Heat Wave

Over the past week, Bergen has been experiencing quite the little heat wave.  Temperatures have been in the upper 70's and with no air conditioning, my room has felt like an oven.  But I don't want to complain too much, because a week straight of sunshine was just what I needed to fall in love with this little city!  Everyone keeps telling me to enjoy this while I can since it is highly unlikely to have such great weather for an extended amount of time again.  I've been doing my best to take advantage of the sunshine with the Bergen International Festival, hiking, and the aquarium!

Wednesday marked the first day of the two week long Bergen International Festival.  During the two weeks, there are numerous plays, concerts, dances, and other happenings.  I'm hoping to attend the play A Midsummer Nights Dream next weekend.  It'll most likely be in Norwegian, but I think it would still be fun to watch.

Stage set up in the center of town.  Here an orchestra plays.

Friday after work, two of the guys on my hall and I decided to hike to the top of one of the mountains and have a BBQ!  The weather was perfect -- not too hot and plenty of sunshine.  We left around 5:30 and got back at 10ish and thanks to Bergen's high latitude, the sun was out entire time.  

 View looking on the opposite side of the mountain from where I live.  Off in the distance is the airport.

 My side of the mountain.

Me on the way up!

 Our little BBQ grill.  You buy these at the grocery store and they're good for 2 hours or so.  It was pretty nifty.

 Grilling hot dogs and chicken/pork kabobs.

View from the very top!  It was gorgeous.

On Saturday, a friend and I embarked on a trip to Bergen's aquarium.  She had already been and warned me that it wasn't anything to be too excited about.  Man was she right!  It was so TINY and only had a few animals.  But one of the animals it did have were PENGUINS.  A long time favorite of mine, I was excited to see them.  Plus we got to watch one of the keepers feed them whole fish.  It was cute. 

 PENGUINS.

 Me cheesing with some penguins behind me.

Finally, I want to end with a giant thank you to my parents for sending me the best care package ever.  You have no idea how much I've been missing my Peter Pan peanut butter!  Norway's version pales in comparison to the perfect Peter Pan version.  Also the hot chocolate will come in handy because the temperature is expected to drop a little this upcoming week.  Thank you! <3

Granola bars, hot chocolate, and PEANUT BUTTER.

A Week in Bergen

After my first full week in Bergen, I've certainly learned a lot about the people and culture of Norway.  Here are just some of my thoughts.

1. Some people are super generous with their food.
I've only been here for nine dinners and already I've gotten three free ones!  People on my hall were cooking and invited me to join them.  Not only was that really welcoming, but the food was tasty too!  I've had fish, omelettes, waffles, curry chicken, and berry crumble.  All thanks to the kind people on my hall.

Here is a picture of the WHOLE fish.  And yes, I messed up and cut the fishes head off in the photo.

And here is a photo of the chef herself!

2. Bergen is much, much prettier when it is sunny.
Here's my evidence.  I think this speaks for itself.

Cloudy and depressing.

Sunny and absolutely wonderful!

3. If you're taking the bybanen with me, security will board the train.
Bergen has a great public transportation system which includes a light rail trail.  In Norwegian, the word for light rail is bybanen (pronounced bee-bahn-inn).  It's pretty much an honor system where you're supposed to swipe your card or ticket when you enter, but I'm sure some people ignore the ticket purchasing policy.  To fight this, the security police randomly enter the cars and check to make sure you have a ticket.  If you don't, you get a hefty fine.  Some people can go for days or weeks without ever getting checked.  I've already had to show my pass twice.  Luckily I'm a law-abiding citizen so I avoided having to pay any penalty.

4. Flowers can grow despite the cold!
I guess this is fairly obvious.  I've been to the Arctic Circle and it certainly had flowers.  But still, I was surprised my first few days here when it was rainy and gloomy, yet there were so many flowers in bloom!  They definitely help to brighten the mood.

Flowers and a gazebo downtown.

5. While most people in Norway may not be religious, they like big churches.
The most prominent church in Bergen sits atop a hill so you can easily spot it from most places downtown.  Apparently it's also a good meeting location.  "Meet for lunch by the red church!"

Here's the church on a beautiful spring day!

