Recent Adventures in Bergen!

 Hei hei! We're sorry we've been a bit inactive on here, life has gotten really busy all of a sudden which has not left much leisure time to create blog posts... but here we are!

~ Anna ~

Now, where to start with everything we've been up to... How about some of our hiking escapades (not including Trolltunga which has its own post coming soon to a blog near you)?

We are on a mission while living in Bergen: conquer all seven of the mountains which surround the city, hence the city's name "The city between seven mountains," go figure! So far, we have completed four of the seven: Fløyfjellet (400m), Ulriken (643m and the highest of the seven), Rundemanen (568m), and Løvstakken (477m). I will try to keep our hike summaries brief but informative!

A graphic of the seven mountains around Bergen for your viewing pleasure

Fløyfjellet, also known as Fløyen, is most likely the most popular tourist mountain because there is a funicular that you can take all the way up for a small fee, or you can journey by foot via many switchbacks! At the top, there is an observation area where you can look out at all of the city centre and some of the farther reaching areas. We've already uploaded some photos from our time at the top, but I will include one or two as a refresher :) Oh also, they make really tasty but slightly pricy cinnamon buns at the top which I would gladly pay for again.

The view from Fløyfjellet/Fløyen

Moving on to Ulriken, which we climbed a few weeks ago with a large group of twelve other friends from our student village, and on one of the first sunny days we've had in Bergen. Let me tell you, the climb up was a workout and a half. There are two possible routes of ascent: the ridge which takes you up the side of the mountain, and the STAIRS, which takes you up the front of the mountain via 1300 steps. We opted for the stairs on the way up, and the ridge trail on the way back. And those stairs were brutal. We were sweating and huffing and puffing our way up, taking breaks every few minutes, legs shaking and aching, but the view at the top was more than worth it. We stopped for a quick snack/lunch and made our way down the ridge, which was incredible in an entirely different way. We passed small lakes, ponds, and cabins (which you can rent cheaply for a few nights here!) on our way down. After finishing the trail, we rewarded ourselves with our first swim in the fjord at Gamlehaugen, beautiful royal grounds with green areas to sit and a beach to swim. The water was refreshing and a perfect way to end the day.

Our next hike, which we did the following week, was Rundemanen. We set off in the early morning with an even bigger group of seventeen! In order to even begin the hike to Rundemanen, we had to climb up Fløyfjellet again to reach the trailhead. Once we reached the top of Fløyfjellet, we took a short break and then set off. In the process, one of our fellow hikers, and a fellow Canadian at that, was accidentally left behind. We only realized about ten minutes into the hike, and Steve ran back to collect her. Once we were all back together, we set up a "sound-off" so that we could check our numbers efficiently at important points in the hike. The hike up Rundemanen was much easier than Ulriken and we summited pretty quickly. The weather was looking really nice, so we decided to carry on and attempt to summit another mountain, Blåmanen, in the same day. Almost as soon as we started off, clouds began to roll in and we found ourselves in the middle of a rain cloud, unable to see anything farther than ten metres away. The mountains that had been in front of us were replaced by a sheet of white nothingness, making it difficult to know where the path was leading us. After pushing on for a bit longer and getting absolutely drenched, we decided to enact the 7th rule of the Kvikk Lunsj (essentially a Norwegian KitKat bar which here is known as the chocolate to bring hiking) hiking rules: Don't be afraid to turn back if it is unsafe to continue. We made it safely back to Rundemanen, and as we descended, the clouds cleared and we returned home, still feeling accomplished and honestly quite thrilled about seeing the inside of a cloud.

And the clouds began to form...

Løvstakken was next on the list, and we summited last weekend, once again with perfect weather (Bergen has apparently forgotten to be rainy lately, woohoo!). This time we hiked with a smaller group, seven of us in total, which worked in our favour due to the terrain we encountered. This mountain was much different from the rest. It was more wild and overgrown, with narrower trails and lots of muddy and grassy areas to traverse. It was awesome!! We felt like we were hiking back home in Canada again. As we gained elevation, amazing views of the city came into sight and we stopped multiple times just to take it in. But nothing compared to the summit... Løvstakken is essentially right smack in the middle of everything, so from the summit we had a 360 degree of Bergen. We could see the winding fjords sparkling in the sunlight and the open ocean in the distance past all of the small areas of land beyond Bergen proper. Steve and I agree that it was by far our favourite view, and we would gladly go up Løvstakken many more times. We took a different route on the way down which led us down the opposite side of the mountain as on our way up. It gave us a new path to explore, and offered a little petting zoo to look at once we reached the bottom of the mountain again. From there, we walked back to our student village and we took well-deserved showers.

Other than hiking, what have we been up to? Well, we've been back at school for a few weeks now, so we've been spending more time doing readings and attending lectures, but that hasn't stopped us from continuing to explore and having fun with friends. At the same time, we're improving our Norwegian with help from our Norwegian language course and actually just submitted our first written assignment, documenting our eating habits. Riveting stuff! But truly, it is nice to slowly be picking up on more of the language that we hear and read around town every day. We can easily get through cash register exchanges, which is a nice victory for us, and signs are becoming easier to read. Yay for learning new things! Unfortunately, Steve caught a nasty cold which has now been passed on to me, so we're a bit under the weather, but it's given me time to write this blog post, so it's not all bad :)

Some photos from recent adventures/good times:

We hope that all of you who are reading this post are doing well, and for those who are starting school this week, good luck! Thanks for sticking around and reading about our adventures in Norway! Stay tuned for the Trolltunga post as well ;)

Ha en fin dag!! (Have a good day!)