Bergen, Day 4

Started the day off at Bergenhus fortress, with tours of Hakonshallen and Rosencrantztarnet (Hakon's Hall and Rosencrantz Tower, respectively). Hakon's Hall was built by Hakon Hakonsson between 1247 and 1261 to serve as King Hakon's banquet hall, store house, main defense fortification, and living quarters. Although it was burned in various Bergen fires (of which there were plenty) and even been blown up during a freak explosion in the harbor while Bergen was under Nazi occupation, the restored building still stands. Very cool to be standing inside a building with that much history. Hakonshallen is still used by Norway's royal family today - they dine there once a year at the opening of Bergen's International Festival. Rosencrantz Tower started out as a defense tower for the harbor during the reign of Magnus Lagabote (Lawmender) in 1270, was expanded in 1520 by King Christian II's captain, Jorgen Hansson, and then finally renovated and fortified by Erik Rosencrantz at the command of King Frederik II in 1560. The tower has seen use as living quarters, a powder magazine, a courtroom (for witch trials!), and a dungeon. Also quite cool.

Hakon's Hall

Rosencrantz Tower

After spending all morning there, we hunted down some lunch (mom and I had Thai... in Norway...), and walked to the Leprosy Museum. The museum (which I had been looking forward to) was much different than I was expecting. Instead of a modern, high tech museum devoted to the discovery and research of the leprosy bacilli, we were met with a number of highly informative poster boards (like the boards we're all used to seeing at museums) on the history of leprosy treatment before the discovery of the bacilli, theories on the spread of leprosy, the discovery of the bacilli, and Norway's role as a research center - and it was housed in one of the old treatment institutions. The old St. Jorgen's Hospital was where people with leprosy would be shipped off to live as comfortably as possible until their inevitable death. As interesting as it was to see all the epidemiological information and research, it was also really sobering to think that people died really painful deaths in the very rooms where I was reading about the horrible side effects of leprosy and just what it did to the human body. This disease has history and I was standing right in the thick of it.

The Leprosy Museum!

Acting completely un-PC at the Leprosy Museum. Apologies.

My parents bought me an early Christmas present in the museum bookstore: "Leprosy" by Lorentz M. Irgens, Yngve Nedrebo, Sigurd Sandmo, and Arne Skivenes. The book details the full history of the disease and the efforts to cure it. (If anyone wants to borrow it, the pictures are particularly compelling!)

Back at the apartment after some unsuccessful souvenir shopping, I took an accidental two hour nap before we went to the grocery store and picked up some pizza for dinner (Hawaiian - my favorite!). Tomorrow's an early morning... we have to be at the dock by 7:30am for day 1 of the family reunion. Next stop: Bømlo!

Bergen, Day 3

*orignially written 6/27*
We began the day back at Kiwi, looking for picnic-y foods for lunch. Mom and I grabbed mini baguettes, what looked like Swiss cheese, and what we were really hoping was a package of deli turkey or chicken. This whole not speaking the language thing an get kind of stressful when you're trying to pick out food and your options are "kylling" or "kalkun." However, we managed to fool the cashier into thinking we understood him perfectly (though he was probably just being nice) and decided to not ask for a receipt in order to avoid blowing our cover. We then picked up some really tasty blueberries and strawberries at the Fisketorget (fish market, which also has some fruit and vegetable stalls) on our way to the light rail train (pretty much Bergen's version of the L train).

After quite the ordeal buying tickets for the train ("we don't speak Norske! Wait, what? Stop! *sigh* it just timed out on us. BUT WE DON'T SPEAK NORSKE!"), mom called over one of the train security workers, who assured us that the machine just didn't work. At least it wasn't us. We eventually got our tickets and rode from Nonneseter to Hop, where we walked to Troldhaugen - the summer home of the famous Norwegian composer and pianist, Edvard Grieg - after getting directions from the site's concert hall's architect's daughter. Small world! We walked the estate, area picnic lunch (the mystery meat turned out to be turkey), heard a short concert by an up-and-coming Norwegian concert pianist, toured the villa (preserved with as much original material as possible), looked at the composer's cabin (the one-room hut in which Grieg wrote much of the music he produced while at Troldhaugen), and wandered the museum. After an ice cream snack (it was a surprisingly warm day!), we lucked out on a short lecture that was about to start, on Grieg's Peer Gynt suites. I know, sounds boring. But it was actually quite fun! Annette, the German girl who led the lecture, played excerpts from the suite and then charmed us all while giving her notes on the pieces. We were among the last few people at the museum, not leaving until 5:30pm!

Modeling in front of the museum

The concert hall

Grieg's house!

