Norway+ coach tour: Bergen

London List #15: Norway = Check!

Bergen, the so-called western capital of Norway (it was the original capital of the country after all), was the first city we actually spent two nights in. This meant that we got to sleep in past 6 am, didn't have to pack and put out our luggage, and got to spend an entire day without any imposed agenda.

On our first night, we savored the opportunity for a relaxing dinner of our choice at Zupperia on the harbor. Zupperia, while a chain, still ranks as the best dinner of our entire trip. This is where I discovered how much I love curry and Manuel tried reindeer.

After a lovely, full night's sleep we decided to hike up Fløyen, the most visited of the seven mountains surrounding Bergen. This is probably due to both the Fløibanen funicular from the city and the sweeping view of the city, harbor, and out to the fjord. Most of our group rode the funicular up the steep incline, but we opted for the fresh air and exercise of hiking the switchbacks ourselves.

One of the benefits of walking up instead of riding the funicular was that we found a huge park along the way, which afforded the opportunity for play.

Plus the work of hiking made this view even more breathtaking when we finally reached it.

After our hike we headed over to the Bergen fish market for lunch.

 

Crab legs and whale steak. The first was tasty, the second was not.

Caviar in a tube like toothpaste.

Princess caviar is bright pink!

With our freedom we chose to spend the rest of the day exploring every part of the city we could walk to. We enjoyed the souvenir shops and Christmas store and ended our day relaxing at Henrik Øl og Vinstove, a craft beer haven in Bergen. Joe and Manuel were impressed with the selection and spent a considerable time discussing the European craft brew market with the owner on our second visit. They even carried a cider that was pretty tasty for me.

Norway+ Coach Tour: Traveling West

London List #15: Norway = Check!
London List #29/30: Travel by boat/train = Check!

Day 4 and 5 of our trip were mostly dedicated to moving us from the east coast (Oslo) to the west coast (Bergen). We stayed one night in Lillehammer, home to the 1994 Winter Olympics, and another night in Sognedal, at the edge of the Sogne fjord. Along the way, we stopped for countless “kodak moments” that have very little story beyond “look at this pretty lake” and “this is a breathtakingly pretty view.” There were mountains and glaciers and waterfalls and valleys. We travelled by bus, train, and boat. Why did we love Norway so much, you ask? Take a look.

The view behind one of our rest stops. Seriously.

Perfect mirror, taken thru the bus windows.

Visiting a stave church in Lom - one of the only official tour stops we made.

A waterfall flowing under a bridge in Lom, across from the stave church.

Traveling over the mountains on the "roof of Norway" - see the glacier in the back?

A celebratory acquavitae shot our guide organized to honor the newlyweds.

Sarah & Alicia

Another view from the bus

Day 5

Because we were having such great luck with weather, our guide and driver, Birgitte and Jan organized an extra treat: a trip to the top of one of the cliffs that drops down into the fjords for a spectacular view.

Flåm Railway is an engineering marvel. It is the steepest traditional railway in Europe and is a main tourist attraction in Norway. While it did feel a little silly, it was gorgeous.

Fjord Cruise

Another rest stop. Seriously.

Even the stones and moss were beautiful!

Norway+ Coach Tour: Oslo

London List #15: Norway = Check!

Instead of trying to cover the insanely emotional experience that was June through August of this year, I am going to jump right in to our 30-day honeymoon travel adventures. I do intend to catch up on some of the other major events of the summer in future posts, but for now let’s get to the stuff that most of you have come here for anyway: updates on our European adventure.

We began on August 22, flying from San Diego to Oslo, Norway (via New York and Helsinki). Finnair is amazing. Anyone flying to Scandinavia or the area around the Baltic Sea should use them.

Oslo, our first destination, is the capital of Norway. We knew very little about Norway going in, except that it was supposed to be beautiful. Oslo has 650,000 inhabitants and Norway's entire population is only 5 million. Coming from San Diego, CA, where the populations are 1.3 million and 38 million respectively, we were destined to be constantly baffled by the absence of people anywhere we went.

