September 26, 2009: Bergen

We woke up and had no idea what time it was. Oh, it was 11, holy crap, how did we sleep so late? I guess our clocks were still adjusting to the time change. Or we drank too much last night. Maybe a little of both.

Since we missed breakfast, we got ready and headed out for our hike. It was raining, again. What are you going to do - bought new raincoats for a reason. We grabbed a tomato, mozzarella, and pesto baguette from Deli De Luca as well as a few snacks for the hike. Holy frick that was a good sandwich. Deli De Luca rules!

We got to the tram station and headed on up.

The tram

We were warned the mountain was really foggy. Lame. The tram made a few stops on the way up to the top of Mt. Floyen. I guess people live up here and use it as their public transportation. That’s pretty cool, although it might get a bit pricey at $15 a pop. Maybe they get a discount. Does anyone else think about these things?

Silliness on the tram

We made it to the top of the mountain and just like they told us - it was foggy. We couldn't even see back to the town. We’d come this far so we decided to keep plugging away. We hiked around for an hour or so and came to the part of the Vidden path that heads over the plateau where you’re supposed to get the great views of the fjords and possibly a glacier. We decided to give it a try, Shannon was being a pretty good trooper despite the crappy weather.

Making the best of a rainy day

The Vidden path was really exposed to the elements and was really unpleasant. We hit a fork in the path, made the wrong decision, hit a dead end, and decided to head back down the mountain. The wind and rain were getting to be too much and had we even made it all the way down the path it was too foggy to get any great views.

It was pretty, despite the rain

We headed back, noting some interesting people watching along the way. First, there were a lot of people jogging up the mountain like it was no problem. I was winded walking up. The jogging impressed me. I’d do that if I lived somewhere with a nice accessible mountain. I mean, this wasn’t Mt. Everest, it was very manageable and had nicely laid out paths from town to the mountain and then around the mountain itself. Second, all residents were totally ready for the rain, boots, jackets, pants, covered strollers, it’s almost as if it rains all the time in Bergen. By the way, it rained the entire time we were there. Third, they don’t coddle their kids. They put those little bastards in their rain clothes and send them up the mountain to go camping. Tough it out Bjorn! That might not even be a Norweigian name. Whatever.

View of the city

We got back down the mountain and grabbed at cinnamon roll from Godt Brod. That was tasty. It’s not as surgery and fried as American pastries. It wasn’t quite dinner time and we’d seen all the sites, so we decided to try and find a cheap beer. We walked back towards the hotel, made sure we knew how to get to the train station for the next day, and looked for a bar. We ended up at a futbol bar. The good news was beers were far cheaper than anywhere else in Bergen. The bad news was it was Saturday afternoon which is EPL day, so the place was packed, and not with tourists. It was a rough looking crowd, and we did not belong. I felt like they were looking at us, but I could have just been paranoid. We decided to buy some beer for the room, get cleaned up, and head to dinner.

After not getting local food the night before, we were determined to right that wrong. We decided to try an old, fancy restaurant in the historic Bryggre district. It had reindeer on the menu, which excited me, but when we finally found the place, we discovered it was really expensive. We decided to go in anyway, but after I did the math, I decided I did not want to spend $80 on a reindeer filet. It can’t be that good! The night before I felt $40 was too expensive, this place was double that (I'm good at math). Beaten down by the high prices, we opted not to drink or have an appetizer. Fun Fact: I like drinking and I like appetizers.

Shannon decided to get the cod filet. I wanted the stockfish filet, but they were out, so I opted for the fried trout. Uh, big mistake. It was not a fliet, it was just a whole trout dropped in a deep fryer. My meal was looking back at me. I did not get a picture of this.

I choked back the vomit when they put the plate down, took a deep breath, and decided to give it a try. I cut off the head and moved it to the side of the plate so the little fucker wouldn’t be looking at me throughout the meal. It didn’t actually taste bad, but I wasn’t sure how to eat it. I picked off the meat, but didn’t want to eat the spine or the little line of black goop near the spine, which I can only assume was guts. Shannon didn’t enjoy her fish at all, although I didn’t think it was that bad. We paid our tab and got the hell out of there. We decided two things at that point 1) no more fancy restaurants, we are not fancy people, and 2) we needed booze. Now!

We grabbed some wine and beer at a local wine bar near the tram station. I didn’t enjoy the red wine, but Shannon really liked it. We stayed there, enjoyed the booze, chatted, and did some people watching. People are the same everywhere:

• there were the dudes at the bar trolling for chicks (disclaimer: I never did this. Love you Shannon!)
• there was the bored boyfriend at the table next to us listening to his girlfriend ramble on (disclaimer: I never do this. Love you Shannon!)
• there was the haggard looking cougar and her young beau smoking outside (disclaimer: This is not us. Love you Shannon!)
• there were the middle aged dudes getting liquored up without a care in the world (disclaimer: I will do this someday. Love you Shannon!)

We left that place and headed out in search of another bar. We didn’t feel like digging out our passports to get into the karaoke bar (where they were singing Bon Jovi earlier), so we opted for the piano bar. The singer at the piano bar was singing all American music and some of the patrons were liquored up. My favorite memory was probably watching the old, drunken man try to hit on the attractive young girl. He was not successful. If I was a better writer I could describe this scene more accurately. It was kind of a mess. Lots of booze and a thin grasp on American culture/language/music.

The piano bar was fun, but we decided to check out somewhere else. We ended up having a beer at an Irish pub, after having minimal success finding somewhere better. Irish pubs must be the same all over the world.

After that beer, we decided to find some normal food and call it a night. I really wanted a hot dog (been wanting one since Stockholm) but were unsuccessful in finding one, so we opted for a fried chicken baguette sandwich and a side of friends. Both were pretty gross, but we ate them up anyways. We needed to wipe that fish taste out of our mouths, and we may have been a tad intoxicated. We finished the food, finished the beer we purchased, and headed to bed.