Noruega! Norge! Norway!

The first leg of my journey:


The night before I left, I knew there was NO WAY I was going to meet my 8 o'clock bedtime; I was far too nervous about being on my own for three weeks. Instead, I went to Trine's room to try and settle down and then ended up talking with my-floor-Sophie and her extremely affable and Harry Potter-loving friends. This helped a lot. Not only did I get to blow off some steam, I also realised that when I actually started talking, I could get on quite well with other people (I know I've written about this a few times, but it keeps getting more intense).

Around 11 o'clock, though, I really needed to get to bed in order to be wide awake at 5 next morning. I eventually fell asleep around 2. Anne-Marte, Trine and I walked to the train station and had a pleasant journey discussing the royal families of both England and Norway and met up with Susanne at the aeroport nervous (in my case), but smiling. Anne-Marte and Trine insisted that I take the window seat to get my first glimpse of Norway, and WOW was it cool! Fjords are even more fun than just saying the word!



Los padres de Trine kindly drove me into town, Trine pointing out the mountains and important factories along the way, me hardly listening because I was too excited just to be in NORWAY! (Sorry, Trine.) She and her mother caught up in Norwegian, and I entertained myself by looking at all the mountains! ('Mountains, Gandalf!') Bergen was SO beautiful. There's the industrial side where the aeroport is, but then there's the harbour with the main city, which is surrounded by no less than seven mountains, most of them snow-capped at the time.



Once we arrived in the city, Trine said farewell to her parents and led me to my hostel. She left before I got in, though, and I panicked because I couldn't read the signs and kept thinking it had closed down when no one answered my knocks (I was knocking on an lift shaft's door). Eventuallly I found some stairs that looked promising and made my way up to the hostel where I was pleasantly surprised by the cleanliness and comfort of the room. Everyone had their own half-wardrobe that could be locked, plenty of room to store luggage and a nice little table by the window. I was originally rooming with an older Norwegian woman and a Chilean girl a couple of years older than me, who was extremely nice and energetic (she and I got on quite well, especially because I could try to help her fix her computer, as I could read the Spanish instructions).



I'm glad I had a week here, because there was a LOT to do, even if a lot of it looked a bit stupid at first glance. Bergen was full of pleasant surprises. In my time here, I saw no less than two Sperm Whale jawbones, about four Viking ships, the ancient houses of Bergen (or what was left of them), a slew of wooden buildings that you could (hopefully legally) climb up and explore, a fish market and surrounding vendors ready to rip off foolish travellers like myself, the crappy Al Pacino film '88 Minutes' twice with Norwegian subtitles (I learned lots!), the rocky shores of Trine's home island (which I still can't spell, but always sounded like 'Eragon' to an extent), the fjords IN PERSON (that'd make an interesting band name...), a traditional marching drum band, an aquarium covered in very cold snow, just what brown cheese tastes like (peanut butter, admit it, my Norwegian friends), an awesome tourist hat (that the lady told me wasn't touristy at all! 'The Norwegian people are very proud of their flag'), the ancient and incredible fortress of the Berghaus, weird-looking nobbly trees, the top(ish) of Mount Fløyen, a creepy Japanese spidercrab that made me want to cry in fear and DID make the little British girl cry in fear, houses climbing all the way up a huge moutain, way too much art for someone who admittedly doesn't understand most of it, a pipe-maker's loft that would only take patrons by appointment, a strange, upright stone slab that I'm sure had a great history but just reminded me of '2001: A Space Odyssey', an extremely red church, more statues of Edward Grieg than I thought I would ever see and the nicest tourist information centre I have ever seen (it looked like a museum)!



I think that's the longest sentence I've ever written.



I also got to hang out with Trine a lot and even met two of her friends, Nyl Sare and Camilla (I hope that's right), at a students bar where we were interrupted by an inebriated fisherman who told us that he decidedly did NOT kill whales. Or the other way around...I don't know. He asked us all where we were from, and we all said Norway first, then he asked where we were from again and we all replied 'England'. Then the nice bar lady kicked him out. A good time was had by all.



When I finally had to leave, I bid Marken-Gjestehus (my hostel) a sad farewell. I knew I would miss its comfort and cleanliness once back in the UK. (Oh! And there was this older Norwegian guy in the hostel with a really deep voice who looked exactly like Anton 'Friendo' Chigurh from 'No Country For Old Men', but he was really friendly.) I went down to the Flybussen stop to meet an elderly Newcastle couple waiting to get to the aeroport for my same flight, but we found out about an hour later there was no bus running that day because it was Good Friday. One driver took pity on us, though, and made a special run to carry us and one Norwegian guy to the aeroport, which was nice. We made it, and I assumed a window seat again to say goodbye to those awesome fjords. Hee hee....fjords...

P.S. - Never try salvi Läkerol. Ever.