To Nordfjordeid, first few days + a hike

We took a very winding road from Bergen to Nordfjordeid (don't say any of the d's, except the last one slightly. Nur-fyur-eye(d)). That is, we followed the road we could, and it was winding, nauseating so. I think that's most of them, wending through mountains and around fjords. I'm told it's hard to get your drivers' license because you'll spend most of your time driving in the dark, in the rain, along winding/bad roads.

View from the bus:

From Nordfjordeid

The place our conference has been held is the Fjordane Folkhøgskule. It's a boarding school for girls, quite expensive, (~50,000 euros). It's something to do post-highschool, pre-college, and counts towards your highschool GPA. They learn...(wait for it)...horseback riding/racing and circus stuff. It was explained to me as the Norwegians being 'very fair' and giving the girls something to do like the boys (who get 1 yr military service or...something else? Unsure what their 'opt out' option is).

Conference started with some great research-related chats and it's been something of a blur since then. Too much to take in. It's been punctuated by a few hikes. The first one was the second day of the conference. I asked around and gathered a small group to climb up one of the paths in the mountains to the "right" of us (assuming you're looking straight out at the fjord). The grade was very steep, and I think our hike was a total of 2.5 or so hours. The sun was solidly 'up' the whole time.

From that hike:

From Nordfjordeid

Awesome waterfalls as we walked up:

From Nordfjordeid

Turns out, water is plentiful here, as evidenced by the many beautiful and forceful waterfalls around. That also leads to plentiful electricity. The whole country is hydroelectric.

I was egged on on this first hike, which I was feeling very out of shape on, and ill-dressed for. It was worth it when we hit the vantage point we turned around at:

From Nordfjordeid

Yeah, I know. I was waiting for Julie Andrews to run by singing, followed by a collection of Norwegian children.

Here's what the sun looked like when we got back down:

From Nordfjordeid

Also, there are a good number of houses roofed like so:

From Nordfjordeid

This is supposed to be the most expensive option, but the best thermal properties. I'm told that in some 'protected' areas of the country, people are required to have such roofs.


Misc trivia: Norway was ruled by the Danes, prior to the time when the vikings ruled Russia. There is, in fact, a shared border between Norway and Russia. I'm told that the Norwegians there blame their pollution on the nearby Russian city, which is quite smoggy.

Answering a question in the comments of the last post: In Bergen at least, there are *some* cyclists. I honestly saw more runners and walkers and dog-walkers than cyclists. Cobbles aren't so fun with bikes and I'm not sure if there are any paths.