Heroes of Syntax: Bergen.

6.9.10

Bergen.

1:31 PM |

Posted by Maj |

Edit Post

What have we here? Health in a bottle? The promise of power levels over 9000? ...Well, only if you can stomach fully fish-flavoured fish oil. NUMMERS.

Sometime in February, I sent Daniel an email to the effect that, despite my weird fascination with Northern Europe, I would never, ever go to Bergen. Sure, Norway may be the land of Nina Twin, gravlax, slashy Os, mountain goats, Notes on Logic and viking secrets, but I swore I'd never visit Erik's city, which is renown for its near-perpetual precipitation. And then -- thank goodness! -- it just sort of happened. After returning to Amsterdam from Dublin for about a day and a half, I was on a plane to Copenhagen and, eventually, to Bergen. :D

Despite our taking a couple of days to do work, Erik and I managed to do quite a bit around the area. The second day I was down, we took a couple of hours to walk around in somewhat groomed wilderness, eating a variety of berries (including blueberries, strawberries and the mysterious ripsbær, which may or may not be red currant), spotting fish, crabs and crayfish, spending quality time with a grey cat reminiscent of Bagheera and assessing the beauty and/or pretentiousness of rose flowers. By the way, roses stink. Ugh.

Erik is inclined to give the cat a gentle scratch; I'm inclined to, uh, give it a swift kick to the face?

The next day, we took a funicular railway up Fløyen, one of the mountains surrounding Bergen. Here's a video I took of us heading up the mountain; you may want to mute it, though, because the soundtrack leaves something to be desired.

The view from the top was, as you would expect, quite beautiful:

Not too shabby.

We walked down Fløyen while eating ice cream, ate hot dogs when we got to the bottom (I had a reindeer sausage, pretty delicious!) and walked around Bryggen (...while eating gelato.) We then visited a couple of university buildings, saw Grieghallen (Bergen is charmingly proud of Grieg) and hit up Nygård Park (Bergen's take on Central Park?) before heading back to the Parmann household in Nesttun, where I passed out in a hammock.

Erik is a sneaky photographer; I am a sappy dolt.

Oh, and hey, d'you know what's better than falling asleep in a hammock? Falling asleep in a hammock AND THEN WAKING UP TO A RIDICULOUS SEAFOOD DINNER. Holy carp.

Ridiculous-like-whoa: three types of fish roe; gravlax, smoked salmon, and some other smoked fish; enough shrimp to feed a small village; eggs, bread, tea, apple juice, sour cream, lemon wedges, sauces and spreads. And finger bowls!

That dinner was not only delicious, but educational. (Come and see me if you need any shrimp shelled in the future.) ;) Actually, nearly every meal we had was great: turkey dinner, improvised beercan chicken, French-style fish soup, moussaka, something like Stephen's couscous salad... and caviar on bread at breakfast. I managed to pick up enough Norwegian to fumble through Erik's mom's recipes and put together some really stupid sentences, usually about fish or target groups (my top language-learning priorities). It was nice to spend some time hanging out with Øyvind (who came to Amsterdam to visit Erik) and Pål (who studied at the ILLC last semester) again, as well as meeting Øystein (another of Erik's friends) and Jonathan (a very, erm, "special" seagull), but above all else, it was great to just spend time around Erik again. ...Even if he dragooned me into buying the larger, fishier bottle of Möller's Tran to prove my manliness. :)
Alright, time for some more photos. Notice that none of these are photos of Bergen in the rain, since it only rained three times while I was in town: on the night of my arrival, on the morning of my departure, and during a short nap I took one afternoon. Indoors. :D