Not a bad view :)

Dinner was at a place Yvonne recommended: Kafe Spesial. I had "cod cooked in North African style" and it was DELICIOUS! North African style translated to red peppers, onions, and tomatoes, stewed with the cod and spiced so that your mouth slowly but surely burned away and you enjoyed every second of it. That, a mini baguette, and a hard apple cider... Ah! I had no idea any sort of spicy food existed in Norway. That'll teach me! I'd totally eat this dish again.

The cider I had at Kafe Spesial

After dinner, more ice cream, a change of shoes for me (my hiking boots were killing me - little did I know how much, more about that later), we went to the Fløibanen! The Fløibanen is "Scandinavia's only cable railway" - basically a "funicular" cable train car takes you up the side of Mount Fløyen to the summit station, 320 m. above sea level. The view is amazing... all of Bergen is laid out in front of you! I took lots of pictures and enjoyed soaking it all in.

The Fløibanen

The view from the Summit Station

Back at the apartment, I am soaking my feet since they are both swollen from toes to lower calves. Awesome. Getting rid of these hiking boots when we get home! Walking is painful, so I'm trying to just take it slow. We'll see how this goes.

Bergen, Day 2

Today was long. I think I'm mostly over the jet-lag, but my feet are still tired and tensions are high between various family members.

We started today with a breakfast of fresh bread and strawberries (so juicy!) before walking to the Bryggens Museum (which is a collection of archaeological artifacts from 12th-14th century Bergen). Bryggen was the harbor/trade center of Bergen, where most of the trade business (so, imports and exports) of occurred. The tour we went on provided an overview of the museum, a guided walk through Old Bryggen and the assembly rooms used by the tradesmen, and finally a tour of the Hanseatic Museum (which showed a replica of the old trade tenements of Bryggen). It was amazing to learn how muh the people of Northern Germany influencedd Norway.... Apparently German was the dominant language in Bergen for almost 400 years! I had no idea that Bergen was such a prominent medieval trading center.

My take on the iconic picture of Bryggen

After lunch, we walked to the tourist information center, where I did a little shopping and the rest of the family browsed through the travel pamphlets. Once we finished up there, we took a walk up to where Yvonne (our landlady) had told mom and me we'd find a shopping district. Mom and I looked at pretty dresses, exclaimed our ridiculous prices (this country is crazy expensive!), and went from shop to shop while dad and Peter trailed behind and acted bored. We ended up walking to the other side of town before realizing that it was dinner time, we were kind of lost (though that was a problem easily solved) and we needed to get back to our apartment. We picked up supper along the way - a lefse- pancake type thing and a reindeer-salami sandwich for me!

One of the parks we stumbled upon during our walk

Mom & Dad in front of a fountain, down the street from last night's restaurant!

Today's unexpected moments of triumph: having an Italian woman stop me on the street and ask me for directions (flattering but I couldn't really help her) and seeing a blue Prius. That pretty much made my day.

The infamous blue Prius.

Bergen, Day 1

*originally written 6/25*

We've arrived in Bergen! After reaching the airport a little before 2pm (or 14:00, if yo go by military time as most everyone here does), we grabbed our luggage, somehow managed to skip Customs (a minor disappointment for those of us who wanted a Norway stamp in our passports), took the airport bus into the city, and checked into our apartment. It is adorable - the very model of the size, style, and efficiency I've come to expect in Europe. Everything is placed in ways that minize the energy you must put in to using it (if that makes sense). It is functionality in the extreme. A few pictures are below.

The kitchen and living room

A better view of the kitchen

The living room - site of many blog postings and also my bed!

After dropping our stuff off, we headed to one of the local markets ("Kiwi") to get groceries for tomorrow's breakfast. With that item crossed off our to-do list, it was off to the phone store for Norwegian sim cards. Dad forgot his ID at the apartment, so everything was put in my name - though he still paid ;)

We ate dinner at a pub called PingVinen (the Penguin); I went for the traditional pork stew. It was quite flavorful and hearty - and even better, it tasted more like bacon than pork mixed in with the potatoes and carrots! The crisps (crackers) that came with it were also quite tasty. Nice and buttery.
After a leisurely walk by the wharf and fish market, we headed "home" where I am attempting to soothe my aching feet. Tonight I will sleep well.

Update from Sweden!

*originally written 6/25*

I'm currently sitting at gate 10A in the Stockholm airport. The flight from Chicago was uneventful (a good thing methinks), hopefully the flight to Bergen in three hours will be just as uneventful! I only slept for about an hour - try as I might, my brain wouldn't shut down, plus the kid behind me was determined to poke his video screen into submission. I managed to hunt down a Starbucks in the airport here and bought some iced iced chai for mom and me (99 SEK, so about $14.... still worth it). The caffeine has helped or at least being in a relatively airy, well-lit airport terminal is keeping me awake (for now!).

