T+25: SANDNES, NORWAY

i'm here in sandnes on the west coast of norway (58° 50′N 5° 49′E) and staying with my cousin kari & her family [husband aage; sons christopher, marius and casper; and dog loki. her oldest daughter maren is living in oslo but is a frequent visitor as well]. arrived wednesday morning, 5.31.06 to a fair weather day. kari met me at the airport, right on time, & we did a little shopping in the town of sandnes (where i am pleased to report that i was able to get a new/better carry-on bag :) and had a quick lunch at a very nice restaurant in town, charles og de. the chef/owner is charles tjessem who won the bocuse d'or for norway in 2003 and is also a neighbor of kari & aage. later, we went for dinner at her mother's house, my aunt anne karin.

the following day kari, maren & i went into stavanger to have lunch at another nice restaurant, hall toll, where aage is a partner. we prowled around some shops, dropped into aage's work to say hi and generally took it easy. there was apparently some 'bad blood' between aage and charles because aage did not invite him to the opening of hall toll, so charles did not invite aage to the opening of his restaurant. truly, the hatfields and the mccoys of sandnes ;)

the fair weather was sadly short-lived and turned a little grey and cold. regardless, we hopped on the boat friday morning and headed to their cabin on aadnoy, a little island about 45 minutes from sandnes near the lysefjord. their cabin was originally built in 1917 and was basically abandoned for quite a few years before they bought it. they have spent the last 5 years or so completely renovating and it looks absolutely fantastic now. by the time we arrived, it was pretty much pouring so we hauled everything into the house and dried off a bit.

saturday was better and by the time sunday rolled around, it was time for sunscreen. we all hopped into the boat and headed to aage's parents' cabin in the lysefjord to celebrate his father's birthday which had been on thursday and on monday, we picked up another boat from aage's friend trond and went up the lysefjord. the boat we picked up was called a rumpetrollet and is very fast and made for waves so we had a lot of fun with it.

the 2 big attractions of the lysefjord are preikestollen (pulpit rock) and kjerag, which is where a large rock is wedged in a crack 1000m above the fjord below. when i was here in 1992 with rachel, we went to the top of preikestollen and looked down, but i had never seen it from below before now. it doesn't seem so scary looking up, but it's unbelievable looking down 1000m to the fjord below. it looks unreachable from below but it's actually not a brutal hike so there are usually quite a few people although we couldn't see any from the water. in addition, it's legal to BASE jump from kjerag and we were treated to a couple of freaks doing just that as we cruised the fjord below. i took a few photos which are on the photosite but it's a little difficult to see them.

i've been learning some norwegian from kari also, but nothing yet that i can repeat in polite company ;)

next installment: alice cooper.

no kidding. stay tuned!!