July 19, 2001 - Thursday - Flåm to Myrdal to Horten, Norway
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| Bike / Walking path criscrossing the waterfall from the train ride from Flåm to Mydal. |
After getting up today and gathering my things together, I checked out and headed into town to catch my train. I got some food for the journey and caught the 11:30 train. The train ride was short - only about 50 minutes, but we went through some very spectacular scenery. There were bike trails crisscrossing the alpine meadows and brooks, down steep beautiful fiords and wound through grasslands.
It looked wonderful and I certainly will come back to take that trail next time. It's probably better to do it from Myrdal to Flåm instead because it's all down hill that way. Otherwise, I would have to climb 866 meters from Flåm.
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| Sights from the train ride from Flåm to Mydal. |
The train stopped after a tunnel at a large waterfall and a throng of tourists poured out. Some lit up their cigarettes, others posed in front of the waterfall for a picture. All the sudden, music came out of hidden speakers among the rocks next to the waterfall along with a recorded voice of a young lady singing along with the music.
Up at the waterfall, a young lady appeared in a blood red dress and she had her arms outstretched, dancing slowly to the music and mouthing the words to the lyrics. She looked at the crowd and waves them toward her and then danced again. I was told later that there was a legend about a woman in the waterfall the used to lure men away, never to be seen again. I guess this is a remake of it - It was really cheesy actually, but the other tourists seem to like it.
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| Sights from the train ride from Flåm to Mydal. |
10 minutes later, everyone was back on the train and we headed into Myrdal shortly after. I caught the train that connected to Oslo and had an uneventful ride through the countryside again. After contacting Erik on the phone, I got on the next train to Horten and finally arrived in Horten a little after 9.
There was still light out and Erik met me at the bus stop in Horten. It's been 5 years since I saw Erik down at the Amazon River of Peru. It was good to see him again and we walked to his apartment from the bus stop and chatted about my trip.
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| Erik in his living room. |
He's got a nice large 3+ bedroom apartment - hardly a "bachelor pad" he called it. One of the rooms was filled with about 15 fish tanks and there were 2 large - probably 150-gallon fish tanks in the living room. The fish tanks were thick with plant growth and most of the fish were hidden among the greens, except in one of the large fish tanks where there weren't any place for 2 large Pacus to hide.
I settled in and ate some food and we chatted to catch up on things we did since we separated and then he started showing me some of the videos he took while we were down in the Amazon. It was very nicely done, with transitional effects, commentaries, background music, and text. He did it all on his computer and it pretty much nudge me into berating myself for not doing more with my multimedia interests as others have.
The effect from the Dengue Fever isn't as bad as before, but I was still getting tired in the evening so we finally both turned in at 12 and I downloaded my email but was too tired to even read it.
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