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[penguinofhonor]

Oh, huh. Yeah, I thought you just thought approaching someone just because you want to have sex was taking advantage of them. I guess I was a little to fast to yell at you, but I've been wanting to yell at someone all day for some reason and I just kind of pounced on the first opportunity.

[Kagus]

I know the feeling, oddly enough.  No harm done.


As for the sonerohian musical interlude, that was indeed a rather funny coincidence...  You listened to Vitamin C while reading it, and I listened to Black Sabbath while writing it.  Nifty world we live in.

[codezero]

Entertaining read, thanks for sharing. I read all of it.

[Kagus]

Wow.  It would appear that the quality of my writing transcends the boundaries not only of culture and continent, but also life itself.  I don't believe I've ever had a bot compliment my work before.

There's a milestone for ya.

[sonerohi]

And as the bot read, his heart processor grew three times it's size. He shed a single tear (which caused him to short-circuit).

[Kagus]

EPILOGUE:
Revenge of the Hobo

Currently trying to pull together all the loose strands before taking off for the reunion.  I leave for Norway tomorrow morning, and should be able to get there in time to have a good ol' Norwegian New Year's celebration over at a friend's shack.

It's funny...  I'm anxious as hell about getting everything sorted out properly and getting through all the checkpoints smoothly, and it's only once I'm up in the air that I can really relax.  It's a sort of inverse flight anxiety.  I'm afraid of the bureaucracy, not the machine.

I am, in fact, scared shitless.  Just got back from the bathroom. 


Blehf...  For as much as I've traveled, I never really liked that whole "traveling" part. 


Anyways, I'm going to be spending a fair amount of my time crashing over at Hatman's accommodations.  I am going to be in Norway for about three weeks though, so we'll see how long it takes before my presence becomes too irritating to abide...

But, like he says, he's been a teacher's assistant for the worst special ed class in all of that area...  He should be able to handle me.

[Kagus]

Getting up at the truly ungodly hour of 6:30 (well, considering the religious views of this household, I suppose that every hour is ungodly), I took off for the airport with what I can only assume was everything I needed (plus some extra Inka Corn).

My flight plan was the perfectly simple and straightforward route of Vegas - Fresno - Frisco - Frankfurt - Oslo.  I am aware that many San Franciscans are unimpressed by the use of the name "Frisco", but "Fresno - 'The City' - Frankfurt" didn't have quite the same ring to it.

Boarding the flight to Fresno, I found myself in line behind a couiple people who were commenting on the incessant broadcasting of various popular Christmas songs over the sound system.

Or, rather, the fusion jazz remixes of said songs.


Blundering into the plane matchstick-with-wings, I plunked myself down in the first seat that seemed appropriate for my needs.  I had, for whatever reason, gotten it into my head that there weren't any seating reservations on the trip to Fresno.

This idea was soon discarded when someone behind me said "Ah...  That would be my seat".  Looking, I discovered it to be the Christmas-comment woman.

Beyond sorting out that one little mixup, the flight was largely uneventful.  Despite being only slightly larger than a children's toy, the plane was not quite as entertaining.  The only item of note would be how hilarious the big-plane security announcements sound in such a small space, and also how the attendant call button seems largely useless in a space small enough to simply shout at the flight personnel.

The Fresno-Frisco flight, on the other hand, proved to be a bit more interesting...

The terminal I had been dropped off at happened to be the same mini-plane corral I needed to be in for my connecting flight, so I didn't have to go wandering around all over the place.  When the time came, I filed out onto the runway, climbed the steps up into the plane, and raised my head to greet the flight attendant who was welcoming the passengers aboard.

...only to find none other than the Christmas-comment woman staring back at me.  She looked at me for a moment.

"Hey...  Did you-...   Were you the one on my Vegas to Fresno flight?"

"Yup, that was me!"


Throughout the flight, we made faces at each other during the announcements, shared a few wry smirks, and generally acted almost like we knew each other.  She gave a special closing address once we'd reached our destination.

"...It's been a great pleasure for me to be your attendant on this flight.  I'd like to thank you for flying United, and wish you a happy new year.  Who knows, maybe we'll fly together again someday"

At this little inside comment I tipped my hat at her from my seat, and she nodded back. 

It's remarkably fun treating a plane trip as an inside joke of some sort...


The flight from San Francisco to Frankfurt was not exactly what I might choose to call "enjoyable"...  Although it was somewhat funny thinking about how the giant Boeing 747 would've been able to swallow both the planes I'd just flown in, with room for more.

I ended up with a row to myself, but I ended up yielding the aisle seat to the Indian fellow who was sitting in the row behind.  The reason for this was that there were three people in the other two seats, a married couple and their rather energetic young child.  They had requested a little more space, and so the Indian relocated to my neck of the woods.

Most of that flight was uneventful, with me reading in the book I had brought along until they turned off the main lights.  After that I was torn between sneaking glances at whatever movie was playing (oh god...  Will Ferrel's 'Elf'), listening to the onboard stations (hits of the 60's, hits of the 70's, and the every-talentless-doofus-with-a-guitar-and-some-angst channel), and trying desperately to get some sleep.

Ah yes, sleep...  That most evasive and skittish of creatures.  I can delude myself into thinking that I would've been able to catch some rest if I'd had the row to myself, but between the avid reader in front of me, the chaotic cycles of the toddler behind me, and the various minor cataclysms going on in the rest of the plane, there was never really any hope to begin with.

I did manage to contort myself into all manner of peculiar knots and positions in the attempt though, and I managed to have a few hours of half-sleep racked up before the flight was over.  Of the two times I did manage to fall asleep, the first time I slipped permanently out of position and the second time I was awakened by a balloon popping in the distance.  Yes, a balloon.  Don't ask.


After a while I noticed that the flight progress screen wasn't updating properly.  Despite our having been in the air for several hours (I was certain), it still claimed that we were somehow hovering 18,000ft above San Francisco, without so much as a single MPH.

