Day Twentyfour - Jul 5, 2014
Bergen, NOR
Daily Didactic
A proper Bergen day, which is to say the sky was overcast, rain came and went on its own schedule, and it sat in the low 60's the whole time. For two Alaskans that is shirtsleeve weather, so we set off with Todd, Cori, and Laura to walk the town. We started in old town, threading the cobbled back alleys and stairs until we reached Bryggen, the row of crooked wooden warehouses down on the harbor that the locals keep calling straight despite plain visual evidence. From there we worked over to the fish market, which is half seafood and half souvenir theater. There was caviar sold in toothpaste tubes, whale on offer, and a sausage stand flying small Norwegian flags where Brian accepted a moose sample and then performed several seconds of unconvincing moral doubt before finishing it. The funicular took us up Fløyen the way funiculars do, and we came back down on foot by the long marked loop in the hills, where Todd stood at the Byfjellene trail map and kept us pointed the right direction through wet woods. The afternoon was Bergen being Bergen. A shop window held an entire wire bin of troll babies, suggesting a brisk trade. A back-alley sign forbade motorcycle jumping with a specificity that implies a prior incident. A Norwegian word roughly the length of this sentence got photographed for the record. Trond's flat is on the top floor with no lift, which is charming once and editorial by the fifth trip up. We watched the weather decline politely out the front window and called it. Four miles on foot, no schedule worth keeping, and Brian still losing a quiet war with the twenty-four-hour clock.
Today's Photos
