Stavanger, Norway - 12/15/17

Stavanger COA

After another 92 miles of activities (you guys are killing it! specially our mage by the name of Walderich, who is leading the guild, motivating us all to move forward, with more than 190 miles logged since we sat foot in Norway).

Welcome to Stavanger

After another good week on the road, we reached our new destination, the city of Stavanger in it's own municipality (same-same). Togheter with the neighbouring town Sandsnes, Stavanger is the third largest urban zone in the country, and the 4th largest by population, with 132.729 inhabitants.

Sverd i fjell (English: Swords in Rock)

commemorates the historic Battle of Hafrsfjord

Interesting Facts: The city counts the completion of it's cathedral, Stavanger Cath. as it's founding year, 1125.

As we already know, Norway is experiencing an economic 'boom' since the late 20th century due to the offshore oil industry, this has affected most cities, as we have seen in Haugesund and earliers stops.

In Stavanger it has been a major force, contributing to the population growth and overall development of the city, including  the instalation of higher education institutions, military instalations and unemployment rates lower than the Norwegean and European average.

I.F: Stavanger has been ranked as the most expensive city.

Stavanger Harbour

For long periods of time it's most important industries have been shipping, shipbuilding and the fish canning industy, but in 1969, a new boom began as oil was discovered in the North Sea and Stavanger was chosen to be the onshore center for the oil industry on the sector.

Stavanger was an importan city even way before oil, being one of Norway's oldest cities, existing as a church and market town in it's early days.

Interesting Fact: The county of Rogaland (area of Stavanger) was occupied by the Germans during WW2, the city was conquered without resistence. Over 480.000 mines were planted with forced labor from natives in the period of the war, all of which the Wehrmacht was required to clear. 62 were killed and 94 were injured.

• One of the 'four greats' writers of Norway was born and died here, Alexander Kielland. The others are:

                                                    Henrik Ibsen

                                                    Bjornstjerne Bjornson

                                                  Jonas Lie

Lake Mosvatnet, with aerial view of the city and the 3km path around the lake.

The first place we visited was only within a 20 min walk from the 18th century wooden houses in the center, the local lake Mosvatnet, probably the most popular spot in the city.

I.F: In 1995 over 560.000 people regularly visited Mosvatnet 

Leading it's importance in the oil exploration in Norway, Stavanger has the only petroleum museum in Europe, in a rather interesting architectural design, resembling an offshore oil platform.

As the city is so deeply conected to petrol exploration, you can also see the changes the industry has made to it and the people.

It was a rather productive and remarkable visit, where we were able to both have fun and learn about the curious and profitable world of petrol.

Very few galleries were as informative, organized and honest as the Petroleum Museum, being critic and open about the current state of Norway and it's future concerning the wealth from the black gold. This visit makes itself valuable for everyone, being interesting from the layman to the students and specialists.

There also were many interactive exhibits and dinamic ativities; after learning how oil and gas are created, discovered and produced, and what they are and can be used for in the future, we participated in a quiz with 5 questions. Once we got all of them right, the staff took a picture of us and added it to the museum"

The exhibitions are varied and well produced, there also is a  3D movie "Petropolis" being displayed all day, as well as many challanging activities to partake.

Next Stop, Kristiansand, 199 miles away -Preety far, we'll have make some small stops along the way.

Haugesund, Norway - 12/06/17

Haugesund COA (Three seagulls) - Grated in 1930, represents the important of the sea

Our current stop, after another week of activities and 81 miles walk, is the main population center of Haugaland, Haugesund. Instead of just seeing the obvious but surprisingly few (Haugaland is still a relatively small city) tourist atractions, we will use our brief stay to take a better look at the quality of life and general aspects of the city, as a mirror of the country.

Interesting fact: The norwegean language has two writing standards: Bokmal (book tongue) & Nymorsk. (There also is a conservative ortographic standard called Riksmal)

The first thing we noticed was how the country's current economic activities are changing the dinamic of the cities.
The city grew prosperous with fishery, being situated in an important geographical sound, (a large deep inlet), karmsundet, with a generous population of herring fish. Today the herring is long gone, and the economy is turning to the petroleum industry.
The old fishermen who don't convert to oil mining are facing bankruptcy, also due to illegal sismic shocks used for petroleum hunting which harm the aquatic life. The salary in oil mining is 3x higher than that of a fisherman's.

To this day Karmund is one of Norway's busiest waterways, but not accounting for employment or local economy.

Our unmissable visit here was to Haraldshaufen, the burial site to the first king of Norway (Harald), who lived in Avaldsnes, close to the modern town of Haugesund.

The monument consists of a large mound surrounded by a granite memorial stones with 29 smaller stones, one from each of the historic counties of Norway. At the top of the mound stands a 17m high granite main obelisk, with four bronze panels around the base. Each panel depicts important scenes from the life of King Harald I. - It was erected in 1872 by Crown Prince Oscar, 1000 years after the battle won by Harald that united Norway(Battle of Hafrsfjord).

Norway has a nearly socialistic economy, based on the Nordic Model; a combination of free market capitalism and welfare state. - At the cost of very high taxes, many public benefits are accessible to the citizens, including:

•                                        Free universal health care
•                                   Unemployment insurance
•                           Free Education,              and so on.

Even though the employment rate is apparently low in the public eye, a large portion of the population still doesn't work. They live off a disability aid given by the government, which keeps the country from a crisis and maintain the quality of life for the citizens with the wealth from the black gold.

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Interesting Facts: Norway is currently handling gender equality and muslim immigration; due to recent controversy, even haircut prices are gender equal. -And this while deciding wheter they should remove meat from school cantines and comemorate chirstmas or not.

Norway has the most electric cars, being considered the 'Tesla capital' of the world, due to governmental incentives:

"Tesla doesn't pay a sales tax on the models it sells, electric car owners are exempt from automobile tolls, and they can charge their vehicles for free. The catch is that Norway funds these initiatives through its sovereign wealth fund, which is almost entirely comprised of profits from Norway's oil and fossil fuel exports." -

Norway has banned deforestation - We know it is ironic that the country's recent green twist is being financed by the oil industry, but Norway itself does not use fossil fuels for power, instead they use green alternatives, mostly hidropower.

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According to our research, over 9% of the population aged 18-66 recieve a disability pension (474.043 people), while 68% between 15-77 are employed, 30% being by the government, the highest in the OECD, masking the lack of jobs in the country and the existence of a two-faced society.

The blessing of oil in Norway, despite creating a welfare, equality and quality of life in the country, has created many challanges to capitalism (most evidentially in the fact that 30% of workers are employed by the government).

Due to the high scholarity level of most citizens, the majority of work is in advanced areas, with a highly disputed market, such as Technology and medicine, mostly cancer research, making it much harder to find work.
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Turning our heads back to Haugesund, we realize how interesting and complex this place really is. Amidst the jaw dropping sights; fjords, lakes, mountains and waterfalls. There is history happening in this place right now.

The brutal triathlon event IRONMAN will take place in Haugesund in july 1st 2018 as it has been happening since 2012

I realize we've been doing our own version of IRONMAN all this time, but the doubt remains; would we be ready for this challenge?



Next time we will try to tackle immigration in Norway, which seems to be getting out of hand.

Next stop: Stavanger, 92 miles.