Peace, Love, and Lutefisk: Adventures i Norge

Today was the police auction in Tromsø! It is the time when they sell all the stuff (mostly bikes) that have been found. It was quite an event. We were in a small garage and they would quickly hold up an item and start the bidding. They even had mystery items like a black bag that supposedly contained a GPS system, mp3 player, digital camera, and "gold stuff." Not sure how good the items were, but it excited the crowd.

I went with Line and Stian to the auction and Stian was ready to buy himself a cheap bike. After a few bikes were sold, he starting getting the auction itch to just buy something. With a little pressure from me, he threw in his hat on an older looking bike. We figured that it would be cheap, but also functional. At 500 kroner we almost had it. Then someone else put it up to 550kr. At that point I was done encouraging Stian, but he shot up his hand and shouted "700!" Well, the crowd looked at him and there was silence. The bike was his!

Stian picked up the bike (after borrowing the majority of the money from Line and I) and brought the "Intruder" as it was called to the back of the garage. We started checking it out and suddenly realized: it didn't have any brakes!! What a rip off! Well, we tried to look at the brightside...that of course being that the Intruder had a sticker on the side of it that said "Fuck Off!" Oh what a find.

Well, at this point I had to go to the city, but I came home 3 hours later to find Stian and Line on the front lawn with two dismantled bikes. Apparently, Stian had bought a braking system for 500 kroner (almost as much as the bike) and Line had at the same time found a new bike on sale that you put together yourself for 500 kroner. So, the construction/reconstruction began at our house, Line with her brand new bike and Stian with his brown, rusted Intruder telling the world and apparently the braking system to fuck off.

We did our best to add the brakes. It felt like the ultimate battle between man and machine. We nearly won too. After combining the efforts of Line, Stian, Kjersti, and I we were able to almost get the brakes and tires fixed. (How many masters students does it take to fix a bike?) We have some tightening to do, but I think there is hope for a second life for the Intruder. Just remember the lesson we learned today: you can't trust the police.