KRISTIANSAND AND ARENDAL (NORWAY)

After a few days in Oslo, I ventured south to visit a friend of mine (Birgitte) whom I had met whilst learning spanish in Mendoza Argentina. The trip to Kristiansand took a few hours, but was well worth it. As the 5th largest city in Norway, Kristiansand was quaint and picturesque and I found the locals to be quite friendly. The weather was absolutely amazing and as is often the case the Norweigans were out in force, soaking up the sun. Despite the fact that I was only there a few hours I still managed to get some nice pictures of the town from a lookout on one of the hills and then wandered around the town, checking out the city centre, restaurants, town hall and impressive cathedral.

After my visit to Kristiansand I ventured onto an even smaller town called Arendal, where Birgitte's family lived. I found the town to be quite similar to Kristiansand with a nice city centre and many charming little nooks and crannys to explore. I spent almost 5 days there just chilling out, doing some more wakeboarding, taking a few small boat trips around the island and even riding for 25 km to a small nature reserve outside the town. Unfortunately on the return trip I managed to get absolutely drenched in rain as heavy as I have seen North Queensland. Despite this brief shower, the weather during my time in the south of norway was quite good, despite it varying quite irratically and rather quickly. As such, plans to go hunting for crabs on the small rocky islands just off the coast from where Birgitte's family lived were thwarted by strong winds and rather indifferent weather that just seemed to come from nowhere.

Whilst in Arendal I also managed to experience some of the Norweigan nightlife, which I must admit was quite good despite Arendal being a relatively small town. Once under the influence of copius amounts of alcohol I found the norweigans to be very friendly, in stark contrast to what I had experienced during other encounters with people not filled to their eyeballs with beer and wine. On both my nights out I had a good time just talking with different people and enjoying a few quiet beers and snusing it up. The nightlife proved also to be quite entertaining as people began falling over and starting the usual trouble after having consumed more than their fair share of alcohol. Whilst this behaviour wasn't completely foreign to me as an Australian, I did find it somewhat difficult to understand given the horrendous prices of alcohol I couldn't quite fathom how young people were able to afford going out and drinking so much. On my second night out, I went to a local jazz and blues festival, which we were able to get into for free because one of Birgitte's friends knew one of the groups performing. Despite being well and trully soaked during the night, it was still an enjoyable experience and the music was very good.

Photos 1-5: Kristiansand harbour and town.
Photos 6-10: Night out in Arendal.
Photos 11-18: Around Arendal.
Photos 19-21: Myself and Birgitte's family.
Photo 22: Magnificent sunset over the ocean.