I humored the airline by eating most of the special meal they had prepared for me, but the generic sandwich they tried to pass off on me was simply too much.  I pulled out the bag of lemon rice that I'd been supplied with for the trip and started munching.

This, of course, intrigued my traveling companion signficantly.  After I'd pointed out that it was indeed an Indian dish, we started talking about India a bit.  I mentioned Hyderabad, and he informed me that not only had he received some of his education there (yikes), but that his mother lived there as well.  He didn't recognize the name of the place we stayed at, but then again I probably screwed up on the pronunciation by a syllable or two, thus turning it into a completely alien name he had never heard before in his life.

Naturally, this was viewed as a gateway into the land of conversation proper, and he attempted to make smalltalk.  Heh, it still gets me how Indians ask what subject you're taking an education in...  They don't ask what you're studying, or even which classes you might be taking.  No, they ask you "so, what are you training to be?".

Although I didn't answer either 'doctor' or 'engineer', I do think he was able to see some merit in taking film lessons.  After all, India has one of the largest film industries in the world...

Once that was all said and done, we acknowledged each other and went our separate ways.


The last leg of the trip was a bit peculiar.  I started off by trying to warm up my Norwegian a bit by turning to the woman seated next to me and apologizing for my smell, explaining that I'd had several stopovers and had yet to find a chance to do anything about my personal hygiene.

She was, of course, German.  She hadn't understood a word of what I'd just said.  Naturally, I repeated the vital announcement in English.  You know, to exercise my Norwegian skills.


Coming into Oslo, I got to see what an airport looks like when the temperature tries to nurture a hobby of skydiving.  Getting off the plane, I noticed that there was even snow inside the corridor connecting the plane to the terminal.


Arriving in Oslo is always a fun kick...  The airport manages to capture the subtle blend of wood, wool, and Norwegian food that makes up the unique aroma of Norway itself.  It was a little masked by the smell of shot-order pizza this time around, but it was still there...

My grandparents had come down to the airport to greet me, and they brought with them some Christmas gifts along with a few supplies for surviving in Norway (socks, gloves, a woolen cap, so on).  Because of some misread schedules, I actually had some time to sit around and talk with them before my train took off.

After the pleasantries, I gave my buddy a call and told him when I'd be arriving in Stokke (where he lives).  He said he'd check the bus schedules, and informed me that there might be a slight hitch in the plan to go over to his friend's house to get wasted for New Year's, seeing as the friend in question had pulled another one of his disappearing acts and was unreachable for the moment (this was the same chap who vanished right before we were to start filming our little short film).


I said goodbye to my grandfolks and headed down to the train terminal to freeze my legs off for a few moments as the train got there.  Once on board, I settled in for a good ol'-fashioned Norwegian train ride.  It's been a while...


When the train arrived in Stokke a couple hours later, I bundled up all my gear and opened up the door to that delightful chill I'd managed to evade for a couple hours, thanks to the heating system aboard the train.

Since I didn't see my welcoming comittee offhand, I decided to meander around the platform a bit in hopes of finding him.  I saw several families being reunited, friends greeting each other, but no recognizable Hatman.  After a couple rounds of patrolling back and forth with my suitcase wheels trundling through the snow, I decided to call him up.

"Hey Hatman."

"Hey!"

"... where are you?"

"Me?  I'm at home.  Where are you?"

"Stokke."

"Oh, you've arrived then?"

"Yeah, I just got off the train.  Right when I said I would."

"Alright!  Now, if you head straight forward, there should be a blue sign with..."


After a few more seconds of talking, I realized why he had checked the bus schedules.  He wasn't looking for a bus to take him out to the station, he was looking to see if there would be a bus there for me.

What followed was a vain search for the phantom bus stop, and then a decision to just frippin' walk to his house.  Again, he wasn't going to walk out and get me, but he was willing to give me directions and sort of meet me halfway.

Quite some time later, we finally managed to traverse enough ground to see each other.  I took the opportunity to yell some foul names at him as we approached, including one of the most offensive Norwegian insults I know. 

Yes, that's right, I said he was of Swedish heritage.


We hugged each other, I accidentally thwacked him in the jaw, and then we set off on the long and very interesting trek up to his house.  Yes, up.  I don't really understand the attraction of living in a neighborhood where the only accessway is an icy road angled at 45 degrees.  Walking up such a feature is daunting enough, carrying a heavy suitcase up it is right out.


Eventually, with much grunting and yelling at ice, we made it to the abode that he calls home.  Ah... sweet, blessed warmth at last...


We sat down in the living room and got straight to the point with a couple cans of pilsner.  I believe this was actually my first time drinking Ringnes, a very popular Norwegian beer.  Not half bad.


We eventually wandered downstairs, where Hatman has his game consoles and PC.  We didn't get much into either of these though, as we were busy talking and laughing ourselves into a few more cans of beer (plus the odd shot of whiskey).  I ended up losing a fairly amusing amount of my motor skills, and although I didn't start running the drunken 3 AM calls to random people, I did manage to sneak in an online chat with someone on Facebook.  Hey, it's a new generation, the traditions are changing...


I admit that I'd had my doubts about how long I'd be able to stay in Hatman's close company without developing the urge to strangle him.  It had, after all, been quite some time since last I'd seen him...  Maybe my memory had "ironed out" a few of his wrinkles during our time apart.

But, after hours of vibrant conversation and some hearty laughter at shared jokes, I felt my doubts float away.  This was indeed the friend I had remembered, just as crazy as ever, and with just as much a love for tobacco and alcohol as the last time I checked.  ...the only difference was an even more sizable 'jewfro' than before.


We ushered in the new year with fists full of drink and faces full of smiles.  I'm pretty sure he made a resolution, but I can't for the life of me remember what it might have been.  I made no resolutions, because if I haven't gotten around to doing it yet, I'm probably not going to do it later anyways. 


And besides...  Why should I wait for the new year, when I can always make a Thursday resolution?

