Bergen by day

I first came to Bergen in 2001. I joined Alba Venturer - I was taking part in the Cutty Sark Tall Ships Race, and was due to sail from Norway to Denmark. I remember rain, kulturmelk, more rain, and the old wooden houses. And getting very, very seasick.

And so I'm here again. A grown up! Getting a tour with a real life Norwegian! We visited an antiques shop, had proper fish cakes, saw all sorts of creatures at the fishmarket, lots more creatures at the natural history museum, and I spent a small fortune on public toaletter. So now I can't afford to buy beer, which is probably a good thing as it could easily bankrupt an ordinary individual here. And Espen promises me the funicular is more fun in the winter, when you can sled down the hill in the snow - so we left it for the cruise-ship-tourists to enjoy for now. I will come back for it later.

And what else of today? I've learnt about Norwegian inventions - such as the cheese slicer. And paperclips. Although that took a while to translate - after some to-ing and fro-ing (I was thinking we were maybe talking about ringbinders) - Espen left the table in order to retrieve some from the study, to demonstrate - he held them up proudly, and advised "these are very good for when you have two pieces of paper, and you want to have them together." Of course.

I love this country.