I finally got a long weekend off, and I quickly grabbed the chance to do some hitching in Norway. This is the first time I tried to hitchhike systematically in the country, as last time I was here, back 3 years ago, I wasn't yet a hichhiker. Hitching rides was a bit harder than I had thought, as a couple of times I had to wait for fairly long at spots that looked very good - but it went pretty smooth in the end. I started on Friday from right in front of the hostel - the E16 going from Oslo to Bergen stretches across Voss, and trucks even stop to rest in the hostel's parking lot - and after 2 rides I was in Bergen, almost as quickly as with the train.Spring is on its way and Bergen was as rainy as it's famous for, and as in many modern cities, free toilets are a mirage. Even along the way, at gas stations and kiosks, it costs as much as 10kr to use the toilet. In these cases, waiting for someone to pay and sneak in after the door has been opened is a good option (if someone looks bad at you, you can always use the excuse that you don't have the only coins required and it's troublesome to change a banknote, which is very plausible). Another option is looking for a university building, although even at the University Library for Humanities that I often visit, you have to ask for the key at the counter (weird). Again, this is not a question of stinginess - if I have to take a big one and am looking for some comfort in a clean and nice toilet and soft toilet paper, I am more than willing to pay (especially because it doesn't happen too often); but 1okr for taking a leak is outrageous.
Hitching out of the city from the centre is nearly impossible, as there are tunnels and big roads where car drive fast and don't have space to pull over. There was almost no information about Bergen on Hitchwiki, so I had to find out myself. I took a bus to Åsane Senter, a huge mall North of Bergen, very close to the juncture of the motorways going North and East. I used that spot twice, first on Saturday to hitch North, and then on Sunday to go East back to Voss. It was great. The first day I had a small sign and it was pouring like hell, so it wasn't that pleasant. But my drivers were great, and already at 3pm I reached Førde, 176km further North.This year Førde won the prize as the ugliest city in Norway for the 3rd consecutive time (I wonder why having this competition at all, if the outcome is already known). The city wasn't that special indeed, but the landscape around it is great and confirms its importance as fjord hub. But what was special was the reason why I got there: I was invited to surf a couch by a 46-years-old awesome crazy CouchSurfing lady, and I was crazy enough to go there. Her house was amazing, and I was treated like a prince. We spent the whole evening talking about hitchhiking, peace and love, hippy communes, naturism, and crazy CouchSurfing experiences. The world is still a great place as long as people like these are around!I talked so much that it eventually exhausted me. I talked to the 
CouchSurfing lady, and to all my drivers (it was a big exercise in Norwegian, but I soon started to like it). I told them the story of my life, and soon wanted more. Like last summer, when I started hitchhiking in Iceland and the enthusiasm caused me to hitch all the way to the Netherlands, enjoying it in an endless climax. Switching language after crossing a border and starting telling the same stories again, first in Danish, then in German, and then in English - that's something that is more valuable than all the free miles that I was given. This summer is going to be even better, because I'm going to hitch from the Netherlands to Portugal, and I'll need to refresh my poor French, Spanish, and improvise some phrases in Portuguese (or something that resembles it). When the location of the Hitchgathering was set to Portugal, at first I thought no way, it's too far, it's gonna take me ages to get there. In fact, I'll need to be in Copenhagen 3-4 days after the gathering. But in fact, it's very feasible: by hitching 500km a day (I hitched almost 300 on Sunday in about 4h, and this part of Norway is not that easy), I can get to Portugal in about 4 days, and starting early in the morning could even allow some sightseeing. Hitching back to the North will be harder, but it'll be all about finding one of those Spanish trucks carrying tomatoes to the rest of the world.One of the biggest surprises I got this weekend is the typology of people that pull over. I expected that at least some Norwegian women would pick me up, because Norway is (or at least says so) the world's leading country in women's emancipation. But no way, only one lady gave me a short ride to a better spot, but the rest were all middle-aged men driving alone. I got rides from women and even girls (17 years olds on the Faroes) in several countries, but not in Norway. One possible explanation is that women in Norway tend to use public transportation more then men, who are more eager to drive their expensive cars.
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