Norway
I arrived in Bergen on a sunny day, and having been warned that this was very rare, I thought I should take some photos before crawling into bed for a nap. My mom and dad have bought an apartment in a neighborhood that is undergoing a lot of new development. There are several new apartment buildings on the water, and plans for a boardwalk and shops and all sorts of nice things. Right now it's a construction zone.
Their apartment is on the other side of the building.
Bergen is surrounded by mountains. Actually, it seems like there are mountains everywhere. They're not really that tall, but they look really impressive because they're so steep, and the tree line is so low.
The night that I arrived, we went to see a British pantomime, which apparently is a thing, although I was unfamiliar with the concept except as it relates to charades. This show turned out to be pretty cute. It was a production of Beauty and the Beast, with a large cast of adults and children. We heard that they don't turn away anyone who wants to act in the pantomime, so there was a chorus of adorable brown slugs, and Beast had a pack of Dalmatian puppies running around his castle. Most of the production was in English, but many of the kids in the show haven't learned much English in school yet, so they were singing songs and saying lines that they didn't necessarily understand.
The next day was again beautiful and sunny (in fact, it didn't rain at all while I was there, and only snowed a little). My parents don't have a car in Norway, which is usually not a problem because the buses, light rail and trains make it pretty easy to get around. However, a car comes in handy when you're trying to see several tourist spots in one day. Luckily, two friends in Bergen (one a former student of my dad's) also wanted to sight-see, and we were able to squeeze into Masoud's car. The first stop was Gamlehaugen, which is where the king stays when he visits Bergen. The house is closed in the winter (a common theme that we encountered), but we still enjoyed walking around the beautiful and hilly grounds.
Ice is so beautiful. But somehow it just cries out to be stomped and broken into shards.
We also stopped at a stave church. Unfortunately I don't really know anything about it (it was also closed for the winter), but the Wikipedia article tells me that this church was originally built around the year 1150 (1150! it's made of wood), but it has actually been rebuilt; it was sadly burnt down in 1992 as the "first in a series of church burnings related to the early Norwegian black metal scene."
Our last stop for the day was at Bergenhus Fortress. It's everything I want in a fortress.
This was an opening for cannon.
This photo was taking from some high point in the fortress (studying the map on Wikipedia makes me think it was either called Upper Sverresborg or the salute ground. It had a nice view, but it was also notable for its lack of safety barriers. Kids must be smarter in Norway, or parents more attentive, because apparently the general public is trusted to not walk off the sides of cliffs.
Near the same part of the city is Bryggen, which is where Bergen's fish trade used to go on. Norway's fishermen were able to supply a lot of fish (especially dried cod, or stockfish), but they didn't know much about the marketing side of things, so this district was run by the Hanseatic League, a German trading alliance. The Germans knew which countries in Europe wanted what kinds of fish products, so they were able to act as the middlemen. They were pretty separate from the rest of the city's culture--the Hanseatics were all male, and fraternizing with the locals was seriously discouraged. Each tenement (row of trading houses) in Bergen had an annual meeting to address any rule violations, and if a member was found to have fathered a child with a local, then his house had to pay the maximum penalty: one barrel of beer (which was then drunk by all the other members present at the meeting). I didn't actually get a good photo of the fronts of the houses, so here's one that someone else put on Flickr:
It's a really pretty row of tall houses that extend back away from the street, with narrow passageways separating them:
I really loved seeing the natural knees in these posts. There is currently a major restoration project going on in Bryggen and they're trying to use all authentic woods and hand tools. I wonder if they'll be making more posts like this.
It's hard to tell from the photos, but these buildings are really crooked.
One of the houses has been preserved as it might have been when used by the Hanseatic merchants. All of the beds were built in, which for some reason I really love, even though in real life I wouldn't want to sleep in a dark cupboard.
These are the beds where the apprentices slept. Two apprentices to every bed, and the journeyman would lock them from the outside at night. Cozy.
I loved the old wood floors. They're not fancy, but they're old and smooth as glass, with little hills where the knots are.
Leather buckets.
One disappointment about Norway (and this is probably true of most countries in Western Europe) is that nothing is cheap. It's not like you can get a great deal on a locally made craft. However, it's still fun to look at the beautiful expensive things. The website for this store says that 70% of Norwegian women own a traditional costume (which is worn for National Day, and maybe other special occasions).
Directly across the city from my parents' apartment is a mountain with a tram to take you to the top:
It's a nice view of the city.
We took a train to Geilo and spent a night there. The train went through and around lots of mountains and past lakes and rivers. It was all beautiful, but it looks like a difficult place to live. Part of the trip was above the tree line:
Geilo was beautiful and sparkly. My parents went cross-country skiing, and my mom and I walked around town while my dad was in a meeting. We found out, by chance, that Brusletto, a good Norwegian knife company, has its factory in Geilo. The factory store actually had pretty good prices for the beautiful knives, but really irresistible prices for knife blades. So I bought a few, for myself and friends. Hopefully I'll get around to making a handle in the near future.