6. There are so many car brands I've never heard of!

WHAT IS THIS?

7. Graffiti is popular all over the world.
On bridge overpasses and downtown buildings all across the US, you see evidence of people leaving their mark.  I remember seeing lots of graffiti in Reykjavik too.  Some of it was pretty creative.  Bergen follows the graffiti trend too.  The following photo is more like art than graffiti.  I think it looks pretty cool.

Art near the bybanen stop near my dorm.

8. Norwegians will not live in Fantoft.
My student housing for the summer is a set of buildings called Fantoft.  This is where the majority of international students live during their time in Bergen.  I've met people from all over the world -- Germany, Spain, Czech Republic, Australia, Nepal.  But very few Norwegians live here.  I'm not totally sure why they avoid it.  I mean, it's not that great of a place, but it's a decent location since it is so close to the bybanen.  And it's not too expensive.  No complaints here.

Here's my building!  I live in the tall one.  Luckily I'm only on the second floor so I can avoid walking up 17 flights of stairs.

9. THERE ARE DUCKS EVERYWHERE.
Anyone that knows me well should know that I love to feed ducks.  I'm happy to report that there are plenty of ducks here!  Whether downtown or the lake near my dorm, I can always find ducks if I need some quiet time to myself.

Two ducks downtown.

10. Bergen is the most beautiful place ever.
OK well this probably isn't true.  But it is definitely pretty nice.  The people are friendly.  The downtown is cute.  And there are plenty of hiking trails where people can get outside and enjoy the beautiful weather.  I went hiking on Saturday.  It was quite a climb since we went up one of the seven hills that surround Bergen, but the view from the top was worth it!

Me with a deer statue.

View from the top of the city and the blue water.

View of the rest of the city. 

 Me at the top!

Oh and here is one final photo to prove how nice Bergen is.  This is the lake that is just a few minutes walk away from my dorm.  And it has a path all the way around, so quickly becoming my favorite place to to when I have spare time.

 View from across the lake.

Syttende Mai and IKEA

Yesterday was the Norwegian Constitution Day, or Syttende Mai (the 17th of May).  In 1814 Norway became an independent nation with the signing of their constitution.  The day tends to be a family celebration where everyone dress up in traditional outfits and march through the streets.  I've been told that on the morning of the 17th, families have breakfast at their children's school and then the children parade throughout downtown  with their school.

With this being Bergen, it was not great weather, but that did not stop people from packing the downtown streets.  The light rail that I always take to get downtown had standing room only and the majority of the streets were completely lined with people.  I was able to find a much less crowded street in order to watch the parade and take photos.  Norwegian flags (and umbrellas!) were everywhere as the citizens celebrated their national holiday.

Girls carrying the Norwegian flag.

 One of the many elementary schools where the students were holding their class banner.

 Older students playing the drums.  Several drumlines were in the parade and you could hear them from all over downtown.

 A little boy that I thought was cute.

 Apparently one way to celebrate is with balloons of various animals.

Including a penguin! :D

 Most kids were also eating candy as they walked around.

 There was even a stage set up on the main city square that looked like a Viking ship!

After all the excitement of the 17th, I decided to have a little fun myself and take a trip to IKEA.  I needed a blanket since my room is rather chilly (it's generally been in the 40's so far.  I hope it warms up soon!), and I just love walking through IKEA and looking at all the fake rooms that they set up.  So I figured this would be a simple bus ride and then I would get to enjoy shopping.  Dang was I wrong!  First of all, it's important to know that Bergen is a rapidly growing city.  It's economy is doing well and there's construction everyone. Apparently this also includes building a new IKEA and moving it a couple miles down the road.  Once I got off the bus in a little town north of Bergen, I thought it would just be a minute walk to the store.  Instead I found a shopping mall with no IKEA in sight.  After talking to several people, I realized that the old IKEA (conveniently located right by the bus station) had closed in favor of a huge new one they just opened.  Of course it was raining.  And of course I got lost several times and ended up wandering around a rural road.  But eventually I did make it!  I was soaked and rather chilly, but my happiness at seeing that giant blue and yellow store made me quickly forget about the rain.

 IKEA!

