“On the road again –
Just can’t wait to get on the road again.
The life I love is making music with my friends
And I can’t wait to get on the road again.
On the road again
Goin’ places that I’ve never been.
Seein’ things that I may never see again…”
Willie Nelson
For those of you who know about my previous journey with my adapted Chrysler (I never got around to blog about that experience), you might be suprised that I am doing a road trip this soon. But hey, you win some, and you loose some. If I loose this one – I know that my car is no longer capable of a road trip outside the Oslo area… :-/
This time I was heading for Kristiansand – the “Southern capital of Norway”. Supposedly pretty good regarding wheelchair access. First I was spending one night/day by myself, and then I was meeting up with my friends. The plan was to see David Guetta at an outdoor concert and then going to a 70th birthday party at Lindesnes (Norway’s southernmost point). But before that, I was going to explore Kristiansand by myself as a tourist on wheels.
I left Oslo (a bit too late) – but traffic was ok until I reached Tønsberg. 2 lanes become one – and the whole traffic just stopped… 🙁
And it moved slooooooowly towards the South. How boring! After 30-35 minutes, I kind of lost it, and took another route (303). I guess I don’t saved a lot of time, but at least I didn’t have to stand in the never ending line, not moving…
5 hours after I left my apartment in Oslo I crossed the city border to Kristiansand. Having wasted 35-45 minutes on a queue and trying to find my way around it, it was not that bad. However – almost 5,5 hours of driving is close to my limit, and I was happy that my cell phone GPS led me right to my hotel Comfort Hotel Kristiansand, that turned out to be quite new and wheelchair accessible. I don’t know why they had put the shower chair in the hallway, but I managed to get it inside my room. So no trouble at all.
So what to do now? Well, as a real tourist I decided to check Tripadvisor. My good travel companion led me to Food Asylum, an Asian place in the middle of the pedestrian street Markens. I was walking around, looking confused trying to find nr. 9, when I ran into one of the waitors. She was wondering if I was looking for their place. Yes, as a matter of fact, I was. When I saw the entrance, I thought: Oh they won’t be wheelchair accessible. But they were! They had a platform lift, that they obviously were not that familiar with, but it worked. 🙂
And even better – they had ONE single table left, since the rest were pre booked.The place seemed kind of popular…
Sometimes you just deserve to be lucky! Food was good (although not brilliant) and service was great.
So I give it a “terningkast” 4 to 5 (considered the prices that were pretty stiff). Go for the sushi. The chicken was kind of dry…
After that I checked out the bar at Scandic Bystranda (excuisite cosmpolitan) and a bar called Bakgården (the back yard). The bar itself was great. Several rooms with ramps leading to a big back yard and a bar.
But even if I got myself a free gin & tonic, there was not a single person that bothered to talk to me in the bar. Even if the bar was crowded with pretty drunk people AND I had my red dress on (now that is a different story)! I had heard that Southern men (from Kristiansand that is) were kind of shy, but this was even worse than I had feared… :-/
After finishing my G&T, I decided to head back to my hotel and blog about it instead. After all – I had new tourist stuff to investigate tomorrow…
Hasta luego!