[Kagus]

The past few days have been spent primarily in Hatman's little cave, with the Xbox 360 constantly powered up (with the exception of a few powerouts caused by one of the heaters) and the computer serving as an occasional clock/moviewatching platform.

Most of the new year's weekend was spent with total freedom, as Hatman's parents were out of town until around 2 PM on Sunday.  As such, we acted with typical adolescent wisdom and consumed mass amounts of pizza, watched a horror movie, and then pulled an overnighter while playing Saboteur on the Xbox (I refuse to type the '360' after each one.  Just accept the fact that it was an Xbox 360).  Been a long time since I went a full 24 without sleep...  Fun stuff.

It's also been a very long time since I've had a headache.  More fun.


After his folks got back, the schedule changed only slightly.  Hatman no longer smoked inside (this activity was replaced with trying to convince his parents that he had not smoked inside during their absence), and we were more likely to go to bed.  Also, not so many pizza deliveries.

We did take one little change from the usual plan by getting out of the house long enough to go into Tønsberg for a screening of the new Sherlock Holmes flick (which, personally, I quite enjoyed.  I'd had my doubts about a Jude Law portrayal of Watson, but he managed to serve the role of a sidekick quite amicably).


The weekend reunion starts on Friday at about 6:30 PM.  Should be interesting.

I'm still not entirely sure what to think of the whole ordeal...  I figure I'll just have to figure something out once I get there.


As an aside, Hatman's got about five or six cats wandering around out here, crazy cat manlady that he is...

[Kagus]

Ah yes, down to the dirty business of writing this all up...  As an aside, I'm writing this from Hatman's PC, since my own cute little laptop seems to be allergic to the wireless network here.  This means I have no English spellchecker, not to mention a keyboard which has seen better days...  Much better days.


Anyways, Friday.  The first item on the official program for the evening was a meeting up in the room we used to have morgensamling in at 6:30 PM.  But, of course, we wanted to get there a little earlier in order to run the meet'n'greet before we were sucked away by any defined schedule.

This ended up being trickier than we might have expected, seeing as Hatman had a 2:00 PM appointment for a haircut, and after he came back we needed to enter into the long and grueling process of ordering a pizza dinner for five people.

We got there a little after 6:30.  We hurried along, dropped off our bags in a suitably unoccupied space and then headed up to see if they'd been dickish enough to lock the doors after collecting "everyone".

But no, as we approached hesitantly, the door was opened for us and we were welcomed in.  As we walked in we were greeted by a healthy round of applause from the gathered students.  Naturally, I took a great sweeping bow and made the most out of my entrance as humanly possible...  I mean, it's not often your very presence gets applauded, so you may as well give them a reason.

We made our way to the back of the room -where we usually sat- and said hi to the rest of the gang.  Ah, sweet reunion...  It's funny, I'd expected more of a shock coming in there and seeing all the familiar rooms, the faces of people I recognized from so long ago...  But it felt more like we were just going straight back into the Skiringssal routine, as though we'd gotten up for classes and done the exact same thing yesterday.

The principal (one person I had no particular desire to be reunited with) was reading the student names off of a list, whereupon the person would stand up and tell everyone what they'd done after Skiringssal, where they lived, what classes they were/weren't taking and so forth...

He'd already gone through Film and TV by the time we got there, but he made a special accommodation by calling us up after everyone else.

Two things I should mention...  First of all, I've done a great deal of nothing in the year following Skiringssal, aside from helping my folks out with a couple oddjobs and, of course, writing up the last of this beast.  Second, most of the people called up simply recited "I live in ___, and I'm studying ___/working at a ___" in a boring monotone.  Some of them even mentioned their names for some reason...

These two conditions of course meant that I had to make as much out of my presentation as possible.  Don't ask for the reasoning behind this, just accept it and hold faith in it, for it shall save thee in times of darkness and boredom.

When my name was called out, I made a great show of leaping up from my chair, stamping my boots on the ground when I landed.  I then addressed the attentive (and slightly frightened) students thusly:

"I have done precisely fuck all!  However, I did buy a coat..."

I pointed to the large black coat I was wearing, which I had picked up shortly before leaving for Norway.

"...and, as you can see, I like my coats like I like my coffee:  Made from wool"

At this, I sat back down.  A chaotic mixture of confused glances and uncertain laughter filled the room.  My work here was done.


Damn I'd missed these people...  John Smith was just as much a giant beacon of harmony as ever, and the wacked-out jokes and comments were flying as freely as they always had during the school year.


I'd also kind of hoped/expected that I'd act differently at the reunion, say things I normally wouldn't say to people I normally wouldn't hang out with...  But after the initial burst of showering each other with love and affection born from absence (and giving tall penguin-man a few packages of Inka Corn, free of charge.  An action which caused him to pull me into an enormous hug of purest gratitude), I found myself doing exactly what I always did...  Namely, standing around and wondering where the hell everyone got off to while I absently played a few licks on the guitar.

It eventually came time for the show, where both years would present material in the hopes of totally outperforming the other in terms of awesomeness. 

As far as I could tell, we were actually evenly matched...  This wasn't due so much to the current year being particularly amazing, but more to the fact that we were totally unprepared and the doofuses in charge of the affair didn't have our best films and skits, for some reason.

The current year wasn't bad per se, just...  Lacking.  All the material they had was quite good, but it left many opportunities unfulfilled and generally just fell short of awesome.

Except, that is, for the music class.  The two songs they performed at the beginning of their turn were both quite impressive.  Particularly the second one, where the (rather skilled) guitarist got to really show his stuff.

Other than that though...  Yeah, not much.  A half-assed transvestite dance number, a few people shaking bottles with glo-sticks in them, and some other material that, as with everything else, had the potential for awesomeness, but fell short by a fair stretch.


Our own material wasn't hugely better though.  We showed a couple little skits from Industrielle Boller, our sketch-based "TV program", but other than that and the death metal video, all other performances were taken up by Beefcake and Paki-Man.

