Getting to know Bergen..

Getting to know Bergen..

In our last post I mentioned that a common theme in choosing our destinations was mountains. We love to be in the mountains, and we wanted to be in places where we could walk right out our door and into the mountains. (Mission accomplished, by the way: we are living literally right at the bottom of Mount Fløyen, whose sheer cliffs tower straight above us when we walk out our front door).

But in picking our AirBnb's I had a second requirement, which was that I wanted for us to wake up every morning and look out at a great view. What would it be like, I wondered, to start every day getting out of bed to look out to a truly stunning view; to see the world greeting you every morning with one of its best-dressed looks? Wouldn't it just set you up to have a great day?

So far, so good.

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This is the view from our deck in Bergen. We live in a historic quarter of Bergen called Bryggen which is a Unesco World Heritage site and is right near the docks and open-air fish market. Our little place has turned out to be great for us. It's small but it suits us perfectly since we are working and it has a great common dining/living/work area with lots of sunlight and a big table for us to face off against each other with our multiple laptops.

Here are some other pics of our place:

IMG_0419.jpeg Main living area

IMG_0422.jpeg Bedroom. For some reason it has a baby crib in it. We have not been able to procure a baby yet, though we always have our eyes open for the opportunity.

IMG_0421.jpeg Kitchen. Replete with very confusing European stove that tries to indicate functions like "bake" and "broil" with indecipherable hieroglyphics on the knobs.

IMG_0774.jpeg Front door of our place

Our neighborhood

I mention we live next to Bryggen, which is awesome because (A) it is beautiful and (B) they have an awesome hot dog stand there (your can also get reindeer hot dogs, which are quite tasty)

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  • Count of hot dogs consumed so far: 5

I will get back to the subject of food shortly, but along with hot dogs there has been a fair amount of consumption of some rather tasty cinnamon buns

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  • Count of cinnamon buns consumed so far: 7

A bit of history

Bryggen is famous because in the 14th century it was the seat of the Hanseatic League in Bergen. The Hanseatic League was a confederation of traders that was quite interesting in that it was quite powerful in its time for a non-state actor, and had complete control over many of the cities that they operated from. In Bergen, they were given control of this quarter of the city, and the German merchants who lived there had a monopoly in the trading of stockfish, which is dried cod and was at the time the most valuable exportable commodity in the country (having tried some dried cod just today, I think its qualities are lost on modern man). In return, the German merchants traded for grain and flour from foreign countries and provided those things to Norway; these were in much demand since only about 3% of the land is arable farming land.

Fun fact about the Hanseatic League: they required all of the German merchants to be bachelors. They did not want any local Norwegian girls to have a claim on any of the properties of the merchants in the Bryggen area.

Here is what Bryggen looks like today.

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Bryggen has lots of charming streets and alleyways that we have enjoyed exploring.

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Food

I have mentioned the hot dog and cinnamon bun problem we are experiencing here. But the food stands out here in several ways.

First and foremost is the fresh fish. Most days we wander down to the fish market on the docks and buy salmon, halibut, or trout. We just bake with olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper and it is amazing. Here is us at the fish market with a friendly halibut that the fishmonger is about to slice up to give us a nice steak for dinner.

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Street Art

Bergen is famous for its street art. Banksy came here sometime around 2010 apparently, before he was well known, and created a bunch of artwork for his friends who were opening a club. Some of the art he created got painted over, but some was saved and later auctioned and made some of his friends a good deal of money. Here is some of our favorite street art:

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Speed round!

Here are some random fun facts we have learned about Bergen and Norway. (Pay attention you IU people: These may turn up on a Cubstead trivia night sometime in the future!)

  • Bergen is quiet. Most nights when sitting on our deck we can hear the sound of birds chirping, the occasional rumble of a car, and maybe a snippet of conversation or laughter wafting up from unseen folks a few blocks away. By our perspective as Boston city-dwellers, there are very few people and very few cars on the street.
  • Norway is green. 60% of all cars purchased last year were electric, and it will be 100% in 2025. There are a multitude of tax and fee incentives to motivate people to buy electric cars.
  • Everyone in Norway is a model. Not sure if you knew that, but after wandering the city for a few weeks we can report back that it is true.
  • Everyone in Norway is very fit. Many of them have an annoying habit of running past us while we are wheezing up a mountain, which sort of destroys our sense of accomplishment for just getting up the damn thing at all.
  • Norway produces like 90% of its electricity through hydro power, which makes perfect sense given the number of waterfalls we have seen.
  • Norwegians are friendly, but reserved. We had a guide on a city walking tour who was from Germany who has lived here a while and he vouched that Norwegians are tough to get to know. His own strategy was to introduce alcohol into the picture to loosen them up at parties and so forth, but he said that only worked to a point - they would certainly loosen up at the party, but the next day it would be back to square one.
  • Norwegians are patriotic, but not in an "in your face" kind of way. All Norwegians, male and female, spend a year in military service (or in social services, if they opt out). Many houses have flagpoles, but they only fly the Norwegian flag on 2 or 3 special days a year. They are very proud of their heritage, and also love their King and Queen.
  • Norwegians are 90% or more Lutheran, but only 2-3% (according to one of our guides) go to church each week. Until about 2010 the King was the head of both the Church and the Government (though I believe it is a constitutional monarchy). Now they have split church and state responsibilities. One reason given to us was that they did not want to make immigrants coming with other religions to feel like outsiders. This seems quite in keeping with what feels like the quietly generous spirit of Norwegians.
  • The number one industry in Norway is oil and gas. Shipbuilding and marine activities is second. Fishing is third.
  • The number one import in Norway, based on our small sample size, is girls from other countries who met Norwegian boyfriends at university and followed them home. As one of our waitresses who followed this path told us, "Hey, it's Norway, right?". (As in: "how could I say no?"). I presume by "Norway" she was referring to the inevitability of succumbing both to the charms of the country as well as to those of her standard-issue, Nordic model boyfriend. In any case, it seemed to make perfect sense to Susan, who was seen nodding her head vigorously in agreement.
  • Most products are expensive in Norway. A half-kilo of salmon for dinner from the market costs us about $20. There is a 25% VAT on most products that you buy from stores.
  • On the other hand, many services are free, or cheap. Health care is free. Kindergarten for kids (starting at age 1) is free. University is free. Public transportation is very cheap.
  • In most families both spouses work (hence the need for free kindergarten). The average family income is just over 100,000 euro.
  • Norwegians are the number one consumers in the world, on a per-capita basis, of frozen pizzas. Not sure why. They also love tacos, which they were introduced to by workers who came from the Gulf of Mexico to work in the oil industry.

In conclusion..

We love Bergen! It is a beautiful, walkable, cozy little city with plenty of things to see and do, and we are going to be sad to leave it behind shortly. But we have also been able to venture outside of Bergen to see some of Norway's other great sights as well. Stay tuned for our next post, where we will show you a really beautiful part of the country we explored when we did the Dronningstien hike (also known as Queen Sonja's hike)!

Hope everyone is doing well, and we are thinking of you often.

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