Norway: Day 2--Sightseeing.

Photos:

BERGEN, NORWAY (the album)

I woke up, bright-eyed and bushy tailed, with some whimsical notion of subsisting on bread and cheese since (clearly) these must be affordable (not true, unless you get the subsidized bread, which costs about 1 USD). I ended up at the math department at the university here, after checking my email. I walked in past the train station, where I stopped for breakfast -- a grab & go fruit-flavored yogurt with muesli to mix in, which came with an awesome foldable spoon. Maybe I'll snap a picture later. The department here is very nice, as are the people, a few of whom showed me around at various parts of the day. We had lunch at the student cafeteria. An apple, salad, and half sandwich ran me 90 NOK, which is about 15 USD. Pricey, but I also am willing to suffer a little cost-wise to make sure I get some vegetables.

We palled around the department a bit, and I agreed to give a talk on (surprise!) Wednesday, since Thursday is a holiday and the day I leave Bergen. There's a really nice coffee machine here in their department, and I spent some time chatting with the grad students here and drinking coffee. Then the sun came out, blue skies. I was sort of ordered out of the office I'm co-squatting in, and one of the grad students showed me around. He's from Chile.

Things I learned: Norway has historically been a poor country. So, their museums are similarly poor, no grand treasures. Log books of shipping industry, that kind of thing. A great to-do to paint a vivid picture of a terribly dull life (paraphrasing my guide). We went down to Bryggen, the UNESCO world heritage site in Bergen, which is a pier/shipping era dating way back. It is falling apart, in an amazing fashion. Also, Norway has developed a reputation for granting asylum to refugees. As a result of Pinochet in Chile, Norway's 3rd largest racial group is Chilean.

Bryggen falling down, From BERGEN, NORWAY

We also went up the Fløyen Funicular (mountain elevator), which sadly did not have any kind of advertising campaign about putting the Fun in Funicular. This takes you to the top of the mountain named Fløyen The top of the mountain was very nice, and we walked around a little, and then down. The path let out at one of the most expensive place to live in Bergen. Close to the city center, at the bottom of Fløyen, and, most importantly it gets lots of sunlight. The houses, on the outside at least, look roughly like the houses everywhere else. Some have peeling paint on the siding. Interesting. Lots of runners. The town swelled with people out to enjoy the brief good weather.

view from Fløyen, From BERGEN, NORWAY

Forrest on Fløyen, From BERGEN, NORWAY

We finished up by rejoining with several other people and having dinner at an italian place. I had Rudolfsuppe (Reindeer soup), which was delicious. Had a base of a tastier version of cream of mushroom-type soup.

The night of course finished with my prepping for the talk the next morning.