Norway!

**Updated 1 June '10! Got the picture of us all sardine-d up for bed from Daniel. Thanks, Daniel!**

How better to kick off a trip to Norway than a late night trek through Västerås to catch a midnight bus out of the country? It's only been a few hours since the delicious dessert of the last post and we're happy as clams, ready for a night bus to a new place.

As is tradition, here's the crew leaving Junior.

The bus arrived early in the morning and nothing was open. We did see this tiger, though.

We were able to find the opera house, so we decided to go see that first. It's a pretty nice looking building.

You can kinda see in this one how the entire building is basically a ramp to the roof.

So we got on the roof.

We're trying to start a new thing that tourists do with the opera house in Oslo. When you're there, make sure to take a picture of rolling down it, preferably where others can see so that they learn what to do.

Look at this thing. It's a hamburger in the form of a hot dog.

And it's only 25 NOK. Breakfast ideas for your visit to Norway.

We were walking into town and we came across this marching band, parked illegally.

Then it became clear that it was a morning show in progress.

After the band played some, the morning show host woman played an egg game with some kid-o's.

Like Sweden, Norway has TONS of pretty flowers all over the place. I took way too many pictures of them. I'll try to restrain myself from posting them all here. Maybe I'll make a flower post later.

Next stop was the royal palace for a roll call.

Look at this...there's a fountain-roundabout near the library that the rail cars travel through the middle of.

Well this one's just too blue to leave out. Plus it's somewhat relevant to the next event. These were at a bagel shop.

The woman there made one of these for me and Megan to eat.

Next, we found a park to swing and sit on a bench in (see those other guys?). I think there's a picture out there somewhere facing the other way, but suffice it to say that I got a really sweet spring-based rocker toy to play on.

After playing in a playground for a while, we had to get to another park, but this one had statues. It nearly killed Taija, but she recovered. Eventually.

See? Lots of statues.

There were some notable ones.

This was certainly one of those.

I think the point of the whole display was people. See that people-tower in the background?

One of the statues was incomplete. We provided a temporary remedy to the situation.

Heading back to the city center, we found a dumpster that seemed to contain the entirety of someone's existence. There was furniture, house wares, clothing, a hookah... We got a stroller, a rain coat and ties. The stroller seemed like a good idea to help carry bags, but it had a flat tire and was generally not up to the task. But we held on to it for a while anyway.

Some impressive art on the side of a building, albeit strange.

Some more good looking graffiti. And possibly some type of space craft.

I thought this was a cool thing in a design museum.

Outside the design place, we spent some time just relaxing in the grass. The sleep on the bus was good, but somewhat inadequate for an entire day of walking around Oslo.

As we were leaving, I noticed that the museum owners had locked up a tree swing that I was playing on while the place was still open. My theory's that Oslo is a high crime area when it comes to tree swing related incidents, and owners of public tree swings have to take precautions.

Sky bridge.

Giddyup!

And now, a night train to Bergen.

The sleeper car is extra, so we made do with seats.

Once it was light, I couldn't sleep anymore. Norway is a fantastically beautiful country. These lousy from-the-train pictures don't really do it justice, but I'm sure they can get the point across.

Ahh..

Delicious.

We arrived in Bergen early and realized that we had just about no clue of where to go or what to do.

Then we saw this guy. Looks like he could use a raincoat.

Done.

While we were looking around the city, a band marched by.

By the afternoon, we had settled on climbing the highest of the seven mountains which surround Bergen, Ulriken. This is about 3/4 of the way up near a sign.

There was some debate as to how we should interpret the sign.

Getting closer to the top, the views increased in spectacular-ity.

Bergen is a very long city. Probably because it's squeezed into a valley. Anyhow, here's one half.

And there's the other.

Now take it all in.

Once we got down, one of Tyler's friends was nice enough to give us a ride back to our couch surfer's place.

After a quick trip into town in the evening, we checked on our buddy in the park. We were happy to learn that he was still enjoying our gift.

Next day, we decided to go on a fjord tour which involved a train ride to where the boats leave from. We encountered a marching accordion band.

It was another beautiful train ride.

The train stopped at a nice waterfall...

It was compulsory to take pictures. If you were found with a camera and without pictures of this waterfall, they would kick you off the train.

More lovely views. You can see the tracks across the way on this one. I think this is near where the train actually spiraled around INSIDE a mountain for a while. It really was an epic train ride.

Half way through the ride, we passed the train going the other way.

That allowed me to get a nice picture of this woman.

The end of the line where the boat would leave from to show us the inside of some fjords. It would have been nice to have a clear and sunny day, but in some ways I think the clouds created a neat atmosphere.

More pretty flowers...

Mmmm, purple.

And mixed with orange.

"You are here."

Yep. That's us. There.

HARK! That accordion marching band! I really like these guys.

Found out they're Irish.

It was a long wait for the boat. And Flåm is not that exciting.

The boat did eventually leave. Good bye Flåm! Time to get in a fjord.

The seagulls came with us and some people tried to get pictures of them.

When they should've been paying more attention to this sort of thing.

So nice.

We passed by several cities nestled in the fjord. This was the first.

This is the kind of fjord shot I was hoping for.

Another town-in-a-fjord. There's some special church in this picture. It's white and important because it's old. I think.

This waterfall...

It started raining outside. Good excuse to catch up on sleep.

Here we are approaching the narrowest part of the fjord.

After the boat was a bus ride back to Bergen which included a drive down the steepest road (maybe of Norway? or maybe just some region...).

Then we passed a waterfall which deserved pictures.

That evening, one of our couch surfer's friends, Kiniena, needed a tie for the 17th of May celebrations the next day. Luckily, we had just found many of those in a dumpster in Oslo. So we hooked him up.

This picture is good for a few reasons. You can see all the ties we found as if on sale by gypsies. You can see our couch surfer in it. His name is Daniel and he's on exchange from Oregon. Also, you can see about how big his room is. Yeah, that's all of it in this picture. The sleeping arrangements were...creative.

Ariel got to sleep on that bench, and me, Tyler, Megan and Taija slept on the floor. We made a big bed out of cushions and an extra mattress that we found.

Update! I just got this picture from Daniel. It was close quarters, but comfy.

Next morning we got up early to catch a train back to Oslo.

Heh heh. Silly Norwegains. Look what they've written on their building.

We got back to Oslo and found the 17th of May celebrations in full-swing.

Another parade, complete with marching band (look to the far left of the frame...).

We got out of the city center pretty fast so we could see a stave church.

Shortly after, I saw this bee that some ants managed to get.

And then, we found this playground. Too bad Ariel has such a fat head.

Back in the center, we found this choir.

And some silly string. Tee heeh hee...it is quite silly...

Eventually we got some dinner at a nice place.

After that, it was a bus ride back to Sweden.

Another trip, another country and good times with great friends. Check.

Norway is the last trip we will take with Tyler, but there is one more trip to Finland planned. The rest of the Junior crew will be escorting the Finns back home, so more adventure is on the horizon... But first, a bit of time in Västerås. Check back soon.