Trip to NORWAY- Viking Tour with “Sirius”/ 5.9. – 8.9. 2008

 

At 8 o´clock the guys from SIRIUS rang at my door waiting to drive along to Munich, but first we had to distribute the luggage (including guitar and keyboard) to both cars.  After some minutes we started our trip. There was nearly no traffic so we reached the Munich Airport quite early and had time for a breakfast there.

Later on we parked the cars and checked in with all our bags and cases to the flight to Oslo.

After two hours of flight we arrived in Norway´s capitol. No luggage was lost or damaged, so we took the fast Airport-Express to the city.

The weather was were nice, perfect for taking pictures, so after we left our bags in lockers at the station we could start our sight seeing tour.
Joe´s parents who had been in Norway for some weeks were on their trip back home and coincidentally stopped in Oslo for a while, so we met them next to the new Opera House near the harbor. 

The Opera House is a unique building very modern, made of concrete, wood, glas and marble. It´s possible to climb the roof and so we decided to take the chance for a bandphoto-shooting on this amazing building.

We spent more than an hour at the Opera before we walked through the old city to see the parlament, the royal castle and the civic centre. At the yacht harbor we enjoyed a “softis med nøttekrokant” (softice with crocant) (thanx to Joe for this delicious idea). But this was just the beginning of our meal; we decided to go to the “Hard Rock Café” to have dinner.

After the starters for all, everybody chose a main course and some beer and so we spent around €50.- per person, our first impression of expensive Norway.

After the opulent meal we took the 11 o´clock train to Trondheim.

We had booked seats, blankets and pillows were provided for every passenger.
So we spent seven hours driving the next 600km of our journey over night. But somehow I couldn´t find a good sleeping position and therefore lie awake the whole night. 

In Trondheim Klemens was waiting and showed us around very briefly in Norway´s third larges city. 

Then we drove to Namsos passing the breathtaking landscape of Trondelag County between fjords, forests and nice villages.

In Namsos we put our baggage into Klemens´ flat and started to see the hotspots of this small town. 

For lunch we had Pölsen (something like a hotdog, thanx again to Joe for this idea). 

After lunch we had time to drive to nature and try some fishing at the fjord. Not very successful on this day, a sea cucumber was the only thing we could get out of the water….

The next point was the sound check in both locations, the Lagre (youth club) and the Cyberland (internet café and bistro).

First we built up our instruments in Cyberland close to the city centre of Namsos. There we had an open air stage. The sound check was quite professional with a very experienced sound engineer. After that we had a perfect dinner with the famous burgers of Cyberland, probably the best in Norway 😉

Then we drove back to Lagre for the next sound check. 

Lagre is the Youth centre of Namsos – the place where Klemi spent a year of volunteer work as a person in charge for the whole place – a half pipe for skaters and bikers was built there recently.

Further there is a stage for concerts with a good sound system and nice atmosphere.

After both sound checks we had to style ourselves for the evening.

The first gig was planned in Lagre, Sirius had a support act, two teenage girls playing really good songs just with guitar and voice.

The first Sirius concert of the evening was quite good and the guys tried to entertain the audience although it was fewer people coming than expected. Anyway Sirius found new fans there…

After this gig we had to drive directly to Cyberland playing the second concert which started a quarter to midnight, the temperature fell down to 5°C or something…but thanks to some heaters and the rocking music of Sirius it was never really cold that night.

During the concert more and more people joined and the atmosphere was living up!

The concert was finished at one o´clock, time for another burger and a beer backstage.

Next day we could sleep quite long and had a good breakfast with jam, ham, cheese, orange juice and coffee (all sponsored by Lagre).

Around lunch time we enjoyed the view over Namsos and the fjord from a hill over the town. Then we went fishing again (we needed some for the evening barbecue). This time we were lucky, Hausi got a salmon out, we also fished a smaller one but put it back to the sea….I was not that lucky in my first try because I lost the bait.

But the main thing of the day was the soccer match against some guys from Namsos (also a rockband), sort of an official match Norway-Austria. The day before Austria won against France 3:1and so we were optimistic to repeat this result. Unfortunately we palyed like Austria with coach Hickersberger and lost 1:6 after a good fight and a better second half with some actions worth seeing.

Following that we were invited for barbecue at the Lagre and had again the special Namsos Burgers. Of course we also tried the fish which tasted a bit sandy, so we stayed with the burgers ϑ

In the evening Klemi drove us back to Trondheim. 

Just on time we reached the station and took the over-night train back to Oslo. 
I could sleep better than last time. We got out directly at the airport and had some time for shopping and a snack before we were flighing back to Munich.
Taken together it was a legendary trip to Norway with many new impressions and a lot of fun….