This is Joe’s first time in Europe, but he wasted no time finding craft beer at the first place we ate in Oslo. He also quickly identified the Norwegian craft brewery of choice, Nøgne. The restaurant, Tekehtopa, was near our hotel and had an impressive beer list (including San Diego local favorites like Port Brewing of Pizza Port) and the food was delicious! We were semi-shocked by the steep Norwegian prices, though we had been warned before our arrival. Still, we liked it enough to return with our friends a few days later.

That evening we met up with our friends, Alicia and Manuel, and the rest of our Gate 1 coach tour group. As expected, the average age of the passengers excluding the 4 of us was about 60. Surprisingly, Joe and I were not the only or even the most recent newlyweds, though.

Day 2 was a full day in Oslo. We had a tour in the morning, a free afternoon, and then boarded the bus to start heading west. The 6 am wake up call would’ve been a shock to Joe’s system if we weren’t experiencing the affects of jetlag and hadn’t both woken up naturally at 4 am.

Some highlights in Oslo included wandering through Vigeland Sculpture Garden in Frogner Park and the Opera house. In the early 1920s, the city of Oslo wanted to build a library on a plot of land that already contained sculptor Gustav Vigeland’s home. He agreed to move and bequeath all of his subsequent works to the city if they built him a new home and gave him a place to display his masterpiece, a series of scupltures about the Human Condition and the Cycle of Suffering inheren in the human experience. The deal produced the striking sculpture garden in Frogner Park. Although the style of the pieces was too bold and often too violent or depressing for my taste, the assembly of one artist’s creative vision in one location was incredibly interesting. Even without any previous knowledge about Vigeland, it was completely possible to understand his perception of the world we live in.

The Opera House was completed recently (only in 2007) and was visually interesting from afar, but the architecture of the building drew us closer. The steeply slanted roofline slopes down almost all the way to Oslofjord, where visitors can walk right up on top of the building.

At the end of our Norwegian journey a week later we returned to Oslo and had an entirely different experience of the place. This time we met up with Manuel’s friend and roomate from college, Mike, and his girlfriend Julie who live in the city. With them, we visited Schouskjelleren Mikrobryggeri, a local alehouse that produced some surprisingly well-crafted brews.

Warnings

Found this unpublished draft from who knows how long ago. I'll post it now since it's still relevant.

I have been reading blogs from other American expats living in the UK as research. I have already been warned about many things and hope I can avoid repeating the same information in my own blog posts.

1. You have to pay for a shopping cart (trolley) at the grocery store and are expected to bag your own groceries.
2. Brits use the phrase "You alright?" instead of "How are you?" and it seems to send every American and Australian expat into a tailspin of self doubt.
3. There are many, many vocabulary differences between the US and the UK. (jumper instead of sweater, trousers instead of pants, pants instead of panties, etc.)
4. Mexican food in London is a total bust.
5. Bring your own peanut butter.
6. It will take a lifetime to get a UK bank account.
7. The Royal Mail sucks.
8. London flats are exceedingly small and expensive. Just deal with it.
9. Making the trek to the London IKEA takes all day and is a journey into hell. I'm still excited by the prospect of this, though.
10. Groceries are expensive. Everything is expensive.
11. Fruits and veggies are limited and super expensive.
12. It will take about 6 weeks for any shipped stuff to get to England. Probably longer since we're from California, not the East Coast.
13. There are no outlets in the bathrooms. It's illegal.
14. The washing machine, if we have one, will be in the kitchen. It will be tiny. It will most likely be a combo washer-dryer that takes 3 hours to wash and dry one tiny load. This will be interesting and will probably mean that we are doing laundry every day.
15. I will probably miss Target and Costco more than is healthy to admit. If I can control myself, I will not dedicate an entire blogpost to the this topic like some people have.