Switzerland

After a hellish week of tests, papers, projects and presentations, I was ready for a good weekend away. Caught the easyJet to Milan and waited for a bus to Lugano. Since my plane was delayed I missed the bus I was supposed to take and had to wait an hour and a half until the next one. Sierra was waiting for me at 6 so I tried to call her and tell her I would be late...well the number she gave me didn't work so I just assumed that she would be waiting for me at the Lugano station. Nope! No one there, so I decided to try the phone again. It worked, I guess it just didn't have a country code...that could have been bad. But one thing I've learned from traveling is that everything always works for me. Awesome.

I arrived in the middle of a play the school was doing on the history of America, definitely entertaining. Sierra introduced me to all her friends and we sat around all night smoking hookah at all. That seems to be the thing to do at Franklin. Makes sense, it's relaxing and a good thing to do when there's no where to go and you just want to hang out with friends.

The next day we took the FLP to the border and walked to Ponte Tresa. There was a really cool market where we bought some baked goods, cheese and salami. Afterwards we found a wine store and bought a couple of 3Euro bottles.

Spent the rest of the day exploring Lugano. A really beautiful city, even though it isn't extremely exciting. We hung out in the downtown area for a while and had the most amazing hot chocolate. It was basically a melted chocolate bar with an ounce of milk mixed in, ridiculously thick.

 

Had a fun night and slept in as much as I could. Sierra had a couple of meetings to go to so I decided to climb a mountain! Lugano is in the middle of the Alps so there are mountains all around. I didn't really know where the trail was, Sierra just said go to the funicular and turn left....k. Only took one wrong turn and then found the path. It was a gorgeous hike and I made it to the top in about an hour. Switzerland is almost as pretty as Norway.

That night Sierra took me took to a nice restaurant nearby. It's so nice being able to eat good food for a decent price, that's really nonexistent in Copenhagen. I had a horse steak, and it was good but actually a little boring. I was hoping that it would taste different and weird, but it was pretty similar to a normal steak.

Woke up early, caught the bus, and drove through the snow to Milan. Made it back to Copenhagen to take my Danish test. Awesome weekend.

10/30-11/01 - Bergen

So I'm gonna put these 3 days into one post. Not because we weren't busy, but a lot of our time in Bergen was hanging out so obviously I'm not going to write about that.

Hallvard has a full time job and and Helge is a student. Ben is in between jobs right now so he offered to show us around the city, very cool. But first he insisted on cooking us breakfast, I hadn't eaten an actual breakfast like that since I started traveling. Bacon, eggs, toast. Amazing.

We saw Bryggen, the big touristy colorful houses on the water just like Nyhavn in Copenhagen.

Then we decided to climb one of the peaks that surrounds the city. There are trams that go up but Ben said those were too touristy so we just went by foot. He said it would only take half an hour....3 hours later we were still walking. Not a bad thing though, it was a beautiful hike and the view was fantastic. It was crazy being on sea level and then just an hour later we were above the snow line.

Relaxed a bit before our big traditional dinner that they promised us. It was whale and blood sausage. The whale was really surprising, it just tasted like a fatty steak, not like fish at all. And the blood sausage tasted just like gingerbread, yum.

Went out for drinks afterward and Hallvard paid for everyone. What awesome hosts, they treated us so well.

Woke up late Friday, Halloween. Went out for lunch at a cool studenty cafe, and then walked around the more hip area of the city. Went to some record stores and then back to the apartment.

One thing both Mike and I were really excited to see was the Fantoft Stave church. Stave Churches were the first churches erected in Norway, 1000 years ago. They are completely wooden and there are only about a dozen left in the country. In the early 1990s when Black Metal starting to getbig, a lot of these churches were burned down by band members who took the music a bit too seriously. The most famous one of these is the Fantoft Church, right outside of Bergen. So on Halloween night we walked through the woods and found it lit up in a copse. It was awe-inspiring and creepy at the same time. Unfortunately those who rebuilt it made it look too new so it's really not the same as seeing an original.

After a pint of Guinness we went to a metal show. Unfortunately the band sounded generic and American, not what we were hoping for. At least we met the guitarist from Enslaved outside. Got home late and watched The Thing, which I fell asleep to even after a cup of coffee.

Really nothing special the next day. We just hung out with the guys until it was ready to go to the airport. Missed the first bus by 30 seconds and got to the airport 20 minutes before our flight. Since it's international we thought we wouldn't make it on. No one even said anything and we made it on no problem.

So ends my Scandinavian adventure. Probably the coolest thing I've ever done in my life. Met some amazing people, saw incredible places and made memories that I will never forget. I'm already missing it like crazy.

10/29 - Voss-Bergen

Woke up in the hostel to a beautiful view right outside our window. The hostel is right on the lake with mountains all around, very beautiful.

Had a crappy breakfast and then started to explore the town. Not too much to do but we had to be out because check out time was 10.

There was actually a page in our tour book about this small town so we decided to check some things out. It's a surprisingly old place for being in the middle of nowhere. When Scandinavia first became Christian in the 11th century, King Olaf rode around and erected a cross wherever the people had converted. Pretty cool to see the 1000 year old cross and the 800 year old church.

 

Walked through the cemetery and found the nature reserve. Gorgeous. Little frozen lakes and amazing views of the town and mountains. This was still early in the morning and we were freezing. Went to a cafe and had hot chocolate and soup, perfect. There really wasn't much more to do in the town so we just went to the library and read some Newsweek.

 

Hiked halfway up one of the mountains on the side of the town. We were watching the sun set at 2:30. And this is Southern Norway in October; with 6 hours of daylight. Crazy, I can't imagine how people live further up north this time of the year.

Caught a train to Bergen! Bergen is gorgeous, built right on a fjord and surrounded by 7 tall peaks. We explored for a few hours and then went back to the train station to meet our hosts.

Mike is really active-10,000 posts in 4 years-in a forum for a metal band. Everyone there is really close and knows each other pretty well. He told these guys we were going to be in Bergen and they immediately invited us to stay with them. Met up with them and they took us back to their surprisingly nice apartment. They're some of the coolest and nicest people I've ever met. Talked to them all night and then they took us out to a metal bar. Awesome. More about them tomorrow!

10/28 Norway in a Nutshell

When I first decided to travel through Scandinavia I posted on some message boards online for advice. Almost everyone agreed that you simply cannot go to Scandinavia without doing the Norway in a Nutshell tour. I originally hadn't planned on coming here but when I found at that Mike wanted to and our schedules worked out perfectly then I pretty much had to.

The train starts off from Oslo at 8am. It climbs through the mountains and then stops at a small town called Myrdal. From there you change trains and head to Flåm. Flåm is at the tip of the biggest Fjord in the country and a ferry goes part of the way through it. After the ferry is a bus ride to Voss and from Voss is another train to Bergen.

The tickets are good for up to 3 days and both of us agreed its crazy to spend $200 on a one day ticket so we looked at the route and found out that Voss is the only stop on the way with a hostel. So we did 85% of the trip on the 28th and the train Bergen the next day.

There really isn't too much to describe since we were sitting most of the time. The contrast of the mountains and the fjords was incredible and I immediately decided that Norway is the most beautiful country in the world.

To The Mountains

Finse, the highest train station in Europe

To Flåm

In Flåm

Sognefjord

 

Got off the bus in Voss and walked a cold half mile to our hostel. We were both dead tired and just hung out there the rest of the night.