Well, after my midterms were over on Wednesday (which went very well, by the way), it was time to finish some last-minute packing and head to the bus that would take us to Bergen. This is when I encountered the largest bus of my life. It was not only a charter bus with one level, but two levels! It was quite a strange experience driving along and being higher up than most houses and some trees. 
After driving out of Oslo for a couple of hours, we stopped at a small town called Fagernes near a lake for a quick break to buy a snack and use the restroom. Shortly after leaving Oslo, I came to realize that Norway is the most beautiful place in the world. The green mountains with tips covered in snow, millions of evergreens, and lakes with the roads winding along the shoreline are the things that made me realize this. Well, after our quick break, we were back on E16 for a couple of hours until we got to Borgrund Stave Church. Although this church near Lærdal is not the oldest stave church in Norway, it is the best preserved. This
church has a lot of the original wood and has some ornaments still remaining after a few hundred years. There are even some runes carved into the entranceway! When we were done with our tour of the church, we hopped back in the bus and reached the secluded city of Lærdal nestled in a valley next to a widened spot in the river with waterfalls cascading down the sides of the mountains around it to reach the river in the valley. Our hotel was nice as a whole, but my room looked like they hadn't quite finished renovating it yet. It was missing a couple night stands and had some peeling paint in the bath room, but it was only for one night, so it was okay. After dinner, we walked around Lærdal enjoying our first Norwegian city outside Oslo.
The next morning it was time for breakfast and time to make a "matpakke." A "matpakke" for anyone who doesn't know is a "food pack" or a packed lunch that normally consists of slices of bread with a spread and one or two toppings served open face. After everyone managed to get themselves and their belongings on the bus actually on time, we drove through Lærdalstunnelen -- the longest tunnel in the world at 24.5 km or about 15.2 miles. Only a few minutes on the other side of the tunnel was the city of Flåm where we boarded our Fjord Ferry to take a tour of Sognefjorden. Our fjord cruise took us from Flåm to Gudvangen with a couple of ferry stops along the way. Although this is a fairly short distance, it took a couple hours and was enough time to take in the gorgeous scenery -- even if it was raining and foggy! Traveling along this fjord seeing small towns and thinking back to Lærdal, I started thinking about what people actually do that live in these locations. They can't really commute, and the towns are quite secluded and hard to get to. One can't even get to some of them by road. I'm still unsure about that. 
When we returned to land and reboarded our bus which drove around we drove a few minutes to Hotel Stalheim, a very famous (and expensive) hotel in Norway with an amazing 
view! We got to eat our "matpakke" here overlooking the amazing view. Well, now it was time to get back on the bus and drive for a couple more hours until we got to Bergen coming in from the north. Now, Bergen's streets are quite different from Oslo's. They are not wide and sometimes the angles are less than ninety degrees. Driving through downtown Bergen was probably the most interesting bus ride of my life. Let's just say that at one point we nudged a stop sign. However, our bus driver was talented and managed to maneuver the monstrosity to our hotel. After checking in, Brady & I found our room to be significantly nicer than our previous room which was great. It was quite nice and was comparable to a 3-star hotel in the USA. After quickly dropping off our stuff in our room, it was time for a quick walk around our hotel area before dinner.
