Part Fjorten

The western fjords! 'Awesome' in every meaning of the word. I viewed these sights from the back of a ferry while choking on diesel fuel and it felt like making love with two rubbers on. Being that you are now viewing the same sights through a camera and a computer screen, I figure it feels like fucking with four.

Eighteen hundred meters high and waterfalls all over the place. Look how small the villages are!

Part Tretten [ed note: the Norwegian word for thirteen is pronounced exactly like pronouncing Trenton, NJ, with a Trenton accent.]

Bergen. City of rain. City of assholes.


This is Domkirken, the largest church in Bergen. If you look closely, to the left of the big front window, theres a cannonball still lodged in the wall from some war that happened at some point. I don't really know when. I was only really interested in this place because Sunn O))) recorded a live album there.


Deal or no deal: the jury is still out on this one. This super delicious 'king crab plate' cost me 200 kroner. 200 divided by 6.2 (exchange rate) hrmmm, let's see thats...$32. The beer I bought in a supermarket for five friggin' bucks.

I stumbled [sic] upon this beer hall while lost in this super small city, because they print the tourist map with North actually being East. WTF? I use a compass to get around cities I don't know and that crummy map had me thinking there was some strange magnetic field from the mountains.

This place gets a 10 for atmosphere but the beer selection was dismal. So was the music. Disco remix of 'Another One Bites the Dust'? In this place? Pfff.

Arrrrrrgh!! Fuck you Hansa! You taste like shit and cost me ten dollars! Fuuuuck youuuu!!


Worst street art ever.


Best street art ever.


Being from Brooklyn NY and visiting Bergen is akin to carrying around a light saber. When you boldy strut up to ladies here, you simply state you're from the US for the weekend and looking for fun-- cuz you have no idea where to find it. At this point, they're kinda interested and like "Whats that shiny tube he's carrying?" And then they ask you where you're from... "Uhhh, Brooklyn, NY?", and KEPETCHUUUUUUUUSSHHH--- the lightsaber blazes out and all the girls eyes light up and their guys get nervous. I'm serious here. Guys will pull their girls away from you every chance they get. But the Force is with you, so you can dance your ass off with two super cute Norgies and their boyfriends will just let them do it. I wish to hell I had my camera on me when I was out dancing. I couldn't believe what I was getting away with.
[ed note: I just got back from skybox seats at an international soccer match here in Oslo and the lightsaber works on everyone.]


For example, these girls were down to stand on their heads if I asked them to. But I'm not here to slay Jawas-- I'm lookin' for Leia. [ed note, again: holy shit, the girl on the right puked all over her shoes. THATS what she was doing in the corner before I took this pic. What a trooper.]

Told you it was a city of assholes; both literal and proverbial. I was trying to get the guy on the far right to let me take his picture; he had no pants in sight and blood on his shirt. He thrust himself upon he and loudly stated "If you 61 me!! 61 mee!!!" I was like, "Don't you mean--" "--I mean 69 me!! 69 mee!!!" That's when he dropped his underwear and his friends followed suit. You can't hear it, but the dude second in from the left is slapping his dick between his thighs-- in the center square of Bergen.

Part Tolv

Sweet ride.

Part Elleve

So the stay at Sagesund is at an end. Time to fly out and up to Bergen. But before takeoff, just wanted to show you where I put my head to bed.
Know how people who live in the country talk about how they don't lock their front doors because its so safe where they live? Well they don't even have locks here.
One last open-face sandwich and coffee to go along with the view.

Part Ti

So after visiting the family burial site, I thought it be fitting to also show some of the family land. These few pics represent a plot of land that my father, uncle and aunt inherited from my grandfather. Its filled with a bit of debris, so maybe next year we can clean it up a bit. I hung out here for a little bit, before catching a bus to the airport, as this is the last day in Sagesund.

Part Ni

Part åtte

This is my cousin, Dag, who is really fun to hang out with because he's lived in Sagesund his whole life and can tell you so much about the people and history of the region. He took me sailing up the coast a ways to the municipality of Risør. He's going to the annual wooden boat show there. I've been to it before, it's awesome, but this year I wanted to visit the family gravesite.And this is his friend George, who, by the way, is cool as hell. Both of these guys are. George is a mechanical engineer who worked for Shell Oil in Syria. Four weeks on, four weeks off. Anyway, it wasn't very windy that day, so we didn't actually sail, we just cruised with the motor at about five knots. The upside of this is that we could drink beers, munch Cheez Doodles, and chew the fat.

George talked about his time in Syria; the strong loyalty of Arabs once they trust and respect you, the politics of the region, and how things will most likely never be solved there. Dag talked about the island of Sandøya, which we passed on the way to Risør. You see, Sandøya--with a population of 250-- is one of the few islands with no bridges leading to it, yet has a curiously large number of redheaded folk living there. Ummm, yeah. To quote George: "When you're in Sandøya, and you see a ginger hair, you begin to wonder...". Well put, my man.

I know this photo is a bit blurry but check out that kid cold chillin' on the mast. Like what both Dag and George said... its a good life.



Taking this four hour tour left me with a new found desire to learn how to sail. As we were talking along the way, I had the strong urge to pick up a length of rope and start learning how to tie knots. Did you know about the six motions a boat can make? These motions are based on an X-Y-Z axis. Yeah, yeah, and there's two motions for each axis and the... hold on a minute, look at me chatter on here. See what I mean? I wanna learn this stuff! Like this! And ooh, this! And all of these too!

Part Syv

Down by the fjord, getting sun, diving off the big rock, hanging out with the fam, feeding ducks...




Wait a minute...This frickin' brat kid has his own boat?!

N-haa, I'm just joshin'; actually it's very affordable to own a boat in Norway. The government encourages boat culture very much here. It's very common to see young boys with inflatable motor boats and big life jackets on, tooling around solo. I saw this one kid--not even ten years old I suspect--all puffed up in his vest with a little captain hat on and his hand on the throttle. It was so adorable it made me seasick.