Yes, that's right.  ALL OTHER PERFORMANCES included either one or both members of this delightful duo.  Not exactly the image I'd want to project, but most of the cool people were, of course, too lazy to volunteer themselves.


The rest of the evening was spent just being around the people we'd been out of contact with for so long, and commenting on how weird and simultaneously not-weird it was to be back. 

Seeing all the new people was, of course, rather crazy.  It's like going back to your old home and seeing the weirdos who live there now.

I do wonder what kind of experiences the new class has been having though...  Several gathering rooms were closed down during our stint there, and I'd be very surprised if they'd been opened back up.  The only place for people to really gather together now would be the rec room, and only the squares hang out there (note:  Not to be confused with "The Square", who is awesome in ways man cannot fully comprehend).

Ach vel...  Not my place to think about those who were unfortunate enough to not be in the same year as our unfathomable glory.  I had more pressing matters at hand, such as finding a place to sleep.

Sleeping indeed...  I ended up bunking down in the music room, along with Hatman, a few others from the gang, and another notable individual...  Pirate-Goth.

I'd seen her a couple times earlier in the evening, and it hadn't gotten any less awkward since then.  I'd mostly been avoiding eye contact with her, as I still hadn't figured out exactly how I was going to handle the situation and she was acting as though nothing had happened.  Naturally, as with many of the uncomfortable situations I'd been in before, she almost seemed to be following me.

I decided that I'd let things go as they were.  If she wanted to re-establish contact, then she could take the initiative.  Otherwise, I'd leave her alone.  Figured she'd probably want it that way.

Sleeping in the same room as her, however, did nothing to ease my mind.


This wasn't particularly helped by the other occupants of the room...  Hatman was testing the acoustics of the room by putting up a formidable orchestra of snores, and one of the gals had a cell phone whose alarm managed to wake everyone up - except herself.

Repeatedly.


I woke up once at 4:45.  I'm not entirely sure what had caused this, but the combination of Hatman's snoring, Pirate-Goth's presence, and the sounds of Annoying Brit cuddling up with yet another one of the gals from school in his sleeping bag served to provide me with a whole host of demons to gnaw at my brain and keep me from unconsciousness.

Eventually, I just left.  I got out of my sleeping bag, grabbed my water bottle and walked out into the main lobby.

There were three things in that room...  A chair (from which the seat cushion had been stolen, most likely to serve as a pillow), a trash can, and a radiator heater on the wall. 

The utter emptiness and openness of the room served to clear my head almost instantly...  Quite a relief.

I sat on the cushionless chair and alternated between putting my feet and my side against the heater.   I didn't sleep exactly, but I did get to rest a bit.

I was out there until around 6:15, at which point I decided to head back in.  Hatman's serenade was in a brief interlude, and I managed to doze off for a while longer.

We were awakened by a huge host of people barging into the music room, turning on all the lights, and talking in loud, excited voices.

See, most folks had opted to sleep in the gymnasium instead of the music room, and there was a soccer match planned for 10:00 AM Saturday between the two sets of students.  When it came time for the soccer match, everyone was shoved out of the gym.

...which they apparently took as a sign to come in and dump all their stuff in the music room.


I got up and packed my stuff while my head went through the lengthy and tedious process of booting up. 

The sunlit part of Saturday was roughly the same as the day before, although I did get to do something a little outside the standard routine.  I ended up talking with one of the other groups from school outside of "the gang", and in the process met a couple of the current students (one of whom seemed to take a bit of a shine to me).  This whole thing was started off when I was walking past them and one of the gals asked me to pick up the guitar before one other member of their group (a novice guitarist herself) came back and started playing it again.

"Please."


Well, can't really refuse when someone says please.  Especially not if it means playing guitar (for a respectably small audience).

The buses showed up to take us to the party at 6:00 PM.  Before taking off, I took a quick detour so I could "go on down to St. Smith's Place", as they say...   It needed to be done.

It's not often I get such a good feeling from staring at a wall.


Coming up,  Saturday part II: Night of the Living Hobo

[Kagus]

The bus trip was bout as fascinating as you can expect a bus to be.  The only real points of interest were when John Smith started singing along with his seat partner (spontaneous songs about beer, trees, politicians and so forth) and when the Annoying Brit (who was sitting behind me) finally admitted that beer can actually taste alright. 

When we made it to the building that had been rented out (same place we'd gone for the past two parties at school), we could see that it had been specially made up for the party (rather than simply evacuated, as was the usual procedure before we arrived someplace).  This was because we would be getting a little help with our reunion party from the kitchen chief.  All well and fine, except for the fact that this somehow meant we had to pay an insane entrance fee.  600 Kroner, a little over 100 bucks, per head.  In cash.

After that injury (which needed no further insult added to it, as it was insulting in and of itself), we picked out which table we would sit at and started making ourselves comfortable.  This meant, in essence, drinking.

We even got place settings and utensils. Sure, it was all made of either paper or plastic, but it was still more than we'd had at previous parties.  There were even a few bowls of snackfood lying on the table, some of them more appealing than others (as in, not all of them looked like congealed semen with mold splatters).  There was even a platter off to the side with party drinks.

Now, if 75+ people are going to be paying 100 bucks a head for one night, I'd at least epect some halfway decent party drinks.  These things were just nasty...  They tasted like the bastard child of orange soda and the bad kind of cough syrup.  But, of course, I drank the whole friggin' thing.  Gotta take your medicine, after all...

After we'd been there for a bit, we got to the first course of the evening, namely some soup.  Essentially tomato soup with some macaroni in it.  But, of course, most "normal" folks were served the version with chicken in it, so the crazy vegetarians had to go into the kitchen and dish up for themselves (everyone else had soup brought to their table).

Now, the funny thing about this is that the "chicken soup" didn't actually have any chicken in it...  It most likely just had some broth or something in it (there were quite a few people who were looking for their chicken bits rather intently, and who were rather disappointed not to have any). 

Or, as I said, it was "chicken approved".


