day 18 - byeee

Nothing much today except running around the city in the rain with a gigantic cardboard box balanced on top of my bike seat. (Ungainly, but it beats carrying the bike inside the box.) I disassembled the bike in record time, navigated airport bureaucracy, and eventually escaped town. Good riddance Oslo, fare thee well Norway! Well, it's done. Overall it was an incredible trip, probably my favorite ever. Now that it's over, would I do anything differently? I'd start my rallarwegen trip from the trail's true start 20km earlier. It was really the highlight of the trip and it seems stupid in retrospect to have truncated it. I'm not entirely sure I'd go to Bergen. The city, accessing it, and leaving it were the darkest (literally and figuratively) parts of the trip. As small cities go, I much prefer stavanger. Having a partner along would have saved a lot of money. Doubles in a B&B are typically cheaper than a hostel for two and self-catering scales better with numbers. (Try to buy salad components for a single person sometime.) Some of the long evenings at less-social campgrounds would have been less lonely with a friendly face, too. I think I made the right call by not bringing camping gear. The extra weight would have been a killer on those tough climbs. I was already aching enough from the exertion of all my manly activities and didn't need to add back pain to the cocktail. Also, it rained a lot. I'd bring: * gloves - it gets cold on an alpine plateau at 30 kph in the rain * Calf-length cycling pants - my knees got cold too * silk sleep sack - hostel sheet rental charges killed me. I'd not bring: * Pedal wrench - weighs 1+ lb, never used. What was I thinking? * Kryptonite lock - nobody here uses anything heavier than a light steel cable. More often than not, I locked the bike to nothing more solid than itself. My crime-ridden boston ethic made me carry 2+ lb more lock than I needed. Things I will need immediately upon arrival back home: * razor - I'm way too fuzzy * deodorant - I'm way too stinky * shiraz - it's been nothing but tap water and tea since arrival I love this place and could see myself living here quite happily. The obvious obstacles are money and language, but with a norwegian salary for the former and german background for the latter I should be able to handle it. I'd also need to see what 5 hours of daylight feels like in the winter before making any major decisions. In the end, though, the rocky mountains, awe-inspiring fjords, and warm people make this land feel like Home already.