Blogs from Bergen, Western Norway, Norway, Europe - page 20

Still no pirates. Bummer. Anyways, I'm in Norway now. It's amazing. There are these tall woody things growing out of the ground with branches and green leafy things that they call 'trees'. I thought such things were only a legend! Bergen is a really cool city. There's ocean on one side, and then a bunch of steep mountains on the other. The city itself, a metropolis at 200,000-odd people, fills several nearby valleys. The weather has a wonderful tendancy to go from bright and sunny one moment to a drizzle then pouring rain, and back to sun 10 minutes later. Bergen is also a fairly old city, with buildings dating back to the 1200s, although many have been reconstructed. I spent most of yesterday on a wild goose chase to find replacement tent pole pieces for ... read more

I’m officially done with my research this summer. On Wednesday, I gave a final presentation of my study. As most everyone in the office is already on holiday, there were only five people there. It was good practice for a larger presentation that I will give when I arrive back in Tucson. I have learned a great deal this summer while researching. Nothing really ever goes as planned, and you just have to go with it. This has been a wonderful experience that has gotten my foot in the door of the research world. I will be continuing this study back at UA with two more subject groups. It will be interesting to see what those results are. For my last week in Bergen, the sun continued to shine. However, today I had planned to hike ... read more

This weekend was my second to last weekend in Bergen before traveling. Time has gone by quickly. On Saturday, the sun was shining. Stephi and I decided to hike Løvstakken, mountain number five for me. Stephi had climbed it during the seven mountain tour, and figured she could find the trail head. However, we ended up on a much smaller path up the mountain. Sometimes the trail was non-existent. We weaved our way up the mountain, and reached the top for beautiful views of the city. However, I had acquired a little friend on our mountain quest. I was now the proud host of a tick. Yuck…I would have to wait to get back into the city to get it out. We decided to follow a better marked trail down, but somehow the trail disappeared and ... read more

It’s been extremely rainy for about two weeks now. However, yesterday we got a break in the weather. I took advantage of the weather and traveled with my professor out to one of the islands outside of Bergen. While he worked on a research thesis with another professor, I walked down the road across a few bridges to another island about 4km away. The weather was beautiful for walking. The sun was shining at it was about 65-70 degrees out. We haven’t had a “warm” day in a while. I leave warm in quotation marks because it’s all relative when it comes to Bergen weather. Although for a girl like me from Arizona, I don’t consider 65 degrees warm, with the 50 degree, rainy weather we have been having lately, I will make an exception. I ... read more

We woke up this morning and had breakfast in our hotel. We set off and walked through the fish market and saw tons of fresh fish, woolen hats, mittens and sweaters, and much to our surprise: seal, wolf, and reindeer skins! We remember reading not too long ago that Norway was being chided by the international community for its blatant disregard for endangered species. And here we see piles of skins for sale in one small market. It’s such a shame. From here we walked through the old streets and saw up close the wooden houses on the water front - now home to small shops and museums. From the side you can see the steel beams being used to support the walls and from a distance you can see that each house (although connected) ... read more