The soup was...  Well, pretty basic.  Really just broth and a smattering of noodles that were added in after the fact.  Again, for 100 bucks, not a heck of a lot to write home about (even though that's exactly what I'm doing right now).

Some people enjoyed the soup more than others...  Those who didn't care for it decided that the best course of action would, of course, be to pour heirs into a cup, hand it to John Smith, then start chanting "Chug! Chug! Chug!" (we'd had a few by this time).

Next was the main course, an array of burritos.  Again, vegetarians needed to come and get their eats in the kitchen.

Of course I can't speak for the meat burritos, but the vegetarian ones were highly lackluster...  But, hey, they were filling enough.  And I've eaten worse, after all.

Dessert was really just a free-for-all, with a trolley full of lemon biscuits, stone-hard gelatin, and vanilla sauce. 

All in all, I'm still not completely sure how this all managed to cost 100 per person...  Even with the free beer we got with the soup (yes, free as in beer...  Even though we were paying through the nose for it).  Yes, we got a three course meal, but it wasn't exactly high-quality...  Yes, we got a couple drinks, but those DEFINITELY were not high quality...  Yes, we were renting out a locale that we'd ravaged the last two times we'd been there, including the destruction of a fridge door, and we'd been told on a couple different occasions that Skiringssal students would never be allowed on the premises again, but...

Okay, maybe that was why.


By now I'd had a couple beers, along with that mixed "thing" we got at the start, and I was starting to get a little tipsy (hey, 6"2' 146 pounds, only other food I'd hadwas a bowl of rice pudding earlier in the day, third time drinking...  I've got all sorts of excuses as to why it took so little to get me started), however I felt that I wasn't quite drunk enough to fully appreciate the event, so I pulled out a third beer.

About halfway through, I felt that I'd reached my limit.  I still wasn't really drunk yet, but my stomach was starting to cry bloody murder.  I felt that I'd rather take a break for a while than have my first drunken vomiting episode, so I left it at two and a half beers, plus the cup of Bacardi and Bleh.

I started sipping from my water bottle to clear my system, and immediately started getting people coming up and commenting on how I still wasn't drinking.  I'd had a can in my hand for all of the evening leading up to that, but they only notice me now that I'm holding the water bottle?  Goons...

Still though, it gave me the opportunity to see their faces when I told them that, yeah, I'd been drinking...  And that it also wasn't the first time I'd done so, but the third. 

Always fun to see such expressions of shock and disbelief...


One thing that's a little unfortunate with the combination of drinking and blogging is that, even when you're just a little tipsy, you don't remember details as clearly.  I do remember having a very good "early game" though, and that I started going a bit downhill after I 'd spent some time clearing up.  Y'know, the usual shtick of feeling alone and unwanted, not having anyone to talk to, so on...  Most of it was unfounded though, as I spent far more time chatting with folks and getting them laughing than at any of the other parties...  Combined, even.

I figured I just hadn't had enoughto drink yet.  And, I'd just managed to clear out my stomach to the point that I wasn't feeling nauseous anymore...  Obviously, the perfect time to get back into the wet game.

I'd just started in on a fresh beer when I felt my stomach turn over yet again, as though it started right where it left off last time.

I did manage to get the beer down and kinda refresh my buzz, but I realized that that was as far as I was going to be traveling down Inebriation Road that night.  Hadn't even managed to make it through the six-pack I'd gotten for the party (but, as it turned out, someone else did...  I was going to get some for a friend who had misplaced his own alcohol, only to find that there wasn't so much as a smudge left in the fridge)...

Hatman, obviously quite a ways down the ol' path, sat down next to me at one point and started trying to convince me to keep drinking.  I told him that if I drank any more, I'd puke.  He countered by saying that everybody vomits sometime, and after you've "emptied the tank" so to speak, then you can drink some more! 

Beyond the obvious, I stated that if I were to vomit, I wouldn't be as happy I was just then, and I was pretty freakin' happy at that moment.


You may ask why exactly I was feeling so chipper...  After all, everything I've described so far has been either unimpressive or downright non-conducive to a joyous state of being.  Well, that's because something happened which I haven't brought up yet, something which damned well made my evening.

At one point while I was sucking on my water supply and munching on Inka Corn at my little party-observation station, I saw Pirate-Goth out of the corner of my eye.  As had been my standard procedure thus far, I looked the other way.

A few seconds later, however, she was sitting in the chair next to me and was talking about something in an incomprehensible combination of English in Norwegian.  After a couple moments she gathered herself and started saying stuff I could understand.  And that's when it got interesting.

Some time before I left for Norway, I sent out a message on Facebook to a few select people (mind you; this was "select" at three in the morning...) that included the link to this here account of my time at Skiringssal...  One of the names on that list was Pirate-Goth's.

I'd only gotten feedback from Hatman, so I assumed that he had been the only one to read it, so it was a bit of a surprise to hear that she'd actually seen the message (let alone followed the link).  The greater surprise was that she'd actually managed to read the whole damn thing, and was actually rather impressed by it (to the point of even liking her nickname, which is, y'know, always a plus).

The ensuing conversation served to iron out the nasty spots between us.  And although recovery from something like that is always a process, I daresay that we're cool now. 

Damn that made me feel good...  Even writing about it now, I'm still a little bit buzzed.  For all the different scenarios that had been playing out in my head, I never thought things could go that well.


The rest of the evening played out rather well.  I wasn't quite drunk enough to charge headfirst into the festivities, but I had least brought along a passable camera this time... Oh yes, partyphotos for everyone...

Some time around 4:00 AM, I started feeling like I'd reached the end of my battery, and that I should sneak my way over to the secret sleeping spot I'd used before.

As I'd hoped, no one else knew about or desired to take that spot, so it was perfectly open and ready for usage.  The only less-than-delightful aspect of the deal was a table with a very low support bar that made turning from one side to the other quite an ordeal.  Otherwise, it was just as perfect as I'd remembered...

