It's Always Sunny in Bergen!

Ok, maybe not, but at least it was the weekend I was there!

On September 22nd, Christoffer, Katja, Kersten (German) and I took a 12-hour trip to Bergen; we boarded our train in Oslo at 8 am, along with a few other BI students, and didn't get to Bergen until after 20:30 (8:30 pm). However, we weren't stuck on a train ALL day, around 13:00, we got off the train in Myrdal, and boarded the Flåmsbana (the Flåm Railway). This is a 20 km ride that takes an hour and goes through 20 tunnels, taking visitors from Mydral (866 m.o.h) to Flåm (2 m.o.h). Flåm is a tiny, little town of 450 inhabitants nestled in the innermost corner of the Auslandsfjord. In Flåm, we had about 45 minutes to grab something to eat before we boarded the boat for our cruise down the fjords. On board, they had fresh, warm pancakes and they smelled SO good that all four of us had one. They had strawberry syrup and sour cream as toppings. Future note: I will NOT have pancakes with sour cream again!

After a few stops along the Aurlandsfjord, we turned down the Nærøyfjord, the fjord I went down last year with my friends from home. This year the weather was GORGEOUS and not cold at all! In fact, the weather was SO nice, the boat actually pulled over to the side of the fjord and filled buckets with waterfall water and gave everyone a sample! It was so crazy! Here I was on a fjord cruise drinking waterfall water in the middle of September! It was great! Then on to Gudvagen, and my friends were able to see how much I was NOT exaggerating when I said all that’s in Gudvagen is a restaurant and a Viking statue! Then we boarded buses up the Stalhiemsklevia road to Voss. Last year we stopped at the Stalhiemsklevia Hotel and we took fantastic pictures, but this year we didn't stop. In Voss, we caught our last train of the day to Bergen. An hour later, we were walking the streets of Bergen, looking for our hostel.

We found the hostel fairly quickly and we walked towards the waterfront to find some dinner. Since I had been to Bergen one year and one week earlier, I was able to find the waterfront pretty easily and we picked Peppe's Pizza (at my encouragement) for dinner. Last year Keri insisted on eating at this *particular* pizza place, only later did we realize it was a chain all over Norway... in fact, there were 3 in Bergen alone! After yummy pizza dinner (California Dreamin'!), we wandered around for a bit then back to the hotel for bed.

Next day we wandered around Bergen and shopped. When we woke up in the morning it was foggy and we weren't sure about the weather, but it cleared up and turned out to be a pretty decent day. Then we had a late lunch and then went to the grocery store to buy some beer and cider for that evening...

This doesn't sound like it should be a story- but well, we had an incident... Turns out, six-packs of bottles of beer stacked on top of one another, about 8 or 9 high, are NOT as sturdy as you might think...and as Kersten, Christoffer and I were trying to figure out what the hours of alcohol sales were (turns out they stopped at 6 and not 8)...we suddenly hear this...shifting...and then a BIG, LOUD, messy, broken-beer bottle, crash...at least 100 bottles of beer came crashing down and shattered on the floor right next to where we were standing... We all just stood there completely shocked and couldn't move. I wanted to take a picture, but by that time the store's clerks had shown up with dirty looks so we thought the faster we got out of there the better! What a waste!

After the beer bottle fiasco, we went back to our rooms for some rest, but as soon as Katja and I got to our room, one quick look out the window killed that idea- there were two perfectly-toned guys standing in their underwear in the window of the apartment across the street from us...so we were captivated for a few minutes... Then the four of us all got ready and headed out for the evening. After walking around for over 30 minutes, we found a nightclub. It was about midnight and the place was dead - too early. Really? I am TOO old for Norway apparently! Soon the club got full and it was a lot of fun. Talked to a few Norwegian guys (afterall, my Norwegian class teacher told us to talk to a Norwegian for homework!) Plus, drinks were only 35,- kr...cheap compared to Oslo! We headed home around 2 am -ish...clubs are open until 5 am!!

Sunday morning we got up, headed to the train station to dump our bags in a locker and then caught a bus up to Ulriksbanen - which is a cable car ride up Ulriks Mountain. You can see ALL of Bergen up there and luckily Sunday was a gorgeous day and we could see for miles. We decided to take the round-trip cable car ride, instead of walking down...and on the way down I realized something disturbing... At the bottom of the mountain, right next to the cable car place is the hospital, and next to the hospital is a cemetery... and of course there are SO many jokes here- if you fall out of the cable car, you'll roll down the mountain to the hospital, then right on over to the cemetery...kinda funny...

Our train left Bergen at 3 pm, and seven short hours later, we were back in Oslo. Of course I made Christoffer and Kersten jump out of the train with me in Finse so I could get my "Finse 1222" picture! Thankfully, it was NOT snowing this year! Once back in Oslo, made it home and I worked on my website a bit...I had to start catching up cause I only had 4 short days before I was to leave for Copenhagen!