Sweden, from what I can see, is pretty - although it's currently raining (read: it's a downpour). Everything is still very green and fresh looking. Swedish is also a very pretty language; however if I'm not careful it might put me to sleep!

Sweden from the airport!

On another note: mom, dad, and I came up with a new tongue twister after seeing a specialty product in the airport store... "Swedish fish sauce." Its much more difficult than it would at first seem.
More once we reach Bergen!

Two More Days!

In forty-eight hours, I will be on a plane on my way to Norway. The immediacy hasn’t really sunk in yet. On the one hand, I’m totally aware that I’m two days away from the family reunion trip of a lifetime; on the other hand, it doesn’t seem real yet. I’ve been talking to my brother about packing (I’m almost done, he hasn’t started), to my dad about passports, hiking, and the location of the only Starbucks in Oslo, and to my mom about what clothes we should bring, but it all seems very detached. I’m talking about it, but I’m not living it yet. Well, in two days I will be and the more I remind myself of that, the more excited I get.

Look out, Norway: we’re coming at you.

Food for Thought

It’s now seven days until I leave for Norway and I’m thinking about food. Living on campus for part of this summer, having my own apartment (with a kitchen!), and being responsible for my own meals has made me look at food differently. I’ve always really liked food. I enjoy cooking with my mom, I like sitting down at a table and eating with my family — I just really like food. Food was a central part of my childhood; my parents never had any problem inviting people over for dinner, bringing meals to those in need, or swapping favorite recipes with those around us. Rather than buying overly processed foods, my mom makes her own soups, spaghetti sauce, baked goods, and desserts. My dad makes the best from-scratch hamburgers I’ve ever eaten. It’s important to my family to have set times where we know we’ll be sitting down and eating a full meal together. The process of cooking food and bringing meals to the table has always been equated to love. Food brings people together and one of the ways we show our love for others is through food.

Feeding myself has reminded me how important food really is. More than showing love for others through the act of cooking or giving food, eating good food is a way to love yourself. The past month and a half have shown me just how critical it is to love yourself. Other people may come and go in your life, but you must always love, value, and respect yourself. No one can do that for you. Eating food that fills, comforts, and nourishes you is one way to love your body. Your body is something that you’re stuck with for your whole life, so you might as well treat it the right way. Give it the fuel it needs in order to get through the day. Give it the food that you love when you are in need of comfort. And give it the healthy food that will help you be the strongest “you” that you can be.

But that’s enough, for now, about loving yourself.

When I have traveled abroad in the past, it has been in a class setting. I’ve had professors telling me what to expect when we get there, for everything from what the hotel will be like, to what parts of the city we should see, to what museums we will be visiting. When we’ve reached our destination, I’ve made it a point to try as many “native” foods as possible, whether I like them or not. In London, this meant eating fish and chips, despite the fact that I really don’t like breaded, fried fish. In Paris, I savored fresh crepes and choked down steak tartare (a memory my parents still tease me about and they weren’t even there). In Puerto Rico (though it’s not exactly “abroad”), I lived off of rice, chicken, and plantains. In Serbia, I ate as much palacinke, pljeskavica, and kajmak as humanly possible. But in Norway, I don’t know quite what to expect. I don’t really feel unprepared (it’s impossible to feel unprepared when you travel with my dad, the king of travel itineraries), but it’s a very different kind of preparation from the May Term traveling I’ve done. I know what we’re doing, but not what to expect. Recently, my thoughts about what to expect have shifted to what foods to expect and what foods I’m going to try. I’m really curious about what foods we’ll get to eat at our family reunion, since I know relatively little about the food in Norway. Traditional Norwegian foods like kringla and lefse were a staple of my childhood (kringla more so than lefse, since it’s ridiculously difficult to make your own lefse) but I’m excited that I get to experience these foods the way they’re meant to be experienced. (Sorry Mom: your kringla’s good, but I’m ready to try it the real Norwegian way.) In seven days, I’m going to get off that plane and hunt down some lefse.  It’s going to be awesome.

