Bergen

Our trip to Bergen began with a 6 a.m. wake up call. We were able to get ready in record time so we decided to hit up the free breakfast at our hotel's restaurant, Kaffistova. We piled on the cheese, eggs, waffles, salami, lox and other goodies. I grabbed a cappuchino and off we went. We headed down to the Oslo Central Station, got our boarding passes and hopped on the Oslo to Bergen train. Turns out we jumped on the wrong car, not the wrong train, we were heading in the right direction, we were just supposed to be about 4 cars back. They would not let us walk all the way back between cars so at the next stop we had to jump off and run to the correct car. Scary! We were on our way. The train ride was about 7 hours from Oslo to Bergen. As we headed farther into the mountains we saw a ton of snow, everywhere! I stuck my hand out the door to catch some snowflakes in my hand at one of the stops, it was beautiful. The whole ride was spent napping and gazing out the window. We arrived in Bergen around 3 p.m. We had no idea what we were going to do while we were there and only knew of a couple of sightseeing attractions to check out so we decided to head out of the station and look for the tram that takes you to the top of Mount Fløyen. We stepped outside of the train station and quickly realized that we were definitely not in Oslo anymore. First off, it was cold...cold cold cold! We started out towards a large fountain called Lille Lungergardsvann, and up a street till we reached the end, where 'The Theatre' is. We found a hotel that had some maps of Bergen and we figured out where the tram was so we stopped off at a Cafe so I could grab a cappuchino, which I am getting very good at ordering, and headed toward the Floibanen. The Floibanen is two trams that go 320 meters above sea level to the top of a hill that has unbelievable views of the city below. After we snapped a few pics we were on our way down to find some food and our next adventure. After wandering around the local mall for a while we grabbed some good ol' burger king. I was telling Jeremy that this is the first trip that I have gone on in a long time where I ate something that I can get back home, but man $30-$50 a meal just doesn't fly with me. Once we were filled up on Kjylling Sandwiches we decided we would find the old Stave church that was burned down in 1992 but rebuilt shortly after. This church is a big part of the reason why we even ended up in Norway to begin with. The kid who burned down the church in 1992 was a young black metal musician in the band Berzum. Jeremy said that because of the burning of the church, there were news reports in the music industry magazines that Jeremy's friend at the time had read. This friend then gave Jeremy a mixed tape of Norwegian Black Metal bands, Jeremy of course had no idea what the bands were singing about since he didn't know anything about the Norwegian language. The church burning, no pun intended, really sparked an interest in Jeremy to learn more about this country. He then got his Scandinavian studies certificate while attending ASU, learned how to speak Norwegian and voila! Here we are. It was quite a journey trying to find this church. It was a ten minute bus ride, then a 10 minute walk through some residential neighborhood then off through a forrest, up a hill, down a hill and there it is. It's too bad that the orignial does not exist anymore, the original was built around 1150!! We got a ton of great pictures from the surrounding area, the wind at times was whipping through the trees and it once again made me think how magical Norway is. By this time we were pretty cold so we decided to head back to the train station and warm up. I decided to warm up with two scoops of ice cream dipped in hot chocolate powdered mix, just like I like my ice cream at home, I love Norway! We felt pretty toasty so we thought we would try to brave the cold once more. This time, it wasn't that bad. We made our way to a famous bar in Bergan known for having tons of bands play there, it's called the Garage. We had just enough time to enjoy a beer and get back to the train station and head on home. Jeremy reserved a sleeper car for us for the way back, this is The way to travel by train. I so far have not been able to get to sleep before 2:30 a.m. Dude, i was tucked in my little bed and out in 10 minutes! The rooms were super cute and tiny with just enough room for twin bunk beds a little sink and well, that's about it. Before it got too late Jeremy woke me up so we could get some food before hitting the hay. The dining car was 4 cars back and man was that scary trying to get back to it. Everytime one door open and we stepped out between 2 cars i thought the trains were going to detach and we would fall through. Luckily we made it to the dining car for some beer, pizza, hot dogs and wine! yum! At about midnight I went to sleep, like a freakin' baby, Jeremy on the other hand couldn't sleep on the train so he didn't get to sleep until 4 a.m. So the city of Bergen was quite pretty, filled with old buildings and old wooden houses but something felt just a little off about it. I would compare Oslo and Bergen to Phoenix and Flagstaff, it was definiteyly worth seeing and I would probably come back and wander around again if I had the oppurtunity but it definitely did not have that edge that Oslo has, wait, not that Phoenix has an edge, but...you know... It's 1:30 a.m. I need to go to sleep.

Tomorrow it's off to the Ski Jump and the Munch Museum! FUN!