As you may have guessed at this point, I, Suaram, will now be writing on the blog regularly. (And when I say regularly, I mean about once a trip.) All right. With introductions out of the way, it’s time to talk about the important part – our day in Bergen.
This morning, we woke up and went to a nice place with coffee and pastries. All of the labels were in Norwegian, so I took a small risk and ended up getting something filled with custard that was very tasty ~
After breakfast, we walked over to a pretty lake with an enormous fountain.
There, a group of birds seemed to be hanging around this one area, including a lot of pigeons, a few ducks, and a seagull or two. I took the opportunity to show off my amazing bird-taming skills.
After my failure with the birds, we walked over the Sailor’s Monument and took some time recreating the iconic poses.
The Sailor’s Monument was built in 1950 and designed by some person named Dyre Vaa. It’s meant to capture the Norwegians’ relationship with the sea. Though Vikings are nothing new to us (and statues sure aren’t) it was very interesting to look upon an artistic and historical representation captured in bronze.
After the monument, we went to walk down the wharf and explore the city. We encountered many sights. For example, the sheer amount of yachts. Apparently, Sunday morning is prime time for Bergen citizens to spend the day on the fjord.
We next went to a fish market. I suppose this isn’t truly a surprise. I think that Mom and Dad must’ve made the decision without us to go see every single fish market in every single country.
Nevertheless, we actually saw a pretty funny-looking fish, which Toaster_ham took a particular interest in. I won’t need to go into detail about it because you viewers can see it yourselves. Yay!
It’s not a busy day without some walking, but today it was optional. We took an upside-down train (I think it’s called a funicular) to the top of one of the seven mountains surrounding Bergen. There, we had the pleasure of looking upon one of the best views of our trip so far, in my opinion.
Yeah. If you saw the image at the beginning of this post and wondered what the heck we were doing standing on top of an airplane… now all of your questions have been answered.
After that, we split up for a while, and Mom, Dad, and Toaster_ham found themselves watching a small performance for children in a nearby park, while Creeperkitty and I were elsewhere.
Afterwards, we bid Creeperkitty farewell (he didn’t want to walk down the mountain) and headed back down into town.
For lunch, we went to a Thai place where Mom mistakenly ordered a brown rice iced tea, and she let me try some as well. The flavor was… interesting. For any of you who have ever eaten non-sugary cereal, it tastes like how the milk does at the end.
We had one more thing left to do, and it involved getting wet. We had heard about this specific activity and had wanted to do it since Oslo (at least, Toaster_ham and I) but didn’t quite get the opportunity.
This opportunity was relaxing in the steaming hot sauna. And then jumping in the freezing-cold fjord (which is probably about the same temperature as the Aegean Sea from two years ago).
Yeah. Prepare for some immense suffering. The place we went Nordnes Sjøbad – was a Bergen institution. It opened in 1910 and as far as we can tell it was full locals and tourists alike.
The view of the pool and fjord. If you look to the left a lot, you can see the teal diving board. The sauna is right next to it, but you can’t see it because I’m new to blog picture taking – but Mom’s not. She got it.
In the end, four of us jumped into the fjord, but only one was willing to have a video taken of him.
On our way back, we encountered a marching band or some sort of military band down the street.
Our day wound down to a close in the warm and dry environment of the apartment, but our minds would not forget the cold water on our skin. At least, mine won’t… I’d better not make any assumptions.
— Suaram ❤
5 Adventures Together 