Scandinavia 2008 - Day 20
So tired from the last few days activities, as well as sleeping on that horrible Styrofoam pad the last few nights, I slept in till 10am, awaking refreshed and ready to go. I walked down to the harbor, where market stalls had been set up, most being fish mongers, the others being woolen items, trinkets, furs, and other tourists sundries. I passed the stalls to see the old Hanseatic warehouse district known as the Bryggen. The old wood buildings were beautiful, and fun to walk through. But the area was small, and there was not much to see as all the buildings had been converted to tourist shops and overpriced restaurants. Hungry, and not willing to pay those prices, I went back to the harbor fish market and after contemplating buying a baby seal skin and eating a whale meat sandwich, I decided instead on the mixed seafood platter, eating it beside the ocean. The salmon cake is to this day one of the most tasty things I have ever had, other things on the mixed platter included some sliced vegetables, shrimp, sliced salmon, potato salad, and some other little garnishes. It was all very delicious. From the harbor I returned to my hostel, flirted with the girl at the front desk some more, before taking a nap until 3.
After my nap I went to the other far end of town where found a nice open square next to a bakery. I ordered a glass of milk and a big brownie, and then found a nice table in the sun where I could work on and finish my drawing of the Oslo Operan (Opera house). After several hours I decided I was full on hungry and in need of a mans drink. I noticed that I was just a few blocks from the highly recommended bar call the Pigvignen (“The Penguin” was recommended by my flirtatious friend at the hostel front desk and by my guidebook as a friendly low key neighborhood bar with modest prices, good food, and jovial atmosphere). The penguin did not disappoint, I mistook it at first as an old ladies home by the crochet table cloths on the small table by the window, but a set of several chairs at small tables near the entry alerted me to the fact I had found my bar. Inside it was everything described. I had a seat at the bar and ordered the special. I am not really sure what it was, it was traditional hearty food of meatballs and potatoes in brown sauce. I ordered a cool beer to accompany it. Dessert was a lovely chocolate mouse pie that was one of the lightest and flavorful sweet chocolates I can recall ever tasting. This was a cheep dinner and drinks for a bar/pub, but it still cost about $40.
It would be sunset soon, and I knew from what I had seen the night before that I did not want to miss my chance to get some good photos of the harbor, the Bryggen, and the town. At my hostel I gathered my gear and went out onto the street. Almost immediately I was stopped by a woman who insisted that I photograph a lovely old tree in the nearby church courtyard. It was a rotting dead nag whose thin dark limbs were nearly invisible to the camera against the sky beyond. The woman was short with long curly frizzly brown hair, mostly combed but disheveled in places. She was from New York relocated to Norway, she still had the accent. She was flighty and switched quickly from subject to subject. She was full of advice, complaints, annoyances, stories of woe and pity, mercy and loving, hate, spite, and love for all creatures. For the longest time I couldn't really follow the conversation (or should I say conversations). I began to piece together that her family was monied, her parents now dead leaving the fortune to her and her brother. Somehow to fucking hell she ended up in Norway, I don't know if it was to follow a no good cheating husband, or to get away from one, but she was here now and had been for some time. Then she began to complain about America and George Bush, saying he and his policies were why she moved to Norway. Then she told me how horrible Norwegians were, that they were sexist and aloof. The treated her like a whore for being a single American women, and she had no rights nor the sympathy of the court. She talked about how her landlord raised her rates continuously without ever coming to fix the broken heater she had been living with for years. And when she took him to court the judge dismissed her case as frivolous, but her land lord, pissed at her, killed her cats. Almost on queue a car drove by and seeing her standing there talking to me, cat-called to her like she was a street walker (who I was soon to find out were everywhere after sundown).
I quickly came to realize that Susan from New York was a rich trust-fund baby version of the homeless drifter I had met in Oregon the year before. Like him, her demeanor, focus, hope, and feelings drifted with the breezes. Nodding, agreeing, and occasionally saying “well now, that's a real shame” I quickly tuned her wah-wah-wah droning out and began to remember that homeless Oregonian drifter and how he paralleled Susan from New York in so many ways. Her stories ended in places where the next one immediately began, and before long I was totally unsure who, what, when, or where we were talking about. I had noted many times that I was losing sunlight and that I had to walk to the harbor to set up, test the light, and photograph. But Susan from New York had only let me move a few feet in nearly 40 minutes. Finally, nearly out of time, I told her that she could walk with me, but that I must get to the harbor. She declined, but followed me 4-5 blocks anyways, finally rid of her I shortly thereafter found my self at the harbor, where the suns evening rays were gold and bright on the red-painted wood buildings.
Thanks to Susan from New York I missed most of the golden hour, but I managed some nice shots before dark enveloped the mountain tops and the orange low-pressure sodium lights around the city sprang on. The sun now completely gone I moved from my spot, heading out of the open dockside and into an area of hotels and building fronting the water. I noticed now groups of women, mostly foreign, mostly African, standing around under corner lamps and on stoops and steps. Some were neatly dressed, but most were garish, talking with their gals, and having a smoke while standing atop tall heels with bare legs shivering slightly in the cool night air. Walking past they smiled briefly, and I nodded even more so. I guess it was a whore's equivalent time of just having arrived at work, drinking coffee, chatting with coworkers, and not yet ready to work. I set up in a short alley with a small boat tied to a dock, and took some photos. I noticed then a short middle eastern man had followed me, watching. As I left the alley, some what cautiously and suspicious, he entered my vacated spot, and set up a small camera to take the same exact photo I had. The next alley over I set up for some more photos, again leaving as the middle eastern man walked in. this happened several times, where ever I would set up my equipment to photo, so would he as I walked away. Finally I came to a wide concrete yard with several large garage doors in the side of a block building. It was a warehouse located pretty much at the end of the line, and the small man set up near me. Taking my time I watched him. He broke the silence first and asked me if I was American. I responded and soon we were talking photography. I could tell he was not a wealthy man, he had an old model Sony DSC-H series digital camera, non-SLR, and only a model or two newer than the one I used several years before in Europe. I complimented him on his good choice and showed him a few tips and trick I remembered on that camera. He was from the United Arab Emerites, and so that sparked my curiosity and sparked a great deal of our conversation. We mostly talked Arab politics, oil money and its misuses, and on the state of freedoms and customs of his middle eastern home. After we both tired of photographing the same damn thing we walked together back towards the town cetre. Passing again the small groups of whores, who were now off their break and asking us flat out if we wanted sex as we walked by. We both just smiled and said no thanks. These women all looked like they had been here awhile; wrinkles and cynicism were setting in, two unbecoming attributes in a whore.
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