Norwegian Wood

In a country as expensive as Norway, you don’t take anything free for granted—especially when that thing is food.  Our hotel had a complimentary breakfast and I was determined to get my fill, even if it meant sacrificing sleep by waking up at a decent time after a late night of hand washing laundry.  I headed downstairs and tried a little of everything: delicious breads with jam, cold cut and cheese sandwiches (which always remind me of my family’s Christmas Eve dinner), muesli with yogurt, etc.  I guess not everything, since I left the fishy foods untouched.

Our bellies full, we stepped out into rainy Bergen and made our way to the Fløm Funicular for a view over the city.  All this rain was helping me understand why the locals invest in such fashionable rain gear:  you wear it all the time!  The view was truly nice, but in the rain you didn’t want to linger at the overlook so we hid in the gift shop to wait it out.  And then a miracle occurred; the rain stopped and we even saw a patch of blue sky!

Beautiful Bergen

Out came the cameras to capture the rare moment, and we decided to stick around a little longer.  There were paths around the mountaintop, and we took a lovely morning stroll through the Norwegian woods in our Sunday best.  We saw lots of locals doing the same, but dressed a bit sportier than us.

Isn't it good Norwegian wood?

Back down in Bergen, we took a tram to church and arrived just in time for sacrament meeting and meeting a few of the friendly locals.  I was so grateful for headsets to listen in English, but when it came time for the hymns we sang along in our best Norwegian.  Never actually learning how to pronounce words in Norwegian, it came out with a strong German (Kellee) and Finnish (Maggie) accent but at least the notes were right.  The talks were about what they’d learned in Seminary that year studying the Old Testament, and I was impressed by the number of their youth.

The chapel was within walking distance of a Stave church that was situated in the midst of more Norwegian woods.  Beautiful craftsmanship and it’d be interesting to attend the Lutheran worship services there, surrounded by the strong scent of pine but awfully dark in the absence of windows. 

We returned to downtown Bergen to sample the local pastries and explore the old downtown a bit more.  Unfortunately, we arrived at the old fort near our hotel just in time to see all the information offices close, so the view was nice but I had no idea of its importance.  It did leave enough time for a bit more of the old wooden storefronts before catching the bus to the airport.  Leaving Bergen, we glimpsed a huge ceremony on the next block over honoring Aung San Suu Kyi.  Again, so close to seeing her in person! 

I knew that travel between Schengen countries was a bit like travelling domestically, but we weren’t prepared for their airport security.  Not only did we get to keep our shoes on, but they never actually checked our photo IDs.  No complaints, but it felt surprisingly bizarre.  We spent the last of our Norwegian Kroner on candy before the short flight to country #2:  Denmark. 

As we landed in Copenhagen, I had one concern:  the Euro-Cup match between Denmark and Germany.  As we passed a sports pub in the terminal I could see the crowds gathered and checked the score: 1-1.  I stayed as long as I dared, but it turned out I could’ve stayed longer before our luggage arrived.  Our Danish Kroner in hand, we took the metro to the city center.  As we got closer to our destination I started seeing Danish football (soccer) fans on the trains.  I couldn’t tell if they were just tired and leaving the match early or if they were sad, and was hesitant to ask.  Finally, as we got off at our stop I approached some of the metro staff and asked them, figuring they’d be harmless.  Good thing, too, because Germany won 2-1!

It was actually dark as we walked to our hostess’ apartment, proof that we were a little further south (and that it was pretty late).  I started to get a feel for the architecture, but what I really noticed were all the bike lines.  My kind of people!  Our hostess Erin was a friend of a friend of a friend, but we quickly hit it off with her and were so grateful for her hospitality!  We could’ve stayed up until the wee hours chatting with a fellow geologist, but she had work the next morning and we had exhaustion.