In Wyoming we say that we have 4 seasons - Winter, Still Winter, Almost Winter and Road Construction. Turns out the Norwegians say that they have 2 Winters - one is green and one is white! He he he - according to our very nice Canadian hostel worker's boyfriend, it has snowed quite deep further north of here because he had gone skiing a few days ago. In other words, time for us to head back south! I did try the pickled herring in the tomato sauce today - turns out it's not all that bad, but not OMG amazing either. All in all, I'll just say yay for trying it and go back to the other yummies of breakfast. They do offer sweet pickles for breakfast, along with a bunch of other (we'd say) non-breakfast foods... but I really like it!
Today we took the Floibanen Funicular from the city center (behind Bryggen) up Mount Floyen. The trip took about 10 mins and at the top we were about 302 meters above sea level. The view was incredible and we'll get the pix up whenever Ana feels like doing all that jazz. She was feeling better today, praise God, and while she didn't seem to enjoy the icyness, she did enjoy the views (I think). The stairs and stuff were very icy and all I could think was "The bosses (Dave, Dave and Don) would sooo not approve of this." (Ahhh, college.) We then got some coffee and a really good strawberry pie thing before coming back to the hostel. We will be heading out of here tomorrow to head to Amsterdam (and spend a lot more time on the lovely trains of Europe) and will be taking a free tour of the city there. Frankly, I think that we'll both be happy getting back to where we can use one currency for multiple countries - going between the Euro, Norwegian Kronor, Swedish Kronor, Hungarian Forint, Bulgarian Lev and whatever they use in Serbia has been a pain in the arse!
Oh yes, and at this time I would like to say a huge THANK YOU to those who got me my long johns, hat, converter, towel and sleep sheet. You know who you are and thanks to you I have not frozen and my electronics continue to work! I promise that I have not forgotten my loved ones back home... and you'll understand more of that when you see the pictures of all the things that I didn't buy you!! (He he he - well can ya blame me? I'd have to carry it all thru Europe! So instead, we've been taking pictures of all the things we aren't getting anyone. Aren't we sweet?!?)
I keep saying - and I do mean this - I would like to come back here in the summer with more money so that I could enjoy more of the out-doorsy stuff to do. This place is just awesome. It also looks like in the summer the fish market is bigger and more along the lines of what we were expecting, so that would be something nice too. The only complaint I have about the hostel is that the showers have a limit on how hot you can get them... so when you want the water to be almost scalding-you hot, you have to settle for just warm-bordering-on-hot. We'll have to see how the hostel in Amsterdam is. We have vauge notions of where we will be in November... all we know for sure is that we'll be in Romania at the end of it and Berlin before Romania. Getting back to the trains... that was something else that I wanted to tell you all - giving up my car FREAKING SUCKS!!!!! Now the trains are good because if I were driving through Europe we'd get in a wreak because I'd be wanting to sightsee instead of drive, and it's probably good that we're not driving in the cities either but damn, it would be nice to be able to get somewhere on my time schedule instead of someone else's. For a gas pedal happy control freak, this has been a very huge adjustment. Good juju in the long run, I'm sure, but UUUUUGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH - I will tell you that if I get a chance to drive on the autobahn, I'm taking it - no if's, ands or buts about it!!
Now then, I think that's all I wanted to update everyone on - don't worry, I'm sure Ana will be posting later to give you her view on the day / trip so far. I'm gonna enjoy another fairly warm shower before we jump back on the trains for 2 days... paying to go to the bathroom has been an interesting change, too... we are no longer in Kansas, Toto. : )
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