Some interesting quirks about tourism in Norway....

The weather was seriously sucky today!  What should have been a really pretty drive between Steinkjer and Rorvik had just enough light through the rain to have us guess at what we were missing....  This, the 1/2 way point of the day, from the top of the Klompen "mountain" in Namsos, would probably have been quite a spectacular view in the sun....
Oh well, it serves no purpose to complain about the weather, so instead, I'll use this blog to share some quirks about Norwegians and their approach to tourism  (they probably think we are quirky too.....).
First, just a couple picture to illustrate the day:

We walked a few minutes around Steinkjer, because that's how long it takes to see the town.  It was all rebuilt after the war (all the towns around here were basically completely destroyed by German bombs), and there is little of note to see.  The new church is interesting,

and there are the obligatory ocher and red warehouses on the harbor (in this case, with a wrought iron statue of a guy catching a salmon in front of it).

We then went to a very charming little museum that has original houses and equipment from the 19th century.  It was actually worth the detour.  We learned there that red is the most common color for houses here because "Trondelag Red" is easily obtained here.  Rich people use to pain their house white.  Really rich people had blue doors.

 This is an example of the very typical fences that still separate houses today.

 This is the food storage house (above grounds to avoid mice).  And below, one of the restored rooms.  The guide was really sweet, helpful and uncharacteristically friendly (more about Norwegians and helping tourists below)...

In Namsos, where I would have like to walk to the top of the hill, it was just too rainy, so instead we drove.  The view was pretty, even in the rain (note the obligatory red and ocher wood houses on the harbor.....).  We choose to skip the local museum, even though it boasts "Norway's only historical collection of hospital equipment".....
And then we drove the spectacular road to Rovik - on the island of Innervines- on narrow roads, impressive bridges and a ferry.  We really hope the weather clears out tomorrow, because it is a shame to miss this.
So since we have so few pictures, just a few observations about tourism in Norway:
- Roads:  So far, we have driven primarily on E6 - THE major highway in Norway, linking Oslo to Trondheim, and the all the way north to Narvik.  This major highway is mostly a narrow 2 lanes road, sometimes going down to one lane to cross bridges, and going through numerous roundabout everytime it crosses a town - which is all the time.   The speed limit is generally 50 miles/hour, but drops to 45 or as low as 30 all the time (since it goes through a lot of towns).  For a couple of miles, it went all the way up the 55- we were very excited!  This means that it takes a long time to go anywhere (even when ferries are not involved, which they always are.....).
- Hotels and hotel personnel:  For most of their history, Norwegian invaded and pillaged other countries.  When they were not doing that, there were busy fighting the Swede and/or the Dane.  And when they were not doing that, they were basically alone, because this is a large and sparsely populated country.  They are just not used to other people invading them, even minus the pillaging....So they never got to develop a service or hospitality industry.  At least that' my explanation as to why it is almost impossible to get any information, about anything from hotel personnel - and even sometime from Tourism Information Centers personnel.  They are not unpleasant - they just don't see their role as being helpful.  At the rather upscale hotel we stayed in Aalesund, there is no parking (there is never parking!).  When you ask the receptionist where to park, she points you to the street or the garage, but fails to give you any idea about the complex rules (e.g:  on the street you can park for 2 hours at a time, but it's free from 5pm to 8am, but you have to buy a ticket and if you buy too much time, it will refund your money if you put your credit card back in).  The first time Joe tried using the machine, he simply could not figure out how it worked - all the instruction were in Norwegian, which is fair enough since it's their country.  When he told the hotel receptionist that he did not understand the numbers on the machine because he did not speak Norwegian, she answered, with true puzzlement: "but numbers are universal....."  No hotel can provide a map of their city, or an opinion as to where to go or eat.  In fact, no Tourism information center (which are everywhere) seems to be able to provide maps.  They have booklets that describe attractions, but won't tell you where they are.......   Also, the father you are, the less black out shade there are....  Again, I think it is because they feel that if you come that far north, you should just be tough!  And the thought of having anyone help with luggage is completely foreign......
- Food:  It's hard to buy food in Norway....  that's basically the bottom line.  Actually, I take that back, it's probably easy enough to by food at the supermarket, but restaurants are another thing.  It's not just that they are expensive.  It is that their menus tend to be very limited, that they don't seem to believe in vegetable, and have an odd love for "Italian" food  (the quote marks are really important).  In the little town we are in this evening, there are only 2 restaurants - both are "Italian" - which mean you can buy pizza there - including a pepperoni and pineapple pizza and a kebab pizza (which Joe had and which was pretty good).  Iren has warned us that the food gets worse as we are heading north.  It's odd because they have a lot of nice local ingredients, but not in restaurants apparently....  Also, you can't get a salad, but you can get hot dogs wrapped in bacon everywhere- why are they not all fat?