The breakfast buffet featured bread, crackers, jams, meats, fish, cereal, and juice. Some jam mixed into muesli with milk is quite enjoyable...
I love buffets. I've been looking forward to this breakfast buffet for the last couple of days...
The alarm was set for 7:30am, but I was awake ~7am due to noise from the active hall. It was a decent night's sleep in the comfy bed. We packed up most of our belongings, and made our way across the parking lot to the cafe. The buffet offerings were similar to the other hostell (in Kabelvag), but had less dried meats, and more smoked/pickled fish. I ate several plates of food, and 5 bowls of cereal with jelly. After 45 minutes at the buffet, enjoying every minute of it, we returned to the dorm building at 8:45am to brush before heading on to our final drive back to Trondheim. Not much on the agenda today besides a drive through Mosjoen and a stop at a waterfall.
The breakfast buffet featured bread, crackers, jams, meats, fish, cereal, and juice. Some jam mixed into muesli with milk is quite enjoyable...
12:25am, Trondheim. Back to my laptop, typing up this journal entry...
Left the hostell ~9am, and drove through the city of Mosjoen, known for it's scenic shops along the water. Stopped at Lakesfosen waterfall, 30km south of Mosjoen. There were several tour buses parked there, and tourists flooding the area, sovenior/cafe store, and pay toilets. The falls were worth the brief stop, but nothing amazing. The easy access made it a bit overly touristy.
A drive through Mosjoen ~9:15am. This is a popular shopping area, but was empty this morning...
Heading the final 425km back to Tronheim today. The tiny Fiat had served us well...
We stopped at Lakesfesen, located right off of E10 ~15 minutes south of Mosjoen. Not a high waterfall, but plenty wide and strong...
This area was extremely touristy with many buses parked in the lot. Certainly worth stopping a minute or two along the way (no doubt much better during non-peak hours)...
I was kind of sleepy, and listening to music in the car doesn't help keep me awake. Usually I listen to AM talk radio, to keep myself focused, but that wouldn't be possible with Norwegian broadcasts, so we put in an engaging audiobook (The Dark Tower, book 2), which made the rest of the 400km drive fly by. We stopped in Grong to fill up on gas, and got a softie-cone. The big breakfast was enough to satisfy us all day, along with the last of the 3 Pringles cans we had brought. Soon we were back to Trondheim, and stopped at a grocery store to buy bread and fish cakes for sandwiches in the airports tomorrow.
In general, Norway food was not as expensive as I feared. In fact some items, such as Muesli cereal are much cheaper than in the states. Most other food is comparable to non-sale priced items in the US, though milk was pricy, at ~$8 gallon (just like gas). The 14% tax on food is included in the price. Luxury items, such as alcohol, cars, and gas, are taxed 100%, which make them extremely expensive here. I was glad to have brought 6 bottles of O'Dells beer from Fort Collins, to give to K and M.
We didn't have the most efficient directions to get back to K and M's house, but found our way there at 4pm, after driving through the center of town, and around the hillside. We immediately emptied our very dirty car, and repacked out bags for tomorrow. K and M arrived ~2am last night. I started downloading the 2850 pics we had combined to take (most of them from me).
Some "signage" along the drive. Hell is a small town outside of Trondheim...
Moose are common across Norway. "Fart" means "speed" in Norweigen, which makes for a variety of interesting signs along the road. Too bad we missed "Fart dampenner" ("speed bump")...
For dinner, K and M made pizza! A fine home-made crust with salami, pepperoni, onions, peppers, mushrooms, and basil. We drank some of the home-brew beer we had bottled before we left 2 weeks ago. It was a fantastic combo. M brought out ice cream and a bowl of Norwegian candy mix. A great final dinner, outdoors.
A fine looking pizza was nearly assembled when we arrived back in Trondheim. A fantastic outdoor evening meal capped the tremendous weather we had all trip...
Karl pours a glass of his freshly brewed beer that we all helped bottle 2 weeks ago. It was quite good, and will only get better with age. Wendy snacks on a candy shaped egg...
A typical Norwegian dessert sampling (at least at Karl and Mariann's house). Several flavors of ice cream, and a bowl of mixed candies...
Later, we looked at some pics from the trip, and played some guitar. The sun set at 10:56pm here, and it's now somewhat dark out, enough to turn on the lights inside. Trondheim is losing 5.5 minutes of sunlight a day, and growing, as the summer recedes. Come winter, the sun won't rise in Trondheim until 10am, and will set at 2:30pm. Still, I'd take this wild swing in daylight over the course of a year in a heart beat, if given the choice. Sure adds flavor to the seasons...
Planning to head to the airport at 9am for our 11:30am flight. Hopefully Avis will accept cash, since we have a fair amount left. Convenient to be able to drop the car off at the airport, even though we picked it up in town, to avoid the additional 14% airport fee.
This is our last night in Norway. The alarm is set for 7:30am.