#Norwayday5

Norway day 5 marked the last day of touring before catching a flight back to Amsterdam.  The tour ended in Bergen, which according to the Norwegian almanac gets 300 days of solid (i.e. 24 hours) of rain a year.  There are only 17 days a year without a single drop of rain...the remaining days have scattered showers.  It's incredible that the city hasn't just washed away.  Friday was one of those 300 days of solid rain.  Most of the time, it was absolute down pour.  The morning started off with a tour of the old Hansiatic (spelling?) buildings and museums and then we were free on our own.

#Historiccenter - the buildings along the harbor are what we toured.  Gorgeous front.

#rainrot?  I'm surprised that all of this wood has not rotted away given all of the rain.  Some of the buildings dated to the early 1700s

After the tours, I first headed to shopping and got one of my only Norwegian souvenirs.  It was super expensive - even getting a magnet made me feel guilty.  Then it was off to the fish market, where I got some fish soup for lunch.  It was incredible - I wish I could have sampled everything at the market, but prices were so high and I knew that we had our last dinner that night.  #caloricwatch2013

#newtown - then I wandered around the relatively new part of the town and did a bit of shopping to avoid all of the rain.  I was soaked to the bone at this point and cold, but the town just didn't seem to care about the rain.  I guess you can't when it happens 300 days a year.

 

 

#obligatorychurches - I hadn't planned on seeing any churches in Bergen because I'm churched out, but with the rain, they are perfect places to dry off.  I did 3 different churches, 2 very old churches and one fairly recent.

 

#heavenlyview - View from the first church overlooking Bergen

 

 

#dryout - After the church walk, I went back to the hotel and enjoyed a relaxing shower and nap while the rain poured down.  It was probably coming down at a rate of about an inch/hour, which is pretty hard in my mind.  It made for perfect napping weather and the hotel was really nice.  Dinner that night was the best one I had on the trip - reindeer steak with potatoes and lingonberry sauce.  At first I had a hard time ordering Rudolph, but then I convinced myself it was all of the other reindeer that made fun of him.  It tasted incredible - so tender and juicy.  The only problem:  too small!  Bergen turned about to be the culinary highlight of the trip - who would have thought?

We had a small end of the trip review that night at the hotel, where one of the tour members did some magic tricks that still blow my mind.  And I'm not a fan of magic.  Then it was playing a final round of Yahtzee, this time the Norwegian/European way, which was really fun and a final hand of cards.  Good times!

I got really lucky - the mother/daughter duo that I met on the trip were on my same flight to Amsterdam so we shared the bus ride to the airport and then the same row on the flight.  More cards ensued.  They then headed off for their 10 hour flight to Seattle (didn't envy that) but do miss them.  So neat to make friends while on the road!