Nicole's Visit: Tromsø

Well it is Friday, I have worked more than 70hrs in the past 6 days (Sat-Thurs), so I am going to write a short blog post about the last bit of Nicole's visit while I take a break for tea. Admittedly we did not do as much as we probably should have in terms of site seeing or hiking and so on, but we had the opportunity to spend some time together, even just chilling out watching a movie was very very nice.

After arriving back in Tromsø from Bergen we had one week left.  Saturday night we just hung out, got some groceries, etc.  On Sunday we did more of the same but we went to the Tromsø TIL vs Rosenborg game. Rosenborg was ranked number 1 and Tromsø is doing pretty badly this year but because Rosenborg is number 1 there was a lot of Tromsø fans hoping for an unlikely win, and TIL delivered. This was a good game to watch because we were near a section of die-hard TIL fans who were chanting and singing the entire game.  The officiating was pretty terrible (linesmen made several incorrect off-side calls, but hey they can't always be perfect). That was really nice.

On Monday and Tuesday we did a bit of shopping and looking a round town, but we did a lot of relaxing, reading a book, sleeping in late, it was great. On Tuesday night we picked up the fishing rods from Gunnar and Gabi and quickly said hi to Mats who was celebrating his birthday at the bar.  On Wednesday it was my birthday so we decided to go to Hellastua (Hella) to spend some time outside fishing.  We fished for several hours and had a nice hour bus ride each way. We did not keep any of the fish we caught, they were mostly too small, but Hella is such a beautiful spot, it does not matter.

We cooked ourselves a nice supper that night and watched a movie.  On Thursday we had a great dinner with Gunnar, Gabi and Jen. It was fantastic! On Friday Nicole and I joined people from work for an end of the week beer and we looked at the Tromsø food festival but decided we felt like cooking ourselves and enjoying our last evening together. On Saturday morning Nicole left.  

It was a great holiday and though it was very sad to have Nicole leave again, we will see each other in 3 months at the latest though there is the possibility I will see here before then (will let you know if it happens).

Well that is it, enjoy your weekend, as I mentioned yesterday I am hoping to go fishing but am definitely going to another TIL game with friends. Apparently it is an important match because TIL is doing so badly that if they don't win this one, they drop down a division...ouch.

Bergen via the Norway in a Nutshell Tour

On Thursday Nicole and I went to Bergen with the Norway in a Nutshell Tour.  This tour takes you from Oslo to Bergen on the Bergen Railway, the Flam railway, through two fjords on a fjord cruise and then a bus trip along Norway's steepest road and then back to the Bergen railway for the final leg to Bergen.

It was very touristy but okay, what can else can you expect.  The Bergen Railway was very scenic, fjords, mountains, lakes, small towns, really pretty.  But the Flam Railway was spectacular.  This 20km railway line descends 850m through through 18 or more tunnels including some loops inside a mountain.  It is quite steep but offers great views of the Flam valley. Once in Flam we boarded a ferry for a 2 hr fjord cruise.  We had found a great spot to sit and look out but it was so great that everyone else was constantly walking by us, in front of us, it was a bit irritating, but oh well.

Waterfall we stopped at with the Flam train

Looking across the valley through the train windows (my window would not go down).

Flam Valley from the Steepest Road in Norway

While on the fjord cruise

It was a bit of a long day, we left Oslo at 8am (which meant getting to the train station at around 7:30 so up quite early) and did not arrive in Bergen until 9pm, but it was nice.
In Bergen we stayed at the Skansen Pensjonat, a beautiful B & B (with Breakfast included) on one side of Bergen with a great view).  We had a fantastic late dinner at Escalon, a tapas restaurant, that was a really nice meal.

We had all day on Friday to look around Bergen.  We checked out the Bryggen (old Hanseatic Merchants warehouses), saw the theater, looked at Rosenkrantz Tower and Haakon's Hall (only the outside though as it did not open until noon).  We also went to the Natural History and Cultural History museums at the University (free for students).  That was nice and interesting but I saw more stuffed animals than I ever wanted to see, pretty much one of everything from mice to lions and giraffe's.  The Cultural History museum showed some things from Bergen in the past as well as a small Egyptian mummy display which was pretty great.  Nicole and I were still feeling like we'd had enough of museums though.  We checked out the fish market, and had another nice meal.
Then on Saturday morning we had to fly from Bergen at 7am so we were up around 4:30 or so (had to catch a bus at 5:15)

The Bryggen

Theater

A church

All in all our holiday to southern Norway was very nice. I thoroughly enjoyed it.  Up next: Tromso.

Nicole's Visit: Oslo Day 2 and 3

After our first day of walking around Oslo we decided the next day to take in some of the museums.  I don't have pictures from all of them but we visited the Viking Ship Museum where they have three viking ships from the 9th century AD, as well as a lot of viking relics, was really nice. The ships were found in burial mounds. There is so much detail on everything, on gold, wood, iron, just fantastic.

Detailing on the prow of the ship

Dragon carving found in the burial chamber on the ship. One of them had rope in its mouth.

One of the ships

Another one of the ships.

