Who Wants To Move To Bergen With Me?
Aaaaand I'm back. Took me a while yet again, but as compensation I'm hitting you with a massive three-piece update. Past couple of days have been quite busy – who would've guessed – and today is actually the first one in almost two weeks that I have time to breathe.
After Felix and Mina had left on Sunday, I had a relatively unspectacular work week (although – one of my old sketchbook scribbles is now a background for a festival flyer, yay!) until Alice and Annie arrived around noon on Friday. And that's where when of my busiest weekends here in Norway up to this day started.
A quick 'Hello', the obligatory Bleed tour and the girls were off again to explore the city for a couple of hours while I finished my work. From Bleed we went directly to Europcar to get ourselves a nice little car for the 7(!) hour drive to Bergen. Unfortunately for us, there was no small cars left. Luckily for us, the nice Indian guy behind the counter was willing to make 'specialll plice for youuu' and gave us a huge Volvo station wagon for only 300NOK more than what we'd have paid for a Golf. Second time this car rental has helped me out, really cool people.
From Europcar back to Bleed, get the girl's luggage, back to my place, get my luggage and on the road we went – at 6:30 p.m., two and a half hours later than I had planned. Predicted arrival time if everything went right: 1:30 a.m. Damn. Thankfully, after a chaotic online hunt for a place to stay in Bergen, I had found an apartment last minute whose owner was nice enough to just leave the key in the post box, where we could pick it up whenever we arrived. That place turned out to be a pure stroke of luck anyways, but more about that later.
So we drove and drove. Out of Oslo, through Gol and Geilo, with the latter being a really nice snowboarding spot – a shame I only once went to Hemsedal this season. We had a nice little improvised road picnic, drove through deserted landscapes in the dark (the exact same place where the Fritt Vilt movies were shot – kinda creepy) and finally lost our way a little bit. We were still on our way to Bergen, just not on the one I had intended. But hey, we got to ride a ferry in the middle of the night :D
We arrived pretty much on time, found the apartment fairly quick, noticed that we had booked a place in the old part of town with an incredible view and cozy interior for a very low price, and went straight to bed, dead tired. Next day, after a nice breakfast, nice encounters with the laid back home owners and some more admiring of the view, we explored the city. I'm gonna spare you the details of our touristy trip, but to sum it up: I wanna live in this town. Badly. Nice surroundings, nice people, nice everything. I've really fallen in love with this place. The only downside of Bergen seems to be the massive amounts of rain pouring down almost all the time. The record is 85 days straight two years ago. Of course, we had two perfect sunny days that weekend :)
Anyways, the day ended with a nice salmon dinner and drinking lots of Gin Tonic and Vodka with blueberries while listening to old school German Hip Hop, playing nerdy card games and – once again – gawking at the beautiful view. Sunday was pretty similar to Saturday with breakfast and sightseeing. Even managed to meet my ex-Bleed buddy Åge for a quick coffee at a cozy café and a micro-tour of his workplace at the local design school – he's currently finishing his Bachelor.
Around 3 p.m. we started our journey back to Oslo, drove through some beautiful landscape, which we hadn't seen on Friday, because, well, it was dark, saw a still snowy Hemsedal, busted the car's high beam and arrived pretty much exhausted but happy in Oslo.
And there it rained.
After Felix and Mina had left on Sunday, I had a relatively unspectacular work week (although – one of my old sketchbook scribbles is now a background for a festival flyer, yay!) until Alice and Annie arrived around noon on Friday. And that's where when of my busiest weekends here in Norway up to this day started.
A quick 'Hello', the obligatory Bleed tour and the girls were off again to explore the city for a couple of hours while I finished my work. From Bleed we went directly to Europcar to get ourselves a nice little car for the 7(!) hour drive to Bergen. Unfortunately for us, there was no small cars left. Luckily for us, the nice Indian guy behind the counter was willing to make 'specialll plice for youuu' and gave us a huge Volvo station wagon for only 300NOK more than what we'd have paid for a Golf. Second time this car rental has helped me out, really cool people.
From Europcar back to Bleed, get the girl's luggage, back to my place, get my luggage and on the road we went – at 6:30 p.m., two and a half hours later than I had planned. Predicted arrival time if everything went right: 1:30 a.m. Damn. Thankfully, after a chaotic online hunt for a place to stay in Bergen, I had found an apartment last minute whose owner was nice enough to just leave the key in the post box, where we could pick it up whenever we arrived. That place turned out to be a pure stroke of luck anyways, but more about that later.
So we drove and drove. Out of Oslo, through Gol and Geilo, with the latter being a really nice snowboarding spot – a shame I only once went to Hemsedal this season. We had a nice little improvised road picnic, drove through deserted landscapes in the dark (the exact same place where the Fritt Vilt movies were shot – kinda creepy) and finally lost our way a little bit. We were still on our way to Bergen, just not on the one I had intended. But hey, we got to ride a ferry in the middle of the night :D
We arrived pretty much on time, found the apartment fairly quick, noticed that we had booked a place in the old part of town with an incredible view and cozy interior for a very low price, and went straight to bed, dead tired. Next day, after a nice breakfast, nice encounters with the laid back home owners and some more admiring of the view, we explored the city. I'm gonna spare you the details of our touristy trip, but to sum it up: I wanna live in this town. Badly. Nice surroundings, nice people, nice everything. I've really fallen in love with this place. The only downside of Bergen seems to be the massive amounts of rain pouring down almost all the time. The record is 85 days straight two years ago. Of course, we had two perfect sunny days that weekend :)
Anyways, the day ended with a nice salmon dinner and drinking lots of Gin Tonic and Vodka with blueberries while listening to old school German Hip Hop, playing nerdy card games and – once again – gawking at the beautiful view. Sunday was pretty similar to Saturday with breakfast and sightseeing. Even managed to meet my ex-Bleed buddy Åge for a quick coffee at a cozy café and a micro-tour of his workplace at the local design school – he's currently finishing his Bachelor.
Around 3 p.m. we started our journey back to Oslo, drove through some beautiful landscape, which we hadn't seen on Friday, because, well, it was dark, saw a still snowy Hemsedal, busted the car's high beam and arrived pretty much exhausted but happy in Oslo.
And there it rained.
ccseabass - 2009-05-01 02:19