We saw Johannes Kirken, and the Botanical Garden by the University of Bergen. Both were very neat. We had also just missed an organ concert at the church by a day. Now it was time for dinner at Zupperia, a restaurant near the Art Museum in Bergen. It was amazing food complete with a dessert. I had seabass with mussels and a chocolate and white-chocolate pudding for dessert with fresh norske jordbær (strawberries). The evening concluded with my group of friends walking around some more, stopping at
H&M, walking to the bryggen (wharf), and thoroughly exhausting the supply of souvenir shops on the bryggen that we hadn't seen. My favourite was a Christmas-themed store of course. The bryggen is composed of merchants' housing remaining from when the Hanseatic League had an office in Bergen.Another breakfast and another matpakke. After the eating and packing had concluded, our group walked across the city to Håkonshallen, a viking-style hall part of Bergen Festning dating back to the thirteenth century and the most important building for quite some time when ruled by King Håkon Håkonsson. I should mention that when I say "walked across the
city," it is not as if I'm walking across Minneapolis. Downtown Bergen is quite small and you can reach almost anywhere by walking within 15 minutes or less. The most interesting thing about Håkonshallen is that although some of the stone walls are original, most everything else has been replaced since 1945. In World War II, a German ship carrying 120 tons of dynamite blew up in the harbor right outside Bergen Festning decimating most of the buildings and starting fires. The anchor from the ship was blown to the top of a mountain next to the city. After our tour, we walked to Mariaskirken, but we couldn't go inside as it's undergoing renovation for five years. We then ate our matpakker in an area near the church and behind the German houses on the wharf called Schøtstuene. An interesting thing about Bergen that you wouldn't expect is actually that there's not a lot to see in Bergen proper. After we exhausted the area by the
wharf and the Fish Market (where I tried whale -- tastes like beef), which can't hold a candle to Pike Place Market in Seattle (What? I guess I'm just a biased Seattleite), there's not much to do unless you wish to go up on the Fløibanen, see the aquarium, see the art museum, see the Leprosy Museum, or take a walking tour of the churches in Bergen -- all of these things we did that one afternoon except go to the aquarium and go to the leprosy museum. I really enjoyed riding the Fløibanen (a train built to go up steep grade to the top of a mountain next to the city) and seeing the view (except that it was raining) and going to the Art Museum or Kunstmuseum. I loved seeing all the famous Norwegian painters and a few pieces by Picasso. During the day, I had also received an email from Dan giving me a list of "must-dos" in Bergen. I managed to do all of them, plus more, except getting to see Kjell Johannessen's sculpting studio. Kjell is my father's second cousin. I looked around for it around Mariaskirken, where it's located, but I wasn't looking in quite the right spot and I didn't get a chance to go back. After a good dinner at Egon Restaurant, we went back to the hotel where we played cards for awhile and then we went out to a club and sang karaoke.We're now up to recounting the events of Saturday. After packing yet another matpakke and eating breakfast, we boarded the bus and drove through the tiny streets of Bergen out to Buena Kai where we took a ferry to Lysøen, the island home of Ole Bull, the famous Norwegian violinist. Ole Bull built his eclectic home and bought the island with the money he made from ONE concert!! It was interesting to see the performance hall he made in his room and the piano that he co-invented that was never supposed to go out of tune, but then did after the second concert. He made it into an office desk because it couldn't be tuned because of the way it was built.
After taking the ferry back to the mainland, we drove a short distance to another famous musician's home -- Troldhaugen -- the home of Edvard Grieg. This was short of a surreal experience for me growing up hearing about Grieg my whole life and hearing about his grave in the side of a hill. One of my favourite things that I saw was his composing hut right next to the water. I also picked up a couple of postcards to send to Nancy, my piano teacher of over ten years, here.
We returned to Bergen and because we were all thoroughly exhausted we took a nap for a couple of hours. It was then time to go to dinner at the restaurant connected to the art museum -- Bølgen & Moi. It was an excellent meal and a great time!
I would have to say that the next day, Sunday, was one of my favourite days of the trip. After departing Bergen around 9am, we drove for a couple of hours until we reached Steinsø Fruit Farm on the Hardanger Fjord.
Here, we had the excellent pleasure of eating a delicious apple cake, drinking fresh apple juice, and getting a tour of the orchards and learning many new things. This farm grows strawberries, raspberries, lingenberries, pears, plums, and apples -- several varieties of the latter three.
From this location perched high up on the hill where all the labour must be done by hand, I was also able to see a viking burial mound and a salmon farm in the fjord. Not counting the farmed salmon in the fjord, there are an amazing 30 million salmon in the fjord -- an unfathomable amount! We continued driving for another couple hours until we reached Vøringsfossen -- one of the highest and most visited waterfalls in Norway. It was beautiful! One thing that I was a little surprised about was the lack of safety rails that would be present in the United States in a similar location. One was able to walk up to the edge of a sheer cliff that drops 200 feet or more. That would not be a nice trip. However, it did make for some amazing pictures! After making another stop for dinner, we arrived back in Oslo at about 9:30pm.
I hope you had as much fun reading this as I had experiencing it.
Make sure to see many more pictures at these albums on Facebook. I took about three hundred pictures just on this trip. You don't need to be a member to see them.
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