After this we headed over the the Fram Museum where you can see the ship Fram that Fridtjof Nansen, Otto Sverdrup, and Roald Amundsen used in several of their Arctic and Antarctic expeditions in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Check out this Wiki page for some general information on Fram (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fram).  For more information on Nansen, Sverdrup and Amundsen, check out their Wiki pages.

We definitely saw some other site that day, the Maritime Museum (was not amazing).  We saw  the Munch Exhibit at the National Gallery, but maybe that was on Day 3. But I must confess, I don't really "get" paintings/art.  I find most paintings to be just okay, very few grab my attention or invoke any real thought/feelings.  I am much more interested in history and I do find photographs great.  Photographs may be because I take photos so I can appreciate the difficulty of finding the right shot, the right light, etc. Architecture interests me but paintings, not so much. Oh well, was nice to see.

Of course we ate at some point and also took our time to just relax and enjoy things too.  We sat down with a cup of coffee on the boardwalk just looking out over the marina/harbor. This bird came at one point and got quite close so I could take some nice pictures.

In the evening of Day 2, Nicole and I went to a World Cup Qualifying match, that's soccer. We saw Norway vs Switzerland.  I was hoping that because we were in Norway there would be a large contingent of die hard Norway supporters, and while there was more than 10000 people at the stadium, the Norwegian fans were very quiet.  There was not much cheering from the Norwegian, but the Swiss, oh boy were they loud.  There was not that many of them, though they did fill one section and you saw them everything throughout the day, all wearing red and white.  They chanted just about the entire game and that was great.

Now by the final day Nicole and I were starting to feel a bit tired of museums, but we had a few more we wanted to see and really could not think of much else to do.  First we went up to the Holmenkollen Ski Jump.  This ski jump is set on a big hill in Oslo and so has a great view of the area.  It also has a ski museum.  We spent some time there looking at the evolution of cross country and downhill skis and went to the top and had a look around.

Holmenkollen Ski Museum

View down the ski run

After the ski museum we looked at the Cultural History Museum but were really not feeling it.  We also had done some walking around and had a bite to eat, but by the time we got to the Cultural History Museum we were really done with museums.

Overall, I really liked Oslo, it is a capital city but it does not feel that big, it feels accessible and cozy.  Public transit is amazing, food was okay (pricey and fairly standard) and felt safe.

Next up: the trip to Bergen on the Bergen Railway, the Flam Railway, and a Fjord cruise (with a bus ride on Norway's steepest road).

Nicole's Visit: Tromso and Oslo Day 1

I have been on holidays for two weeks! And the best part was that my lovely, amazing wife Nicole was here to visit me for my holidays.  I was really starting to feel like I needed some time off away from work, so it was good timing, a chance to relax and reset. Sure I am now quite behind on many things and have many things to do in the next little while, but that's okay, it will keep me busy now that I am back to being on my own.

Nicole arrived on Sept 7 around mid-day.  We headed back to my apartment so she could drop off her bag and have a shower.  We then took the bus to town and just walked around a bit, checking out Tromsø's downtown.  We did some minor grocery shopping since the grocery stores are not open here on Sundays and then an easy supper at the apartment. Nicole managed to stay awake until 8:30 or 9 before she needed to sleep. She did not sleep much on the plane ride over, despite taking a gravol ( a motion sickness pill which tends to make you drowsy).

On Sunday we went for a short hike in the afternoon up Fløya, the mountain with the cable car (I think). We walked by the Arctic Cathedral, a beautiful church in Tromsø.  It was nice to do a short hike and get outside on a beautiful sunny day. I even managed to find some wild blueberries for Nicole to eat.

Tromsø's Arctic Cathedral. Photo by Nicole

Looking out over Tromsø. Photo by Nicole

Wild blueberries are so good!. Photo by Nicole

Again we had a simple supper and then did some packing for our trip to Oslo. On Monday morning we flew to Oslo, grabbed the train downtown and then a tram to our B & B.  The B & B (Frogners B&B) was a little disappointing, but mostly because we did not know what to expect.  B & B's in North America  tend to be someone's large home where there is a very personal touch to everything and they include breakfast.  Here breakfast was available for an additional cost (so not really a B & B then). Don't get me wrong, the room was nice, the house nice and had a good location, right by to Frogner Park/Vigeland Park, but it just lacked that personal touch.  We did not order breakfast when we booked and then we never saw the people who lived/ran the place again until we left, so there was no chance to get some insider information on places to eat, visit, etc

Anyway, we dropped our bags off in the room around 2pm and decided to go walk around and have a look in the Sentrum. We walked past a bunch of sites, stopping for a few photos but not really going inside anything but the main church (quickly)

National Theater.

Royal Palace and Gardens...open to the public!

Parliament?

Church

National Opera House

We ended our day in the sentrum at Aker Brygge, an old fish warehouse area converted to numerous restaurants, shopping and apartments.  It has a nice long boardwalk that you can enjoy and plenty of patios.  We ate a nice meal at Olivia's and then had an ice-cream cone and walked along the boardwalk.  It was great day, and then we went to Vigeland Park, right near the B & B, and it was great.  Now, neither Nicole nor I are all that into art (in general).  I find sculpture a bit more interesting so this was nice.  It was also just a beautiful evening and a good way to cap the day.

Vigeland Park Obelisk

Vigeland Park Obelisk