I snuggled in, warm and cozy, sent a goodnight text message to John Smith via my cell phone, and settled down for the night.


...


A few hours later, I awoke to a bit of a scuffle coming from the bathroom I was camped right across from.  A couple people tromping around and talking about something.

I was a bit groggy, and it felt like my left hip had fallen asleep, so I decided to shift position again.  While moving, I noticed that I wasn't feeling the rush of blood returning to the asleep portion of my body.  Unusual, certainly...  But my recently-awakened mind still wasn't assigning a whole great deal of meaning to it.

And then, everything came into focus...   I looked through the open bathroom door at the two people who were wandering around, and I saw the guy (the helper dude from our year) reach down and pick up a baseball cap from the floor...

A baseball cap that was soaking wet.


I looked at the floor around me...  The entire lower level was flooded with water.  That "asleep" feeling I felt was the part of my jeans that had managed to soak up some of the water through my sleeping bag.

Yes folks, I had just been flooded out...  My perfect little spot had just been washed out. And from the looks of things, the people who were checking out the situation seemed to be of the rather unhelpful variety.

"How do we stop the toilet from flooding like that?"

"Let's put the lid back on, that should do it"


So, yeah...  I waited for a while in the vain hope that maybe I'd heard wrong, or that they'd done something more than just put the tank lid back on, but no...  The water just kept on coming.  I was an island in a sea of toilet water.

I eventually got up, put my clothes back on (luckily, I'd managed to put them in places that were unaffected by the flood), pulled up my sleeping bag and insulation pad, and went upstairs.  There I found a little chair circle that included the helper dude.  I hung my sopping wet sleeping equipment over a nearby door and then struck up a conversation regarding the efforts he had taken to fix the problem.

Him: "So, there's still water coming out?"

Me: "Yeah, unless someone volunteers to stop it"


Guess who the volunteer ended up being?  Apparently, with all these different people and all their different backgrounds, I'm the only yahoo who has a clue about how a toilet works.  So I went downstairs again, this time accompanied by the Bear, who wanted to see how I'd go aboutdoing such a thing.

I went into the bathroom, opened up the tank, and looked inside at a scene devoid of water.  I lifted the little trigger arm up so that the water would stop at least while I was looking for the source of the problem.

Within five seconds I had managed to do what it had taken the others a minute to try and figure out.  Namely, stop the water (albeit temporarily).

After a bit of looking around, I saw light coming into the tank from down below.  Bingo.  The water was apparently draining out of a little crack down at the bottom of the-  whoa,wait a second...

Did I say little crack?  I mean the GIANT FRIGGIN' CHASM THAT SPLIT THE ENTIRE TANK IN TWO.  Seriously, this thing was shattered.  Destroyed, ruined, obliterated, downright kaputt even.  No chance of even a drop of water staying in that thing.

Well, that explained the source of the problem...  The trigger arm couldn't get enough water to stay up.  Then it was just a matter of finding some way of stopping the flow without my having to hold it up.

The Bear tried shoving an empty soda bottle into the tank in order to prop the thing up,but that worked about as well as soda bottles usually do.  Instead, I took a little wad of paper and jammed it into the mechanism.

There, finished.  Not a permanent fix, certainly, but the water valve had absolutely NO intention of closing, so I had to settle for whatever I could manage.

When I went back upstairs, the helper dude asked me if I'd managed to find a way to stop the flooding.

"Well, yeah.  I said I would"


After retrieving the rest of my stuff from downstairs, I put on my coat, put my hat over my eyes, and slept the rest of the night upstairs, on the floor.

The morning yielded a few more photo opportunities, some fond farewells, a large order of french fries which wasn't nearly as good as the conversation that hovered around it, and an invitation to a housewarming party next weekend.  Not to mention a collection round for yet another 100 kroner in order topay for the toilet.


So, yeah...   Here I am.  Back in the cave and eating what's left of my Inka Corn reserves.  All in all, it was a pretty goddamn awesome night, and I managed to get some beautiful (if somewhat out-of-focus) pictures from it as well.

See for yourselves:

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So far, no one else has released any pictures from the party...  Slackers.

I'll see if I can find some way of pushing my return date a bit more, then I'll be able to write up whatever insanity happens at the housewarming party (which is really more of an apartment-warming party...   With 40+ invited guests...  Yikes), but as far as Skiringssal is concerned, it's all over, folks.   Heh, I must admit, I feel quite a bit better ending it on this note than the last few days of school. 

Partaaay...

[Kagus]

Oh yeah, one more thing...  I just found out a few days ago about a little something that occurred between Beefcake and Tanned Sunshine (the Awesome formerly known as Beefgirl).

Apparently, during a lovely vacation to the sunny south, Beefcake turned to his lovely girl and said "I'm pretty enough for the both of us, so I'm dumping you.  Hyuk hyuk".


Some of you may remember a few of the things I've said about ol' Shitcake here, and you'll remember that most of them aren't very flattering.  Then, all of a sudden, I throw in a little "he really wasn't that bad" at the end.

The only reason I did that was because I felt that if Tanned Sunshine could find something to like about him, then he couldn't be all bad.  I tried to shine a better light on him out of respect for her.  To be perfectly honest, she was his best quality.

Well, after the treatment he's put her through, and after the way he acted at the reunion party (which was, quite frankly, repulsive...  And borderline illegal), I feel absolutely no guilt in clearing up any false assumptions that he might actually be a respectable individual.


Just a little interruption of your Kagus broadcast system...  We will now resume the previously scheduled programming (which, for the moment, isn't much of anything.  I could tell you about sitting around and watching bootleg films with Hatman, but that wouldn't be hugely interesting now would it?)

[Kagus]

Woo...  Well, Hatman and I just spent the weekend in Oslo "warming" the new apartment one of the guys from Film and TV picked up.

The Facebook page for the party on Saturday (well, actually, there are two pages...  Since the F&TV guy apparently didn't really know his way around Facebook, there is now an event page and a group page for the same party.  And they're both still just sitting there now, on Wednesday) indicated that over 50 people had been invited to the party...  15 said they weren't coming, 14 were undecided, 12 said they'd be there (this included the FTV guy, his roommate, Hatman and myself), and the rest hadn't responded.

