Week 58 May 13-22

We had a week back at work and then it was on to another vacation.  This time to Norway!  Molly's Mom and our good family friends, Steve, Karen and Allison, made the trip to Europe to spend a week with us.  They started their adventure in Amsterdam, where we met them on Friday.  We met at an apple pie shop to start the morning off right! Then, we explored the city and headed to the Van Gogh museum to check out some art.  Last time we were in Amsterdam, we missed the Van Gogh museum so we were excited to get see it this time.  It was a very interesting look into the short life of Van Gogh, and it was amazing to see the work he was able to complete within such a relatively small amount of time.  Many of his well known works are in other museums, but this  museum is filled with his family's collection.  After the museum, we tried out Indonesian food for dinner (turned out to be like a tangy Chipotle bowl) and started an interesting/stressful adventure to our hotel (couldn't find the right bus and didn't have the right tickets once we did) close to the airport to get ready for our adventure to Norway!

Pie, the best way to start vacation

We were up early and after a stop over in Copenhagen, we landed in Bergen, Norway, our home for the first few days of the trip.  Bergen is the second largest city in Norway and is located on one of the many fjords.  We arrived on Saturday afternoon, and we spent the rest of the day getting checked into our hotel, then wandering around to get our bearings in the city.  Our hotel had an awesome Norwegian waffle hour every afternoon complete jam and cream! We might have taken advantage of this option a few times.  On Sunday morning, we got up and headed for the cable car that would take us to the top of Mount Ulriken.  We did a 10 mile hike that took us from Mount Ulriken to the peak of Mount Floyen.  We were treated to beautiful views of the mountains, mountain top lakes and the city and fjords below us.  We were humbled by all of the Norwegians trail RUNNING the very difficult trail that we struggled to walk/climb.  Exhausted at the end of the hike, we took the funicular at Mount Floyen to return to the city and stopped at a local Norwegian restaurant for beer and typical Norwegian food.  Tyler got the opportunity to eat a whale steak and really enjoyed it.  For all of those shocked that we would eat whales, they were sustainably fished in Norway and it was not an endangered type whale... plus it was really tasty!

Bergen from above

Proof we did the hike!

And proof Tyler was there too

Post hike drinks

On Monday, we explored the many parks of Bergen and did the Rick Steves' walking tour to learn about the history of the vikings and people of Bryggen.  Bryggen is an area of commercial buildings near the wharf in Bergen that were built by the Hanseatic League.  Bryggen is a UNESCO world heritage site and the buildings are an iconic image of Bergen.  We had lunch at the fish market and a very fancy dinner with farm to table offerings.

Bryggen

The old church with a cannonball stuck in it

Fish market

Tuesday was Norwegian National Day.  We took the ferry from Bergen to Balestrand, a town of 2,000 people on the Sogne fjord.  Before leaving Bergen, we saw many people headed to celebrate in their traditional Norwegian dress and heard them fire the cannons in celebration.  The ferry to Balestrand was not just a means of transportation, it was also a wonderful way to see the Norwegian scenery.  The mountains rising sharply out of the water are amazing, and there were many large waterfalls dumping the winter snow melt into the fjords.  When we arrived in Balestrand, a few of us were able to hurry and see the end of the small Balestrand parade for the National Day.  After a nice lunch, we took a long walk around the town and into the surrounding hills before calling it an early night.  On Wednesday, Karen, Steve and Allison went in search of their family roots.  They were able to find some signs of Karen's family name as well as see many interesting things along their adventure.  We, along with Mandy, headed up into the mountains around Balestrand.  We had heard there was a difficult hike that would lead us to the peak of the mountain, and that there would be substantial snow still on the ground.  We were able to borrow two sets of snow shoes from the hotel and heard there would be another set to borrow along the trail somewhere.  We set off up the mountain.  We hiked about 1.5 miles (straight up!) before we hit snow.  We all strapped on our snow shoes (we did find an extra set) for the first time and gave it a whirl.  We had a great time and were able to hike for about another mile before the visibility was too bad and we were pretty cold.  We headed back down the mountain with a stop for lunch along the trail.  We were back into the city relatively early.  We took short naps and enjoyed the views from the hotel.  As we were heading for dinner, our friends returned from their adventures, and we were all able to eat together and swap stories of the day's adventures.

On the ferry on Norwegian National Day

The view from our hotel in Balestrand

Headed up the mountain

They are ready to snowshoe

 On Thursday, we visited the Balestrand aquarium before boarding the ferry toward Flam.  After another amazingly beautiful ferry ride, we landed in Flam to begin part of the Norway in a Nutshell tour.  This tour is done by most people visiting Norway in order to see the scenery and travel between Bergen and Oslo.  Prior to starting the train ride, we had a delicious lunch and brews at a local brewery in Flam.  We then boarded the Flam railway to take us to Myrdal.  It was a very scenic ride where it felt like the train was literally clinging for life to the side of the mountain at times.  There was a stop at the spectacular Kjofossen waterfall with a strange dancing siren sighting before arriving in Myrdal.  We took another scenic train ride to get from Myrdal to Oslo through high mountains where there were insane amounts of snow still remaining in May.

Buddies

Balestrand

The only trolls we saw in Norway were figurines :(

The Kjofossen waterfall

Molly's dinner on the train... hot dog with mashed potatoes...yes, the potatoes are the bun...

Oslo was the final stop on our trip.  We spent the night in a hotel with tiny rooms that efficiently made use of every inch of space.  We had one full day in Oslo and unfortunately the weather was not very cooperative.  We explored the city and did another Rick Steves' walking tour and paused to watch young sailors-in-training learning to sail in the harbor.  In the afternoon, after spending the morning in the drizzly outdoors, we made a visit to the Viking ship museum to spend some time inside.  It was fascinating to see the ships that had been unearthed from their burial grounds.  The vikings made sure they honored the dead with quite a haul.  Our final stop in Oslo was the Ice Bar!  It was a bar where everything was made of ice. We didn't stick around long because it wasn't a very comfortable environment but it was very cool to visit.  We all decided it would not be where we wanted to bar tend.  We then made our way to the airport hotel that we stayed prior to our early flights home.

The Royal Palace

A Greenpeace demonstration outside the palace

I think we could have watched this construction project all day. #dorks

Viking ship

The ice bar!

Karen and Allison enjoying their icy drinks

Our trip to Norway was Tyler's first big vacation with Karen, Steve and Allison.  Luckily, he fit in perfectly and even added some directional skill to the group!  We had a great trip with our adventure family and it was a great way to experience Norway.  We feel really fortunate to have had two back-to-back trips with some of our favorite people from the US that we do not get to see very often!