On my second day in Bergen I climbed a mountain

Yesterday I walked from my dorm down to the town center for a little sight seeing. The walk only took about 35 minutes and it was beautiful out. I met Arve near the fish market and we headed to the Rosenkrantz Tower. It’s a large castle tower that was built near the water in the 1560s for King Frederik II. It was damaged in 1944 when a German ammunition ship exploded in the harbor, but has been mostly restored. The winding passageways were narrow and even I had to duck through most of the doorways. The view from the top was beautiful you could see the harbor and surrounding mountains. As we left the tower is started to sprinkle, then pour. Bergen is a lot like Seattle in that it rains a little almost every day. However, it was cold out and the rain soon turned to hail. We took refuge in a near by museum. After the rain lightened a bit, we headed to lunch with Arve's family at Pepes the popular pizza chain. Most of you must be thinking pizza in Norway what about the traditional food? Actually this particular pizza chain has become part of the popular culture. In fact, Arve was telling me that on Christmas about 50% of the families cook frozen pizza instead of the complicated traditional meal.

Last night I was invited by Kristine, my neighbor, to hike Ulriken one of Bergen’s seven peaks. I decided that it sounded fun. Little did I know it was the highest of the seven peaks!! Hiking with two Norwegians made me realize how out of shape I am. Guess I will have to start hiking a bit more. When I finally finished huffing and puffing my was to the top, I could enjoy the amazing view. From the peak we could see the six surrounding mountains, all of Bergen, and the ocean to the east. We had left at 8pm and the hike took about 2.5 hours. Retuning home at 10:30pm with the sun just beginning to set was again strange to me.

Today has been a bit less adventurous, but still interesting. I started my first day at the lab. However, I didn’t spend much time there. Most of the day was spent at a conference about dyslexia being held about 10 minutes drive from campus. The information presented was fascinating. Luckily for me their guest speaker was from Great Britain so both of her talks were in English, as well as the speaker following her.

I’m a bit tired tonight so I think I will just take it easy. I’m trying to stay up to at least 10pm to continue to fight my jetlag.

Vennlig Hilsen, Allison
(friendly regards)

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