Beautiful Norway

Well after a 7 hour train ride from Stockholm to Oslo and another 8 hour train ride from Oslo to Bergen, I have FINALLY made it to my final destination of the Scandinavian Adventure. It was so incredibly exciting to finally make it here and see the welcome sign in the train station.

Anne picked me up as soon as I got to the train station, I went to the apartment to meet her mom, and then I promptly went and laid down and went to sleep. Because 15 hours of train travel isn't exactly the most comfortable way to go from place to place.

And I can honestly say that Bergen (and Norway in general) is absolutely beautiful. So natural and with so much terrain. All around the city are mountains covered in evergreen trees and houses situated all throughout them. I don't have many pictures of the city itself, but I'm sure some will come.

Anne has been a great host/tour guide. Yesterday we walked around the city to see a few of the main sights. One of those was the fish and farmers market right down by the dock.

And let me tell you, the fish here is about as fresh as you can get. It was really cool to see it all and people were EVERYWHERE. Bergen is a pretty popular place and there are cruise ships coming in and out of here all the time. According to Anne, it's because Bergen is the connection to the fjords. But there are tourists all over the place.

Another cool thing going on in Bergen right now is the tall ship race. Basically these huge ships come from all over the world to hit up a few different ports along the European coastline, and I was lucky enough to be in Bergen for the weekend that they're here. The ships really are incredible, and they each have cannons that they fire off pretty constantly. It's kind of cool, because this picture is taken from the view from my bedroom here, so I have a perfect bird's eye view of it all. And even better, there is a ship from Uruguay that has been playing a lot of spanish music, so it gives me a little bit of a spanish fix. haha

I bet you didn't know that Vikings were still around, eh? haha Last night Anne and I heard some chanting and yelling and so we walked out on the balcony and this is what we saw. These guys came walking off of a ship from Finland and proceeded to walk around the city dressed as vikings. Funny stuff.

And last, but not least, here is the picture of the INCREDIBLE dinner that Anne and I made for ourselves last night. She did the fish and bread and I did the pasta and salad and it turned out to be delicious, if I do say so myself. :) For real though, it was my first time to get to cook since I've been over in Europe and it was nice.

So that's all I have for now. There will be much more to come because Anne has a TON of stuff planned, like mountain hikes, boat rides through the fjords, and so much more. So it's hard to imagine Norway getting much better than it already is because I'm loving it so far. But it's looking to be a really cool few days.