Our First Few Days

Hei og god morgen/dag/kveld/natt!

~Anna~

Well, we've been in Bergen for four days now and have begun to settle into our little apartment and explore the city a bit more. 

On Tuesday, we figured out the train system and headed downtown towards the big shopping centre here in hopes of finding the last few items needed for our kitchen at the very least. After walking around a few stores that were way out of our price range, we stumbled upon Clas Ohlson, a home improvement store, where we managed to secure nearly everything we needed at a much lower price than the other stores had offered. Feeling victorious and absolutely starving, we stopped for a quick lunch at the cheapest and most convenient place we could think of in our blind hunger: McDonald's Norway. Although we opted for the traditional Chicken and Fish McFeast, respectively, we were intrigued to find that Norwegian McDonald's offers yam (søtpotet) fries and passionfruit McFlurries! Anyway, that's enough about McDonald's.

While on our inaugural trip downtown, we saw some main sights, including a huge fountain in the center of the city, as well as a green area with a statue of famous Norwegian composer, Edvard Grieg, who (fun fact!) was born and died in Bergen. To end our day, we trekked out to Jysk and bought pillows and blankets for the bedroom, which is now extremely warm and cozy and no longer nothing but sheets and sad clothing-stuffed pillow cases.

Wednesday was Ikea day. We picked up the last of what we needed for our place, namely the cheapest couch we could find, since our living room was a desolate wasteland filled only by a coffee table we managed to snag from the free furniture pile outside of our building. Side note: assembling our couch has to have been one of the most excruciating processes we have ever gone through, taking us over two hours to finally complete the task. But hey, if we can get through Ikea assembly, we can get through anything.  To top off our Ikea visit, we had a couple of their 10Kr ($1.30 CAD) hotdogs--mine a vegan dog, Steve's the classic--and called it a day.

Our view from right outside Ikea - Walking trails and mountain views everywhere!

Thursday was probably our most exciting day yet. We hopped on the train once again to downtown, this time to explore our new university. The buildings and campus itself are much more spread out around along the streets of downtown and different from the self-contained campus we are used to back home, but we'll get to know our way around eventually. We made our way to the Student Centre and picked up our new student IDs, and then began a long walk around the area and through a beautiful park right beside campus. The buildings that line the streets here are very colourful and have a lot of character, and in some ways remind me of certain stretches of Downtown Victoria. The old colourful buildings mixed with the lush green of the park made for a beautiful walk, and we eventually found ourselves by the harbour looking out at the other side of downtown and the houses up above in the mountains. Hunger eventually gave in, and we enjoyed a super tasty lunch from Suppologen, an incredibly good and reasonably priced soup restaurant in town that you should definitely visit, should you find yourself here in Bergen. It hit the spot, especially after experiencing on and off rain and wind all afternoon.

Overall, it's been a good week. We've explored a lot of our city and have triumphed when it comes to public transport and finding good food to eat, and our apartment now feels a lot more like home. There have, however, still been some lower moments in the mix. For one, we have yet to make some new friends in  our student village, which has been tough for the both of us, especially when we see new-formed groups walking around together. However, we are all alone on our floor at the moment, so we are holding out hope that once more people begin to move in, friendships will begin to form. For second, being in a foreign country with a different primary language has been tough at times, mainly when trying to read signs or instructions in public, but we are using our thinking caps a lot and have managed to decipher some phrases without the help of Google Translate (woohoo!). Although every Norwegian we have met speaks English, we both have the goal of being able to handle basic exchanges by the end of the month. But, these are early days, and friends and language knowledge come with time so we are just staying positive and hopeful. Wish us luck!

Alright, that's all for now! We plan to put up a little apartment tour in the coming days once our final element arrives, which we will leave as a surprise until then ;)

See you soon!