The people seemed sturdy, prosperous, independent.
They had the familiar habit of coming down to the station to see the
train arrive and depart. We might have fancied ourselves on a
journey through the Connecticut valley, if it had not been for the
soft sing-song of the Norwegian speech and the uniform politeness of
the railway officials.
What a room that was in the inn at Randsfjord where we spent our
first night out! Vast, bare, primitive, with eight windows to admit
the persistent nocturnal twilight; a sea-like floor of blue-painted
boards, unbroken by a single island of carpet; and a castellated
stove in one corner: an apartment for giants, with two little beds
for dwarfs on opposite shores of the ocean. There was no telephone;
so we arranged a system of communication with a fishing-line, to
make sure that the sleepy partner should be awake in time for the
early boat in the morning.
The journey up the lake took seven hours, and reminded us of a
voyage on Lake George; placid, picturesque, and pervaded by summer
boarders. Somewhere on the way we had lunch, and were well
fortified to take the road when the steamboat landed us at Odnaes,
at the head of the lake, about two o'clock in the afternoon.
There are several methods in which you may drive through Norway.
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