Norway in a Nutshell and Oslo

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This past week has been a busy week!

On Tuesday morning we woke up to pouring rain in Bergen. We took the bus to the train station to catch our train to Voss. This was the first leg of Norway in a Nutshell, a popular tour of Norway. In Voss we caught a bus to Gudvangen. We traveled along the winding road in the rain. We passed numerous waterfalls and drove down a switchback road to the bottom of the fjord. There we boarded a boat cruise through Aurlandsfjord and Sognefjord, the world's longest and deepest fjord. It was still raining, but luckily the boat had covered areas. For the most part we remained dry, other than when the rain was angled towards us. The cliff walls along the fjord were steap and many waterfalls flowed towards the sea. We could only imagine how stunning the scenery could have been had it not been raining. With the cold weather and rain the boat cruise was about 45 minutes longer than we would have prefered. We took refuge from the rain in the cafe in the train station in Flam. We spent the next two hours eating our picnic lunch and warming ourselves. We then traveled on the flam railway on the Flamsbana Railroad. It is a 12 mile ride along one of the world's most beautiful streches of railway. With is waterfall covered mountains and glacier valleys it was truely spectacular. We arrived in Mydral to take a final train to Oslo. Upon arriving in Oslo, a nice Norwegian girl helped direct us to our bed and breakfast, Residence Kristinelund. We enjoyed complementary waffles and headed to bed early.

On Wednesday we had a Norwegian breakfast, open sandwhiches at the bed and breakfast. I would have loved a waffle or even cereal! We then took a walking tour of the city with our favorite travel guide Rick Steves, aka the author of my mom's fabulous travelbook. We toured the Norwegian Resistance Museum. It tells the story of Norway's World War II occupation by Germany and the underground resistance movement. Í'm not the biggest fan of museums, but this one was truely fantastic. We returned to the bed and breakfast for a quick nap and then headed to Frogner Park. There we strolled and looked at some of the 600 giant statues. Most of them naked. The statues capture the joys of life- birth, life, ramance, growing old, and death.

On Thursday, we slept in. After breakfast, we headed to the Norsk Folemuesum (The Norwegian Folkmuseum) It is one of Scandanavia's many open air museums. The most interesting exhibit was that of a stave church. Gol Stave Church was built in 1212 in Hallingdal and was reconstructed on top of a hill in the musuem. There were over 1,000 churches in Norway, but many have burnt down. This is only 1 of 28 left in Norway! Outside the museum we stopped at a farmers market for fresh strawberries and an orange. We stopped for a bit at the vikingship museum, but as the main viking ship was in the entrance we skipped the museum. We headed back to the bed and breakfast where we gathered our luggage and walked to the trainstation to catch our night train to Copenhagen.

The three of us shared a tiny berth. My bed was at the top just below the curved sealing. I had to climb a latter and do some acrobatic tricks to get onto the bed. My dad's bed folded down between mine and my moms. I decided to brave the train shower. Balancing in a wet shower in a moving train is quite the experience. We had to be sure to be in our train car later that night because the train cars were going to be uncoupled some would go to Stockholm and ours to Copenhagen. Apparently people often find themselves in the wrong car on the way to a different destination than expected. Luckily we were sound asleep when the cars were uncoupled...well at least as sound asleep as you can be on a moving train. With my ability to sleep in moving vehicles, I had no trouble sleeping. I can't say that same for my parents though. We arrived in Copengagen at 8am on Friday morning.

Ha det, Allison

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Comments

[Mom]

Comfy on THAT train
We did sleep well on this train even though it was quite a small compartment. The Stockholm to Oslo overnighter was a bit faster and I also took a shower which was very challenging!