Enchanted and Waterlogged in Norway

Well it is safe to say that I’ve fallen in love with Norway. It took a very small fraction of the 84 hours I was there to know this, even with the monsoon that endured most of the time I was there. Leah and I arrived around 11 PM on Thursday night after a long day of flying and sitting in airports. We had a two hour layover in London where we were able to eat dinner (we both chose the closest thing that resembled an American breakfast that we could find) and then we walked around the mall inside the airport. I don’t count England as one of the countries I’ve been to, but I do have a London/Gatwick stamp in my passport now. When we walked out of the terminal in Norway there was a shuttle bus waiting for our flight. Well done Bergen. We were dropped off in the city center with neither map nor any idea on how to get to our apartment. On the nearest street corner was the Hotel Bergen, so I led Leah in that direction to ask for directions. The guy working the night shift at the desk was very kind and lively and even googled the address we were staying at to make sure he was pointing to the right place on a map (that he gave us) after he admitted he had no idea where we were headed. Without incident we got to the apartment, found the key right where it was supposed to be and got inside. The next morning we walked out our door to a very impressive sight of the city and surrounding mountains… and some rain. We went to the tourism office and started planning our day. Before I continue, you need to know about the weather. In the weather forecast rain was predicted and a high of 45 degrees. A friend from work who lives near Bergen, Cindi, had warned me about the bad weather that was predicted for the weekend, so Leah and I were already mentally prepared (we thought). After picking up some brochures, we went to the open air fish market under the tourism office for lunch. We sat by the heat lamps and covered our legs with the blankets provided by the café we were eating at. Then we continued on, taking pictures of the Bryggen, the hanseatic wharf district and UNESCO World Heritage Site. This area represents the oldest area of Bergen. Next, we decided to go to the KODE art museums, a network of buildings housing much of Norway’s art history. On the way there we were forced to walk through a torrential downpour that was blowing right at us, completely soaking through even our waterproof clothes (It can’t get worse, right? Stay tuned!). I had read about an interactive exhibition going on and planned to surprise Leah with it. It wasn’t exactly what I expected, but we had an amazing time learning about art and then playing around. We were the only people in the exhibition, so we were able to take our time and play around as much as we wanted. After the interactive exhibition, we walked through the rest of the building we were in and then headed over to the next building to check out the new Edvard Munch collection. It is the second largest collection of Munch’s paintings in the world; the first being in Oslo. Munch, who painted “The Scream,” is the most well known artist in Norwegian history. With 2/4 of the buildings in the KODE complete and daylight waning we took a trip on the light rail out of the city to visit the Fantoft Stave Church (This is a generous statement considering I’m not sure if the sun actually ever came up. It was 3:30 and getting seriously dark.). The church was supposed to be 500 meters from the light rail stop and clearly marked with signs. It was still raining as hard as it was when we went into the Museums, so maybe I just missed the signs, but it wasn’t exactly obvious to find. We finally found a path out into the woods that looked like it might be the right direction. The path looked well tended, but after a day of heavy rain, it became a muddy mess. Determined to make the most of the situation, we pushed on (Maybe this is where the 500 meters comes in). As soon as we started walking on the path Leah and I began the conversation that at least there was no way possible that we could be any more wet and it couldn’t rain any harder… Not even a minute later mother nature decided to prove us wrong and the rain drops got bigger (by this point, I think each drop might have filled its own kiddy pool). Seriously, I shouldn’t be complaining. That was hands down the coolest church I’ve ever seen in my life and definitely worth the torture it took to get there. Instead of crosses, it looked more like there should be dragons perched on top of it. Completely soaked, we went home to dry out. (Side note: on Sunday we talked to a man that informed us that at the height of the rain on Friday, it rained 22 inches in just four hours and that many roads were closed due to flooding. It had taken him an hour and a half to make a 10 minute drive home from work.) A couple hours later, we reemerged from the apartment, ready to take on the world again. We got dinner at this diner that felt more like sitting in someone’s living room than in a restaurant. The food there was so good that we made sure we went back for our last dinner in Norway on Sunday as well. The apple pie was better than most that I’ve ever eaten in the States. After the amazing dinner, we walked a couple blocks down the street to the USF Verteft, an old sardine factory that has been converted to an art and cultural center, aka the classiest music venue I’ve ever been to. We saw Maria Mena, one of Norway’s most popular singers today. All of her songs are in English and very catchy. The venue was classy because everyone was dressed super nice and at least half of the people were carrying glasses of wine.

Day two was dryer, but still without direct sunshine. We started by further exploring the Bryggen and all of its stores. Then we ate brunch at a café with a view over the harbor. Afterwards, we checked out the Bergenhus Fortress and took a tour of its great hall. Then we took the light rail out of the city again to find the Bergen Arts and Crafts festival that I had seen on the Bergen tourism website, after wandering around a little bit we asked for directions and discovered that the website must have been wrong because there were no signs for the festival. It started raining and it was getting dark again, so we grabbed some hot chocolate and pastries before returning to the apartment. Later that evening, we went out for dinner and had Pinnekjøtt, a traditional Norwegian Christmas dish. It comprises of salted lamb ribs over sweet potatoes and served with boiled potatoes and carrots. (I will be attempting to cook this when I return to the States.) After dinner we strolled around and took pictures of the city at night.

Sunday we woke up to actual sunlight! We had been planning a hike this day because it was supposed to have the best weather and we got lucky. We had more awesome apple pie for breakfast from the place previously mentioned. Then we took the funicular up to the top of Fløyen, one of the seven mountains surrounding Bergen. From there we took some amazing photos and then headed off to do some light hiking. After reaching a lake that we had originally planned to be our turnaround point, we decided to do more exploring that lead us deeper into the woods. We started getting hungry and started thinking about turning around a second time, but first we wanted to see what was around the bend just ahead of us on the path. That bend opened up into a pretty sizable clearing, revealing how much higher we had already climbed from the overlook and the funicular. THEN we noticed how close to the top of the mountain we actually were. We just couldn’t turn around at this point. We pushed on to the next leg of the path. At a couple points we had to climb with our hands over rocks to continue, but we finally made it to the top. After relaxing for a little bit we met a man that joined us with his dog. We talked for a bit and he advised us to take a different path down that would be less dangerous. About an hour later we reached the bottom of the mountain. We tried to get lost in one of the neighborhoods and ended up getting lunch in a really cool café and staying there for a while. It was Sunday and everything was closing so we decided to take it easy as well. Sunday night we returned to the awesome café by our apartment that we ate at Friday and ended up chatting with the waitress for a while.

Monday we flew back to Barcelona expecting to get back to dry weather, but instead we were greeted with more rain. Despite the rain, Norway was very good to us and is easily my favorite out of the 11 countries that I have now visited.