Convoluted Passage to Norway

Right now I´m on a sailboat in Norway - Kristiansand to be exact. I´ll get to that.

After Scotland, I took a ferry from Newcastle to Amsterdam, salvaging my plan to get a ferry into the mainland of Europe, which, as I mentioned before, was blown to shambles upon my learning that ferries between Scotland and Norway don´t operate year-round.
On the bus to the ferry terminal, I sat next to another solo guy with a big backpack - I figured he was also travelling alone. I ran into him again on the ferry, and decided to make conversation, you know, making travelling easier for both of us. I approached him and started to say, "How´s it going?" At which point he made eye contact, shyly said "hello" and then slunk away. And that was the end of that. I decided to trim my beard, in case that was some kind of critical factor in the exchange (though I´m sure the more critical factor was this dude´s shyness and/or lack of English proficiency).
Spent one night on the ferry, got into Amsterdam, then immediately headed to Rotterdam, where I´d meet up with my host there. She´s an organized crime investigator who I´d met in Toronto the previous month. I took some photos of Rotterdam´s shopping facilities, which I´ll post later, then I accidentally crossed paths with my host on the street, a few hours before we were supposed to meet. A happy accident. We grabbed a coffee, since she was only on her lunch, then she returned to work.
I hate to say it, but the first few stops along my way to Norway I only saw as intermediate steps to a greater goal. I never really had my heart set on seeing Rotterdam - didn´t even know what was there, but it ended up being nice. I borrowed my host´s bike and cycled around the city. Later, I climbed a tree in a park, and saw a van pull up. A man in a uniform got out and told me to get down. He asked why I was climbing the tree. His English wasn´t too strong, so I explained thusly, "for fun, amusement." Pretty accurate, I guess, and he seemed to accept it, so he gave me a "don´t do it again; you could get hurt" and was on his way. Personally, I don´t wanna spend too much time in a city where I´m not allowed to climb trees. I left the next morning (as had actually always been the plan...)
Next stop: Hamburg. This was my first big trip on Europe´s rail system. I was afraid I was gonna screw something up. But I had the mobile number of my next host, so even a minor mishap would be correctable. But no such mishap occurred. I got to Hamburg and headed to my host´s place. This host, who I´ll call Humble, had the distinction of being the first Couch Surfing host who I had not previously met. Humble got home from work, and we went out to a CS meetup in Hamburg. This was a good time. Lots of travellers and locals. I met a few Americans who teach English in Germany. One of them offered to give me a day-tour the next day, so I took her up on it. Next day, had the tour, which turned out all right, again considering that I had only made Hamburg a destination on the route to Norway. I made dinner for Humble and myself, then we went out to a friend of Humble´s for a poker night. I don´t really play poker, but this is what Couch Surfing is all about sometimes - interacting with local people, so I tagged along. I ended up winning the night, due to a few lucky hands in the end of the game. Not too shabby.

Next day, I tagged along with Humble as we helped lift a dishwasher into his girlfriend´s flat. His girlfriend and her mother then proceeded to take us around for the day, going to a photo exhibit at a local gallery, then to dinner at an Italian restaurant, where they just shout Italian phrases out every now and then, even when they don´t make sense in context. This is the weird part of Couch Surfing, I guess - I wonder how it must seem to this woman and her daughter that I´m a non-German-speaker tagging along with their day, which would otherwise just be them. But they seemed to accept it all right, which made things easy on me. We had a few brief exchanges, which were pleasant, and that was that. Humble then brought me to another friend´s place, where he had to drop off a gift. Here´s where I felt a little awkward, since we stayed for about an hour, and they just spoke German to each other all night. I wouldn´t expect them to speak English for my benefit or anything, but it did feel odd that I would tag along for this. No matter.

Next day, off again, toward Denmark. Again, though, just another stopover on the real quest for Norway´s gold! I stayed in Aalborg with another CS host, who I´ll call Soldier. We went grocery shopping, and I offered to pay, being the nice guy that I am. Then my credit card was declined inexplicably, and I felt like a real chump. We went home, and put on a movie, I apologized profusely for the card deal, and promised to pay Soldier back. He was very nice about the whole thing though - never gave me a hard time about it.
Checked out a Viking graveyard the next day. The place was fenced in, so I let myself in. Then a truck pulled up, and I was reminded of my experience with the tree in Rotterdam. I kind of laid low, which was easy, given the terrain of the graveyard, and no incident occurred.
I felt pretty crummy in the morning - missing home, and wondering why I was travelling in the first place. Me and my sister were just talking about this, though, and it we agree that the cure is to just get out and walk around. It´s a magical cure, really. I walked the streets of Aalborg and it really made me happy. I felt pretty good by the day´s end.
I made it home early, and was looking forward to a quiet evening, when I accidentally downloaded a computer virus on my laptop, while trying to get a serial number for a piece of software I wanted to use. Crap! Then Soldier got home, and he´s a bit of a computer guy, so he spent the next few hours (three, I believe) fixing my mess for me. This combined with the credit card thing (Oh, I had paid him back that morning), and I felt like I took on the appearance of someone who had no idea what he was doing. Anyway, he fixed it, we went to sleep, I got up the next morning to continue making my way up to Norway.

And now here I am. Yesterday I met with my host here, who lives on his sailboat here in the harbour of Kristiansand. We took a short ride out to have a look at the coast, but the weather is very cold here, and it gets dark so early, so it didn´t last long before it was time to come in. I´m gonna go exploring today, see what Kristiansand has to offer, then tomorrow I make a day trip into Oslo.

Photos to come!

EDIT: I've moved this part of the entry to the bottom here so that it cannot be immediately connected with the host I am talking about. I feel this is more fair than what I had before, since I really don't want to suggest something negative about this person.
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We watched Tropic Thunder, and at one point, the host made a comment that made me wonder if he was a racist. I panicked. I remembered a bit by the stand-up comedian I had seen in England: "If I wanted to agree with a racist comment out of politeness, I´d go to a family dinner." Something like that - longer bit, but the theme was agreeing with racist comments out of politeness. I tried to address it, but it turns out he didn´t really mean it in a way that was motivated by race - and he was a very tolerant kind of person, in general, so it just goes to show something, but I don´t know what.