I'm happy to say that my shopping trip was successful.  Not only did I get to spend a few hours walking through one of my favorite stores, but I finally bought a blanket so now I'm much warmer at night.  And the blanket is actually pretty nice, so maybe this will be my first souvenir of the summer!  Plus the area behind the new store was really pretty!  Parts of Norway are still very sparsly populated, so this is a good example. Do note the "natural" stream, probably made by IKEA to give it a prettier setting.

Cute houses on the hill behind IKEA.  The gray sky is very typical of Bergen, but at least it's a bright cloudy sky!

Oh and one final word of wisdom.  If you are lost and asking for directions to IKEA, do not pronounce it like an American.  People will just stare at you.  Here it is pronounced ee-kay-uh, not eye-key-uh.  At least the Norwegians are friendly folks who are willing to guide you to your destination!

Welcome to Norway!

Wow it certainly has been quite a day, and it’s not even 1:00 pm yet (by Norway time). I woke this morning (technically yesterday morning by this point – such a long day!) to immediately become a big jumble of nerves. I’ve never done anything this big before by myself. I’m scared to leave my family and friends for an entire summer. At my insistence, my parents and I arrived at the RDU airport extra early. After a tearful goodbye, I was officially off on my summer adventure.

The first flight – Raleigh to Detroit – went by so quickly. If only all of them could have been like that. I did notice one gross thing about the Detroit airport. The gate that connects the airplane to the terminal had dead birds in it! Why wouldn’t the worker take them out? :(

My next leg of my journey was the long one. Over seven hours from Detroit to Amsterdam. And I didn’t even get a window seat so I couldn’t sleep at all. Once I got to Amersterdam, I noticed that the airport looks exactly like the Copenhagen airport. Did someone design and build a bunch of European airports at once? If so, that must have been a nice commission check. After I got over my feelings of déjà vu, I had a two hour wait until my final flight to Bergen. While it was the shortest of my three flights, it dragged by so slowly! I was so exhausted by that point, time felt like it had stopped. All I wanted was a bed. And to straighten my legs. That seven hour flight was a killer.

Happy sign in the airport welcoming me to my new home!

I’d have to say that the high point of my travel over here was the food. I was pleasantly surprised. I got a full dinner on the flight to Amsterdam that included chicken, a salad, and a mighty tasty brownie. They also passed out breakfast of a nasty egg sandwich and a banana. The nice old man next to me (though not nice enough to give me his window seat!) gave me his banana since apparently he hates them. On the short flight to Bergen, we got a small sandwich and an apple pastry. I decided to hoard mine, so I haven’t tried it yet. That can be my lunch tomorrow since I haven’t made a full grocery run yet.

Though my flights sound like they may have been oh so thrilling, the real fun didn’t start until I reached downtown Bergen. I needed to take the light rail trains (yay public transportation) to my student housing, but the machines wouldn’t read my credit card. Or my debit card. And of course the machine only took coins while I only had bills (thank goodness I at least had the foresight to exchange some money at the airport! Otherwise I bet I’d still be stranded downtown). Finally I made it to my home away from home for the summer – only to find the reception locked. Then I found out my key wasn’t where I was told it would be, which was conveniently located a two minute walk from my dorm. Instead the key was downtown… Luckily my international phone worked and my parents were able to give me street by street directions to the office that actually had my key. Not only did I not realize how hilly Bergen would be, it’s also soooo much colder than I was prepared for! I could even see my breath when I got off the plane in Bergen!  Temperatures in the low 40’s. Constant rain. And pretty decent winds. All this makes for a very soggy and cold Melissa.

Some cute buildings I passed on my quest to get my key.

I’m happy to report that five hours after landing, I finally arrived at my destination! I have a room all to myself and my own bathroom, which is a happy surprise! There’s a fully stocked kitchen and the people that I’ve met on my hall so far are super nice. Maybe all those tears and saying how I didn’t want to come was for nothing? Though I guess I should see how tomorrow goes before I make any judgments. Fingers crossed for less rain!


NOTE:  In case you didn't notice, this is the same blog I used for my amazing summer trip to Alaska and Iceland.  Feel free to read about my past adventures! :)