It is the long weekend right now at ISS, and that can only mean one thing: TRAVEL!!! One of the excursion options was Bergen, a city I went to last time I was in Norway and loved deeply. Naturally I signed up for this excursion and off to Hanseatic League/ artists haven I went.
We left Wednesday after class and got very well acquainted with our double-decker bus. I have Ian, one of my good friends, on the trip with me as well, which will account for all the pictures of him that are on Facebook. We don't have any other friends on the trip, so we've very much banded together.
Wednesday night we went to Læerdal, home of the Borgund Stave Church. It is the best preserved Stave Church in Norway and has changed little since it was erected in the 12th century. That's the most lecture-y I've sounded on this blog. But it was awesome. I find Stave churches fascinating mostly in that they combine the pagan religion with Christianity; all the roofs have crosses, but also dragons for back up in case Jesus lets them down.
They were also coated with tar every few years to keep the wood from rotting. That's why they're all black. Also, they were freakishly good at building roofs, so much so that the Borgund's roof has never leaked, but the church they built in the 19th century to replace it leaks every spring. Fail.
We then stayed the night in Lærdal, home to the loudest seagulls ever. They kept me up half the night, even though I was exhausted from Harry Potter the night before. Yeah. I went. But that's not important compared to fjords.
Yesterday we took a scenic route through the Nærøyfjord on a ferry that went from Flåm to Gudvangen. It was breathtaking. I was at Geiranger three years ago, and while Geiranger had more waterfalls, Nærøry had some pretty incredible cliffs and some lovely waterfalls. I took so many pictures I made a separate album for it on Facebook.
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1970838472095.2103323.1276980227
I'm not going to even TRY showing my favorite picture from that.
After that we had lunch from a cliff in Stalheim from which Dahl painted this iconic vista.
We didn't get a rainbow or anything, but I did take this somewhat redeeming photo.
Dahl did it better.
After another three hours and a 30 kroner Solo that I got at Stalheim (ouch), we finally arrived in Bergen. After unsuccessfully sleeping on the bus, Ian and I both elected to walking around because we were sick of sitting and bouncing around. So we walked a bit before dinner. The thing is that Bergen is a large but compressed city, unlike Oslo, which is spaced with parks and stuff. So we literally walked around the entire city center in two excursions before and after dinner. Still. I enjoyed walking around and seeing places I'd seen before.
Another noteworthy aspect of Bergen is how much tourism there is. Restaurants not only have menus in English but in Spanish, German, Russian, Japanese, Italian, you name it. Waitresses are pentalingual. It's crazy and weird. Unfortunately, the flip side of that is that just about everywhere are throngs of clueless looking people. Which is probably what we look like. But whatever.
Today we took a walking tour of Bergen with our group of 70 slow moving people. I feel for Bergen drivers a lot.
After that Ian and I met up with Lauren, who is also in Bergen for the weekend but not on our excursion. ISS didn't get the money that she had sent, so that was a huge mixup, and as ultimate spite and economy, she opted to go there for the long weekend. So yay! We did more walking, this time around the western part of the city, where Ian and I hadn't gone last night. There was a converted sardine factory that was now a mall of sorts. And was home to the coolest modern art ever.
The ends are music box things, and you crank it and a tune plays. It was really cool, and we spent a bunch of time trying to figure out the tunes.
From there we went to the Bergen Art Museum, a place I had been meaning to go to since arriving. I love art museums, though standing for a couple hours is not always the most pleasant experience, especially when you're going through an endless corridor of thoughtless modern minimalism. But whatever. I saw my Munch and Balke, and that's that.
To cap it all off, Ian and I went up on Fløybanen to enjoy the view and see the entire city, especially because the weather has been so nice. Bergen looks a lot bigger from above than when you're walking in it. I don't get it, but that's that.After taking about fifty some pictures, we came back down the ground, and that brings me here.
Yay blog post. Yay updating, slowly. Yay for two maxed out Facebook albums in one day!
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