Dreams

I’ve been thinking about dreams a lot lately. Dreams are, in my mind, the fuel that feeds the fire inside you. Without dreams, we would wander aimlessly. We would be lost and without purpose. I really like a quote I found recently, from Anais Nin, a French author: “dreams are necessary to life.” I have plenty of dreams and I know I’ll have plenty more, but for now I feel incredibly lucky to be so close to living one of them. It’s also a very humbling experience; I had to put a lot of work in to make this dream come true and I had a lot of help along the way. I feel like I can never thank my parents, my professors, or my friends enough, for reading countless drafts of application essays, for talking to me about what I really wanted out of a study abroad experience, for giving me as many letters of recommendations as I asked for, without a second thought. I have thanked them all in person many times, but somehow that’s never seemed sufficient to me. So, if you helped me on this journey to living my dream of studying abroad I will say it once again: thank you. I greatly appreciate everything you have done for me and the only way I can think to thank you any more is to let you read this and hope that through reading it, you’ll live my dream too. But your dreams are not my dreams and my dreams are not your dreams. They never will be. Yet dreams can be shared. They will not mean the same thing to everyone (they can’t!), but they can —and should! — be shared with those you care about. The people you care about (and who care about you) can support you along your journey, through the rough patches, through the smooth sailing; they can comfort you when things don’t go exactly right and rejoice with you when you reach your goal. Dreams are meant to be shared. If you don’t share them, I don’t think you can ever hope to fully achieve them or truly enjoy them.

And so as I begin to live one of my dreams, I wanted to take a moment to stop and think about the people, near and far, who have helped me on this path to studying abroad, who have believed in me even as I stressed out and was convinced I’d never be accepted to the ACM program, and who are now just as excited as I am. I love each and every one of you in very different, very special ways and I am so blessed to have you in my life. Now go live your dreams. If you share them with me, I will support you the whole way there, just as you have supported me. Remember, dreams are necessary to life.

The Countdown Begins!

In eleven short days, I’ll be leaving for Norway. Then I come back home for my summer internship. Then, in an agonizing 80 days, I head off for a semester abroad in Florence, Italy. Traveling has always been a dream of mine. When I was visiting colleges and talking with admissions counselors, study abroad was a big priority. Now, four years later, I’m finally getting to live that dream.

First up, the unexpected trip: Norway. I had never ever thought I’d go to Norway. Not that I was or am opposed to the idea, it just hadn’t ever crossed my mind. But now that I’m going (with my family, nonetheless), I’m very excited. Norway represents a lot of untapped family history, a whole big section of my heritage with which I am unfamiliar. I’m hoping that this trip will expose me to a wealth of knowledge about my ancestors pre-migration to the fabled Land of Opportunity. I think Norway also represents a chance for me to center myself. A lot has happened in my life in the past two months — good and not so good — so I’m hoping that disappearing into the Norwegian countryside with my family will help get me back on track. I’m feeling the need for some fresh air, sunshine, and the unfamiliar. While there’s comfort in going home and being around the things you’ve always known, it’s also good to go and spend some time in a new place. It makes you think and assess and reassess and appreciate things.

Then it’s back to the familiar, which I also need. I want nothing more right now than to go home and cuddle with my cats. Honestly. That’s the top item on my priority list. I’m also getting excited for my internship. As far as I know, I’ll be interning in the education and programming department at my local public museum. While I’m not sure what exactly I want to do when I graduate in May, I do know that I love museums and that I am passionate about non-classroom education. As someone who was home-schooled up til college, I spent many a field trip in a museum, which shaped me as a student and as a person. But this is bigger than just home-schooling. I believe that children learn A LOT from out of classroom experiences — experiences that museums can give them. Museums allow kids to explore their interests in ways that are both entertaining and easily accessible to all learning types. However, I also think a lot of people ignore the role that museums have the potential to play. Since learning in a museum setting was such a big part of my upbringing, it’s important to me to give kids similar experiences, no matter what their educational background. I’m thankful that, as important as this is to me, I get to spend part of my summer learning more about museum education and actually applying that information in a real-world setting.

Finally, at the end of August, I jet set off to Florence, where I’ll be living and studying until mid-December. I’ll be learning Italian, doing a home-stay with a host family, eating everything I can get my hands on, taking three other elective courses, and traveling as much as I can. More will be posted about the Florence trip once I have more information. At this point, I’ve done just about everything that I can: I’ve submitted all my paperwork, applied for my student visa from the Italian Consulate, sent in my housing form so that I can be matched with a host family… there’s nothing else I can do! So for now, I just have to sit and wait. This is the hardest part about the whole process for me. I have always disliked not knowing what’s going on and being unable to control things, so the waiting game kills me. I like to have everything planned out and know what’s going on, so when I’m completely out of control, I tend to get a little antsy. This summer, I’m trying to get myself used to the fact that I cannot control everything. Obviously. However, this is really difficult for me. So I have to work really hard to not attempt to fix every little perceived problem in my life. If you know me, you’ll know that I’m very driven and pretty darn efficient, so when I set my mind to something, it’ll usually happen. But I’m realizing that I can’t fix everything. Like I said, this is very difficult for me. It’s not a fun process. So in a way, playing the waiting game with all this information on Florence is good for me. It’s a stepping-stone — a small problem that I’m actually totally ok with not being able to fix or rush. This is one small step for mankind, one giant leap for me.