American in Montpellier

So, NORWAY!

On the evening of Friday the 9^th, I left Schöneggehof, which was very sad. Ah well, as Manuel says, it’s better to leave when things are still at their best. Commence: 48 hours of travel. I was driven to the train station, where I took the express train to Munich. I nearly got in trouble, though, because I forgot to stamp my ticket before I got on the train. Luckily, the “I’m so sorry, I’m a poor lost foreigner” excuse worked pretty well. I felt stupid, though, because I’ve done it before, but just not recently. Ah well. So, train took half an hour, got to Munich (I seem to have been through Munich quite a bit lately), took a subway to Rotkreuzplatz, asked directions twice in German, and finally made it to the apartment belonging to a friend of one of the girls living on the farm who had offered to host me for the night. So, that was great. I chatted with Lisa for a while, had something to eat, and then she went out partying and left me with the place to myself. I was surprised, and impressed. I was glad to have a conversation with her, though, because it was a proper length, interesting, full conversation in German. I couldn’t do that two months ago.

The next morning, I woke up at 4:00, took the subway back to the train station, and took a bus to the Memmingen airport, which took about an hour. Funny thing about Ryanair—one of the reasons they can be so cheap, is because the airports they use are in the middle of nowhere! So, it seems that you end up spending the same amount on transport to and from the airport (not to mention paying for checked luggage....), as you did on the flight itself. So, got to the airport, and nearly had a heart attack when the woman told me that my checked bag was 2.5 kilos overweight, and that the charge for each kilo was 20 euro! Ack! So, I did some rearranging, threw away my shampoo etc, put on a sweater, and shaved off a kilo and a half, and she let that slide, thank god. Whew. Then, flew to Oslo which took about 2 and a half hours. Hello, Norway! Took the bus to the bus station in Oslo... And got tackled by my favorite Sealia :D

So, we spent about 2 hours in Oslo, wandering and then having lunch. Then, we hopped on a train (because I hadn’t done enough traveling that day....) to Stavanger, which is the 3^rd largest city in Norway. In other words, it’s pretty small. The train ride took a total of 8 hours. Really. But, it was fine, because we had a LOT to catch up on, and we talked the whole way. Our voices hurt by the end! When we finally got there, we took a taxi to our hotel, and passed the hell out.

On Sunday, we spent a ridiculously long time eating breakfast (well, we paid a lot for the hotel, so why not?), and then went to the port, and hopped on a.... Boat? Yep. We’ve decided that this has been the trip of many forms of transportation. The interesting thing about this boat? It wasn’t going where we thought it was going. And we didn’t realize this until it had already left. Problem. Luckily, it wasn’t going on a cruise to Denmark, but just to a close-by island, so we were back about 2 hours later. They didn’t even make us buy tickets which was really nice. Anyways, so we missed the boat we were supposed to take to the city of Bergen, but we ended up with a whole afternoon to walk around Stavanger. Unfortunately, it was a Sunday, so there wasn’t a lot going on, but it was still pretty, and we had lunch, followed by a leisurely tea break.

One of the streets in Stavanger. Everything is so bright and colorful! Probably because it's so dark most of the year.

Also, we have decided that Norway is the land of happy children. Really, there were so many kids, and so many playgrounds! Really cool playgrounds, too—this one was made out of old pieces from ships and the oil rigs. Way to go for recycling!

Me, enjoying the playground, and sitting on a recycled buoy-become-bouncy-thing.

Eventually, we made it onto the right boat, and went on up to Bergen which took about 4 hours. Maybe 5? Can’t remember. It was pretty cool, though, and we were going around all the fjords, and stopping at all these places. Seriously though, boats are efficient in this country! They’re basically busses. On water. So, we made it to Bergen around 9 pm, were a little lost at first, but finally met up with our Couchsurfing host, Tiril. For those of you who don’t know what Couchsurfing is... Well, it’s really cool. It’s an organization that hooks up travelers with people who live in the desired city who are willing to host you for a night or two. You search on the website, find someone who sounds interesting and trustworthy, and you stay on the couch for the night, and spend some time getting to know each other. This was the first time Sealia and I had ever done it, so we were a little nervous... But, it worked out great. Tiril and her girlfriend, Perolina, who are both students, shared an apartment, and Seals and I had our own little room with a fold out couch which was actually pretty nice. They’re super cool, and we had a lot of fun getting to know them :)

The next morning we had breakfast with the girls, and then they went to classes, and Sealia and I took the mountain tram thing (I know there’s a real name for it...) up above the city and spend a few hours doing some easy hiking. It was really beautiful, although chilly and wet! We were the only people who weren’t wearing rubber boots and, I kid you not, waterproof pants. I think we missed the memo... It’s troll country up there, too. But wow, it was beautiful.

The view of Bergen from the mountain.

Yes, we're a little small, but we were really there! Hi! :)

Troll country! Luckily this one was nice :)

We came down, had lunch at a great café called Pygmalion, and then spent the rest of the day walking around the city, going to the university quarter... Yeah, all really pretty. Lots of cool shops, lots of lovely wooden houses. Just a cool city.

More great brightly-colored wooden houses.

We bought groceries that evening, and then cooked a Mauritian dinner for our hosts, which they really liked. Later, we went out with the girls to the university to watch the results of the local elections. The cool thing was that they were broadcasting from the university student center, so their a capella group and some of the students were on national television. Cool! There were a ton of people, and it was fun to just hang out, drink wine and watch politics in action.

Tuesday was more walking around the city, and visiting the two museums connected to the university, the Natural History, and the Folk History. We went through them relatively quickly, but they were cool. We cooked dinner again, and spent the rest of the evening playing fiddle, and then watching Flight of the Conchords. We needed a calm night.