Day 4 - Bergen, Norway

09/13/2009

Our fourth day of the trip began with a flight from Stavanger to Bergen. The flight was short and sweet and we landed around 10:30am. We easily caught the airport bus which took us right to the center of Bergen at the fish markets. We set off to find our apartment up steep, cobblestone streets hauling all of our luggage and the little stroller that could. The apartment turned out to be on a little tiny street inaccessible to cars which we found after consulting Google maps (which was wrong) and asking several people. We finally found Stolesmaut, the street we were looking for, and walked through the cutest little residential area you've ever seen.

Motz, the owner of the apartment, was a young guy who helped us get our bags settled, pointed out some things on a city map and gave us keys before we took off again to explore the city. Lucky for us, there was a food festival (basically a farmers market) being held just down the hill at the Bryggen (the harbor area). We had a great time trying the cheese and honey and reindeer jerky and fruits and pancakes. We bought apples and cheese to go with dinner and then had polsers for lunch and Softies for dessert (more about those later).

At a hotel very near the harbor there was a crowd of people all in traditional Norwegian dress. A family on our flight that morning had been dressed in costume, also. Apparently they were celebrating a sort of baptism or something. It was really really neat to see their traditional costumes -- they were so beautiful!

Earlier, when we had arrived at the apartment, Eric realized that he had left his iPhone on the bus from the airport. After making some calls he found out that someone had turned in the phone! He ended up having to go back to the airport to retrieve it and was gone for about 2 hours. This was just the first time that we got lucky with nice Norwegians turning in things that we lost!

While Eric was gone we visited a kid clothing/toy/things store where I tried to buy everything and also the tourist office where we learned about an amazing bus/boat/train tour (Norway in a Nutshell) which we decided to take the next day (mine and Ruth's bday!). We also window-shopped at a lot of incredible looking stores which were all, unfortunately, closed because it was Sunday.

Eric finally rejoined us and we walked a short ways to ride on the Fløibanen Funicular up to the top of Mount Floyen. The ride was very fun (and of course William was going nuts over it) and the view at the top was beautiful -- overlooking all of Bergen and the harbor. After spending an hour or so at the top enjoying the view, playing at the playground and visiting the gift shop, we rode back down.

Since we had a full apartment with a kitchen we decided to just make dinner rather than go out. Since it was Sunday, though, the large grocery was closed and we had to make-do with what we could find at 7-Eleven! Granted, the 7-Elevens in Scandinavia are much different than they are in the States. They really do have a small selection of real groceries. We got weiners, potatoes and some things for breakfast. We then went to Deli de Luca (convenience store/baked goods/deli) and got a loaf of bread (which I probably ate 75% of single-handedly).

Back at the apartment we cooked our dinner and figured out that we spent as much on all of the groceries for dinner for all 5 of us as it would have cost for one of us to eat out. Yikes! After dinner, cleaning up and messing around online for a bit it was time for bed.