We got there early, which is to say we got there at quarter to six.  We went through the meet 'n' greet, then sat down with a couple beers to try and take the edge off the awkward silence that comes from four sober dudes sitting around the same coffee table.

The FTV guy had his own special silence to contribute, seeing as the two residents had started drinking quite a bit earlier...  Which is to say Friday night.  FTV guy was still a bit hungover.

We started warming up a bit, and I talked about my encounter with the toilet.  After some time, more people started showing up, and we felt it was time to start drinking a bit more.


All in all, four more five more people came and left that night, including the old school helper, the one who figured putting the lid back on the toilet tank would somehow stop the water from flooding out of it (I asked him if he honestly thought that would stop it...  He maintains that it "helped"). 

Although certainly not the turnout I would have expected, it ended up being just fine with that many people (there really wasn't any space left, and we were already packing three people into a loveseat...).  We listened to music, talked about the old times (including a few revelations which would probably have been better kept under wraps...  Damn my trusting nature), ate some Inka Corn, and generally got drunk in a very serious way.

Speaking of drunkenness, my 146.5 pound frame managed to pack away six pints of pilsner that night...  That's as drunk as I've ever gotten so far in my limited experience.  Interesting.

After a while, most of the extra guests left, and I was left with two conscious companions in the wee hours of the morning...  Namely Hatman and Helper.

Having exhausted my six-pack earlier, I figured it was probably about time that I switched over to the hard stuff (water) before bedtime.  I'd already been suckin' up the blue stuff for a while, so I was starting to regain some of my sober state of my mind.  As such, I was beginning to get irritated with Helper dude (despite our many shared tastes, I just never really cared for the guy...  There just seemed to be something lacking in his personality.  I'm still not sure exactly what).

Eventually, he left and grabbed the last bus back to his place, and I was left with Hatman for company.  Hatman was starting to feel the wrong end of the whiskey stick and followed my hydrating example...  But he only drank a few glasses of the stuff, whereas I had managed to put away somewhere around a gallon by the time we finally bunked down.  I apparently never quite learned the details of binge drinking...

I'm sure you can guess who was fully alive and awake the next morning.


Sunday was spent chilling out with the apartment-dwellers, as we devoured pizza and microwave popcorn while shredding it up in four-player Xbox madness.

In fact...  From Saturday afternoon to Monday morning, I ate nothing but pizza (and the aforementioned popcorn, but that's really just a snack).  Our particular source of pizza happened to be a tiny little corner at a nearby tram station.

This tiny pizza shack was owned and operated by a rather friendly fellow by the name of Umaya Atamna.  He'd had a shop somewhere else, but was pushed out by grumpy and outspoken elderly people.

We ended up talking quite a bit, and he told us about how he was still getting a lot of resistance for running his little pizza business there.  He'd even hung up a few newspaper clippings talking about how some local politician and a few other disagreeable people were trying to get rid of him and his establishment.

I looked at some of the arguments listed in the article, and I found myself on the line between laughing and holding my face in my hands.  They were trying to push someone out of an honest business because they were afraid of an increase in traffic?  Because the 8'x5' customer area might somehow become a hangout for "loitering teenagers"?

The other arguments were just as bogus...  The only thing that seemed likely to me was that there was just a group of set-in-their-ways old racists with nothing better to do than complain about the immigrant pizza shop where the young, lively people went.

Ah, enough about that...  The pizza was good, fresh, cheap, and topped with the tastiest (and strongest) jalapeños I've ever come across in Norway.

And, like I said, he was a nice enough chap just to talk to.


Monday brought some very unusual things indeed...  After first saying goodbye to the apartment-dwellers and then Hatman later on, I made my way over to Jessheim so I could chill with mah grandma for a bit.

This was, interestingly enough, the place I'd used as my home address in order to qualify for monetary support from the Norwegian government so I could go to Skiringssal.  As such, I'd gotten a couple letters since the last time I was there.  The first was an account statement from the bank...

...and the second was a message from the Norwegian government, giving me a date for my (obligatory) military service orientation. 

The date was the 3rd of December, 2009.

So, yeah...   That'll be fun.  A phone call has been made, and another one is in the works, so steps have been taken to get this thing sorted out.  Still though, it's a little funny to find out after the fact that you've been dodging...  Unwittingly.


Currently at my granddad's house, complete with wireless internet and large drahthaar who smells worse every time I see him and still maintains that he is, in fact, a lapdog.

My return plans have been changed yet again...  Originally, I was only planning on being here for three weeks, but that was before I heard about the housewarming party.  I figured I could do with one more week, and tried pushing the tickets to accommodate.

Well, one week apparently wasn't all that agreeable with the airlines...  Now, after some juggling and back-and-forthing, it appears I'm going to be here until the 6th of February.   So there.


I'll be checking around with a few other folks to see if there's another weekend party in the works...  Who knows, I may just find something else to write about!

Speaking of writing, this update has been particularly taxing to write due to a weird situation...  I'm not sure if it's Internet Explorer or Windows 7 or if it's just this itty-bitty laptop, but as soon as I go over a certain number of lines in this text box things start going batshit.

By "batshit", I of course mean that after every keystroke, the scrollbar resets to either a paragraph above where I'm writing or the very beginning of the post.  This means I can only see what I'm writing while I'm actively writing it.  Bloody annoying, that is.


Anyways, that should just about do it for this update...  Here's hoping everything works out smashingly with the delightful prospect of a military service interview.

[LeoLeonardoIII]

You need to go to a third place that'll lead to another travelogue / autobiography. Seeing two stories will just leave us all hanging.

I'd suggest South America or South Africa for symmetry. But we want you to come home in one piece!

[Kagus]

All depending, I might end up having yet another longish stay in the Northlands, what with either the military or potential schooling.