On my last day in Norway, my mom took me to a place that restores old wooden boats. I don't really have any information on any of the boats--we just wandered around and took pictures:
Their apartment is on the other side of the building.
Bergen is surrounded by mountains. Actually, it seems like there are mountains everywhere. They're not really that tall, but they look really impressive because they're so steep, and the tree line is so low.
The night that I arrived, we went to see a British pantomime, which apparently is a thing, although I was unfamiliar with the concept except as it relates to charades. This show turned out to be pretty cute. It was a production of Beauty and the Beast, with a large cast of adults and children. We heard that they don't turn away anyone who wants to act in the pantomime, so there was a chorus of adorable brown slugs, and Beast had a pack of Dalmatian puppies running around his castle. Most of the production was in English, but many of the kids in the show haven't learned much English in school yet, so they were singing songs and saying lines that they didn't necessarily understand.
The next day was again beautiful and sunny (in fact, it didn't rain at all while I was there, and only snowed a little). My parents don't have a car in Norway, which is usually not a problem because the buses, light rail and trains make it pretty easy to get around. However, a car comes in handy when you're trying to see several tourist spots in one day. Luckily, two friends in Bergen (one a former student of my dad's) also wanted to sight-see, and we were able to squeeze into Masoud's car. The first stop was Gamlehaugen, which is where the king stays when he visits Bergen. The house is closed in the winter (a common theme that we encountered), but we still enjoyed walking around the beautiful and hilly grounds.
Ice is so beautiful. But somehow it just cries out to be stomped and broken into shards.
We also stopped at a stave church. Unfortunately I don't really know anything about it (it was also closed for the winter), but the Wikipedia article tells me that this church was originally built around the year 1150 (1150! it's made of wood), but it has actually been rebuilt; it was sadly burnt down in 1992 as the "first in a series of church burnings related to the early Norwegian black metal scene."
Our last stop for the day was at Bergenhus Fortress. It's everything I want in a fortress.
This was an opening for cannon.
This photo was taking from some high point in the fortress (studying the map on Wikipedia makes me think it was either called Upper Sverresborg or the salute ground. It had a nice view, but it was also notable for its lack of safety barriers. Kids must be smarter in Norway, or parents more attentive, because apparently the general public is trusted to not walk off the sides of cliffs.
Near the same part of the city is Bryggen, which is where Bergen's fish trade used to go on. Norway's fishermen were able to supply a lot of fish (especially dried cod, or stockfish), but they didn't know much about the marketing side of things, so this district was run by the Hanseatic League, a German trading alliance. The Germans knew which countries in Europe wanted what kinds of fish products, so they were able to act as the middlemen. They were pretty separate from the rest of the city's culture--the Hanseatics were all male, and fraternizing with the locals was seriously discouraged. Each tenement (row of trading houses) in Bergen had an annual meeting to address any rule violations, and if a member was found to have fathered a child with a local, then his house had to pay the maximum penalty: one barrel of beer (which was then drunk by all the other members present at the meeting). I didn't actually get a good photo of the fronts of the houses, so here's one that someone else put on Flickr:
It's a really pretty row of tall houses that extend back away from the street, with narrow passageways separating them:
I really loved seeing the natural knees in these posts. There is currently a major restoration project going on in Bryggen and they're trying to use all authentic woods and hand tools. I wonder if they'll be making more posts like this.
It's hard to tell from the photos, but these buildings are really crooked.
One of the houses has been preserved as it might have been when used by the Hanseatic merchants. All of the beds were built in, which for some reason I really love, even though in real life I wouldn't want to sleep in a dark cupboard.
These are the beds where the apprentices slept. Two apprentices to every bed, and the journeyman would lock them from the outside at night. Cozy.
I loved the old wood floors. They're not fancy, but they're old and smooth as glass, with little hills where the knots are.
Leather buckets.
One disappointment about Norway (and this is probably true of most countries in Western Europe) is that nothing is cheap. It's not like you can get a great deal on a locally made craft. However, it's still fun to look at the beautiful expensive things. The website for this store says that 70% of Norwegian women own a traditional costume (which is worn for National Day, and maybe other special occasions).
Directly across the city from my parents' apartment is a mountain with a tram to take you to the top:
It's a nice view of the city.
We took a train to Geilo and spent a night there. The train went through and around lots of mountains and past lakes and rivers. It was all beautiful, but it looks like a difficult place to live. Part of the trip was above the tree line:
Geilo was beautiful and sparkly. My parents went cross-country skiing, and my mom and I walked around town while my dad was in a meeting. We found out, by chance, that Brusletto, a good Norwegian knife company, has its factory in Geilo. The factory store actually had pretty good prices for the beautiful knives, but really irresistible prices for knife blades. So I bought a few, for myself and friends. Hopefully I'll get around to making a handle in the near future.
On my last day in Norway, my mom took me to a place that restores old wooden boats. I don't really have any information on any of the boats--we just wandered around and took pictures:
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