour to reach the lake. This part of the trail was fairly easy, rising gently into the surrounding hills before descending again to the lake. The lake is pretty and there were a few people having picnics.

From Dalevatn, we followed the trail to Lifjell and/or Dalsnuten, the two tallest hills in the area. The reason for the confusion is that the hills were not marked in any way, but I believe we reached both of them. Lifjell is supposed to be the one with the radio tower on top, and I believe Dalsnuten is the one just South of that. We then made our way back along the coast to Dale. There are some challenging parts on the trail as you are climbing approximately 300m over fairly rocky ground. However, the views of the Gandsfjorden, Stavanger, Sandnes and all the towns in between from the top are truly spectacular! It helped that we also had perfect weather.

Here is a map of our route. I got some nice colour today! Gotta save up for the Winter darkness.



Dalevatn with signpost.



Dalevatn with our next destination in the background.



View of central Stavanger from the top of one of the hills.



View of the Gandsfjorden looking South towards Sandnes.



A helicopter flies below our altitude. Ullandhaug radio tower and the North Atlantic can be seen in the background.



The radio tower at the top of Lifjell.



View of the coast on the way back.