For now, however, I will be flying out to Bergen for the weekend.  There I shall meet and subsequently chill with our old friend, John Smith.  Should prove interesting...

Although he has nothing planned for the weekend, knowing Smith, it's quite likely that "something" noteworthy will happen in my short stay there.

[Kagus]

Well alrighty then.  John Smith is still conked out from last night, so I suppose I can use this time to try cracking out an update.

I plunked down in Bergen around 9:30 PM on Friday, and then spent a fair amount of time wandering around in circles as I tried to find John Smith (I believe I got off at the wrong bus stop, so his directions were slightly confusing).  Eventually we managed to work out something and we were reunited at last outside the art museum.

We then trudged our way up a steep, icy hill (what is it with Norwegians and steep, icy hills?  These things are all over the place!), and went down a street that, as Smith puts it, "Looks just fine until you get to my place".

Standing before us was a large, slightly rundown building that looked out over a fair-sized park.  Hidden in a tangle of scaffolding was a door that had quite obviously seen better days, as it needed at least a couple kicks to open it up (and then again to close it behind us).

Inside was an unlit corridor, and we entered into a door on the side.  This door, keeping in style, had completely blasted out part of the frame surrounding the lock.  The only way to keep the door closed was to lock it with the deadbolt.  In order to make sure people remembered this little tidbit, a dire warning was written onto a piece of paper attached to the inside:

"To those who forget to lock the door:

...lock the door"


We kicked off our shoes amidst a pile of other shoes and shoe-like paraphernalia, then made our way through the commune to Smith's room (easily identified by a large sign on the door that says "Nurse".  According to Smith, that sign was there when he moved in, and it was simply "too sweet" to take down).

However confused I may have been by the sign, all doubt was washed away as I entered the room and found a computer playing from a list of psychedelic tunes and Bob Dylan classics, a large collection of DVD's ranging from Kill Bill to Pan's Labyrinth to Old Boy (a Korean revenge movie), a bag of pizza-flavored potato chips, and the overwhelming aroma of hash.

Yes, this was definitely the abode of John Smith.


Friday night was spent eating store-bought pizza off of "student plates" (in other words, the boxes that the pizzas came in), watching an assortment of insane and/or trippy videos on YouTube, listening to various songs on Spotify, and playing "Shopping Cart Hero 2" on Kongregate.

Aside from the name-dropping, we also watched about half of Old Boy on Smith's TV before it died.


It took a bit of getting used to, but this place is actually rather nice.  And I must say, a commune building that looks out over Junkie Central Park is right in style for John Smith.  Plus, his rent is about a third of what the guys in Oslo are paying each month...

We finally ended up crashing at around five in the morning, and didn't wake up again until three in the afternoon on Saturday...  Now *this* is my kind of schedule.


Saturday was spent in mostly the same way as Friday, with slightly more Shopping Cart Hero and slightly less YouTube.  We finished off the rest of Old Boy and pulled some more stunts in the addictive Flash game before finally agreeing that we needed to eat something.

I did find it kind of funny that we took so long before venturing outside that it had gotten dark again...  Talk about nocturnal.

Mind you, this is Norway during the butt end of winter, so "dark" comes at about 4:30 in the afternoon.


We went shopping, picked up some essentials (beer), then headed down to a pizza joint where we treated ourselves to a larger, fresher pizza than the day before.  This meal was taken back to Smith's pad, and we consumed it while watching the "Trailer Park Boys" movie.  Good times, good times.

Some time into the evening we got a call from Annoying Brit, who also happens to be living in Bergen.  After a bit of back-and-forth we agreed to have a cozy little meetup at a local pub, seeing as the opportunity to get 3+ Skiringssalians in one place at the same time is rather rare, especially when that group happens to include me.

Much later ("half an hour" in hash time multiplied by casual gaming time), we dressed up and headed out for what was to be (to my knowledge and/or recollection) my first pub night.

Reaching the pub, we were greeted by a thundering soundtrack (two, actually.  The pub was divided into two parts, one with a dance floor and one with pool tables.  The dance floor section was equipped with the standard strobe lights and chunky dance techno, while the pool table area happened to boast a completely different soundtrack, including Led Zeppelin, Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath, and a few other selections that I was actually quite content with) and of course AB, who had been "warming up the place" for us.

There's really not much to describe here.  Between getting drunk, getting seriously caught up in a few songs, meeting a rather inebriated ol' chap who danced hip-hop for our entertainment, proving once and for all that drunk people have an increased appreciation for hats, getting hit on by a plus-sized (not to mention "spoken for") dame, and losing most of what's left of my hearing, there really wasn't a whole lot that happened.

...well, I suppose that might be a matter of personal opinion.


After bidding farewell to AB, the gal from school that he recently hooked up with, and the other friends that AB introduced us to, John Smith and I staggered our way home through Bergen's nighttime streets, waxing philosophic about deafness, pizza, beer, churches, the army, and life in general.  Back at his pad, we regaled each other with jokes that we knew were only funny because of how many beers we'd had, listened to some more music, opened our hearts to each other, and then pretty much crashed.  Hard.

All in all, a very good night.  And, of course, I ended up drinking another gallon of water, so I'm feeling perfectly chipper at the moment.


But then again, I'm wrapping up this post at four in the afternoon...   So maybe I just slept the whole thing off. 

Ah well.  Time for another day of excitement, slacking off, and pizza!


Man, it's good to see Smith again...



EDIT:  Oh yeah, about the pub...  One thing I didn't particularly care for was that they only had two kinds of beer to choose from; Heineken and Hansa, a local brew. 

This did afford me the opportunity to add a couple new tastes to my experience, however.  Hansa is very mild, smooth, and has a light flavor.  I wouldn't exactly call it spectacular, but it does go down quite easily and you really don't taste much of the alcohol.

Heineken tastes like oats.  Seriously.  It started off as interesting, then I switched over to Hansa.

I also learned, yet again, that headbanging and drinking don't mix very well.