Stavanger, Norway

It is amazing how much a mood can affect your perception of a town.

I arrived in Stavanger, Norway on Tuesday evening, not having booked
any accomodation. I had tried to call two places the night before, one
mob had gone on holiday, one place was fully booked up. I thought that
I would have no trouble finding somewhere to stay, and was willing to
spend a couple of extra Kr to get it. Except that I hadn't counted on
there being two major events on in town when i got there. One was a
tourism conference, and the second event, I found out later was a big
bank robberz trial. This is a place that gets fully booked out durning
summer, and this was the case now. I called two more places - and they
were gone. Changing more money into 5Kr pieces (each phone call costs
5Kr minimum - so 1AUD), i had visions of having to dump all my worldly
possessions in a locker, and finding a park bench somewhere.

Finally, I had a flash of inspiration. All the rich oil execs surely
wouldn't be slumming it would they? The yha had already closed for the
season (university accom i think), so when after several ring-outs the
Mossvagen campground answered and said that they had a room available,
i could've leapt down the phone and kissed the girl. Suddenly
Stavanger seemed a much nicer town.