I managed to get up early and had a bad hotel breakfast in the huge ball room of the hotel. I studied the other guests around me. Since this did not seem to be a tourist town I reckoned that they were on business or visiting relatives. I paid my bill and took the road North West only stopping at T-junctions, wanting to leave this low farmland. I had to find a map as the one I had from the car rental company only covered Sweden. The Norwegian part was just white as if no one knew what happened beyond the border. The villages here followed a different pattern from those in England. They were more spread out, like small American towns. There were big wooden farm houses and barns as one approached the village, then a series of neighbourhoods laid out suburban style and lastly a shopping strip ending in a big petrol station with a mini market attached. I stopped in one of these and asked the only other driver how to use the petrol pumps. The mini market seemed to sell everything including quite major farm machinery and outboard engines. I bought some supplies for the road and asked the woman at the cash register if they sold maps. They didn't but there were free ones near the exit. At least that was what I though she said. I left with the map fearing that I was stealing it but there was now a long queue at the till
I managed to get up early and had a bad hotel breakfast in the huge ball room of the hotel. I studied the other guests around me. Since this did not seem to be a tourist town I reckoned that they were on business or visiting relatives. I paid my bill and took the road North West only stopping at T-junctions, wanting to leave this low farmland. I had to find a map as the one I had from the car rental company only covered Sweden. The Norwegian part was just white as if no one knew what happened beyond the border. The villages here followed a different pattern from those in England. They were more spread out, like small American towns. There were big wooden farm houses and barns as one approached the village, then a series of neighbourhoods laid out suburban style and lastly a shopping strip ending in a big petrol station with a mini market attached. I stopped in one of these and asked the only other driver how to use the petrol pumps. The mini market seemed to sell everything including quite major farm machinery and outboard engines. I bought some supplies for the road and asked the woman at the cash register if they sold maps. They didn't but there were free ones near the exit. At least that was what I though she said. I left with the map fearing that I was stealing it but there was now a long queue at the till
