Norway was so great! We docked in Bergen, Norway on Tuesday, the 24th. The first day, I didn’t really have any plans besides getting to the Aquarium for my biology class. I have to write a paper on it. The aquarium was pretty cool, but it was 150 Kroner. In case you are not fluent in exchange rates, there are 5 Kroner to 1 USD. Basically, it means that everything was REALLY expensive. So going back to the aquarium – or Akvariet, in Norwegian – it being 150 Kroner, that was $30. Ouch! But I did get to see penguins, SEALS!!, and a bunch of really cool fish like Dory, Nemo, and Marlin (for all you kids that like Finding Nemo!). After that, my friend Emily and I went to the fish market (where I tried Moose & Reindeer jerky). After looking through the fish market, which also had trinkets and hats and shirts..) we went to lunch at the Harbor Café. We each got a hamburger and a coke light (which is their diet coke) and the check was 414 kroner together. That was about $40 each. Luckily, they don’t really believe in tipping. This is good because they also do not really believe in costumer service. It took them FOREVER to wait on us and for us to get the check. That is normal in Norwegian culture.
After eating, we just kind of walked around for a bit and met up with some more friends for dinner which was 150 Kroner, or $30. I REALLY wanted coffee, but they really do not believe in taking out coffee from cafes, so I went to 7 elevens and little shops to try to get coffee, but the machines were too difficult, so I just gave up. It was alright because I didn’t need to be caffeinated, I had to get up early on Wednesday! I went back to the ship around 9 and we stopped at a little shop – called Joker (VERY common) like our Sheetz or a Wawa (for all you Virginians). I got this AMAZING cone of frozen yogurt dipped in a chocolate powder. It was SOO good. I got back to the ship and had to get ready for the next day for my 3 day trip to the Fjords and Glaciers. (A fjord is a valley that was carved out from glaciers moving through many thousands of years ago.)
I got up around 6 on Wednesday & we left the port around 8. We were traveling on a bus to go up north to see the Briksdal Glacier and quite a few fjords. We had an Italian tour guide staying with us for the whole 3 days, Emiliano. He was a pretty fun guy! We drove along and saw many beautiful waterfalls and lakes on the way to Geiranger, which was our first overnight point of the trip. We stopped along the way to get lunch, stopped at a HUGE waterfall, took a 20 minute standing room only ferry across a fjord, went up on top of a HUGE mountain – where it SNOWED!, and ate dinner at the hotel. It took us a total of 10 hours to get to Geiranger from Bergen! Looong bus ride.
The first hotel was pretty nice It was called Hotel Union and was right up the hill from the town of Geiranger, which was home of 400 people. We really didn’t do a whole lot in the town because it was so small, but the hotel had a little pub down stairs and a live band. It was soo strange because they were playing American music. Music from the 80s, mostly. There was 5 of us girls and we all got a long island iced tea. It was pretty good.
Thursday, we had to be up for breakfast and out of the hotel by 9 to catch yet another ferry. This one was an hour and was a little more cozy than the other ferry. There was 2 observing decks and an inside lounge with a little café on it. We got to see a waterfall that is pretty famous in Norway. It is called the 7 sisters waterfall. There are 7 waterfalls that all run beside each other. When we went past, there was a rainbow going through them, it was so cool! After the ferry ride, we got back on the bus to head to lunch & to hike to the Bridksdal Glacier. It took about 45 minutes to hike up to the foot of the glacier. It was a very pretty and scenic hike. You could see the glacier from most of the trail and there were SOO many waterfalls running from the glacier on the way up. It was a pretty warm day, but it was very windy and a little chilly by the glacier. There was a runoff pool of water at the bottom of the glacier and many many rocks left behind when the glacier was retreating.
We were only allowed to get so close, probably for good reason – there was some loose ice ‘rocks’ that were falling when we got there. Buuuut, being the adventurous little Americans that our group was, we went past the ropes and went up and touched the glacier. It was AMAZING. It was one of the most beautiful places I had ever been in my entire life. It was another 45 minutes to walk back down and then we headed to the hotel. This hotel was so pretty. It was called the Hotel Alexandra. My roommate had not showen up for the trip at all, so I had this amazing room all to myself. It was small, but bigger than the first hotel room. I had a balcony that overlooked a lake and beautiful snow-capped mountains. We had a buffet dinner that was pretty much amazing. (Any food we get off the boat is GREAT!) They had a little dance club on the 1st floor of the hotel, so almost our whole group went down there to dance after dinner. It was so much fun!
On Friday, we had to go to the glacier museum. On the way to the museum, we stopped at another smaller glacier right off the side of the road. We only had 50 minutes at the museum and we spent it on a little climate exhibit and a 20-minute documentary showing the tops of glaciers. We had we had to hop another 20 minute standing room only ferry and rode to a stave church dating from 1150 AD. That was pretty interesting to see. It was getting renovated on the outside because the wood tiles on the roof are rotting. It was a very small church that used to be a Christian church for people around the town. There were windows in the back so that lepers could be a part of the mass without being in with the people. There was also another window in the back for pregnant or women who had a baby within 4 months. They were thought to be unclean and were not allowed in the church with the people. I thought that was strange.
After the church, we drove through Voss and stopped at the waterfall of youth. It was simply amazing. It was very big and had many many pieces of the water flowing all different directions. It made me feel so insignificant, like so many of the things in Norway did. The waterfall was the last stop on my wonderful Norway journey. After that, we had to get back onto the ship so that we did not receive dock time. For every 15 minutes you are late, you get 1 hour of dock time that you are required to spend sitting by the pursers desk at the next port. HOPEFULLY that never happens to me.
The roads in Norway are completely unbelievable. You would think that they were one way. It was pretty scary going up very very winding mountain roads when another bus was coming along. The bus driver would SLAM on his brakes and one bus would have to pull to the side so the other could get through. There were like no guard rails either. So sometimes you would look out the window, look down, and see very scary views of the steep mountain. It was pretty intense. Everytime we would get into a situation when we would have to get past a bus, the tour Emiliano would play the James bond theme song. HAHA!
The weather in Norway is pretty much 50% chance of rain all the time. The first day we got there, It rained in the afternoon, but by late afternoon it stopped raining and didn’t really rain again until Thursday afternoon. We pretty much lucked out with the weather. I ran into an older lady from England who said that her and her hubby were there for a 10 day vacation and it rained the WHOLE time.
So overall, I wasn’t a huge fan of Bergen just because it was mostly a huge tourist area. A LOT of cruise ships come into Bergen, so that’s whey it is so touristy. It was cute though. It wasn’t really what I was expecting for Norway, but my fjords and glacier trip was definitely what I was expecting of Norway, the huge mountains and beautiful water. Oh and pretty much EVERYONE spoke English, which was really nice.
So, tomorrow we dock in Russia. I am a little nervous for that. Apparently people are all about stealing American passports and selling them for a lot of money on the black market. So today, I bought a money belt in the school store because we are REQUIRED to carry around out passports.
My itinerary for Russia is visitng a Russian home, the Russian Ballet!!, White Nights (which is a cruise down one of the rivers and a concert of some sort under a sun that never sets), a Russian cuisine class with a master chef, and a day trip to Moscow! So, aside from being nervous, I am really excited. After all, how many people can say, “I have been to Russia!!”?
