Bergen is my Bruges

If you haven't seen the movie In Bruges, you MUST go rent it. It's a dark comedy starring Colin Farrell that really tiptoes the line of hilarious, disgusting, and offensive. It's brilliant but not for the politically correct. I won't spoil the movie, but Bergen is my Bruges. Here's a line from the movie that sums up my feelings towards Bergen.

Ken: “I thought you didn’t like Bruges.”
Ray: “I don’t. It’s still a s***hole.”

But let's rewind the story a little shall we?

We finally arrived in Bergen around 10:30pm and headed outside to find a taxi to take us to our next couchsurfing host’s place. It had been a long train ride and we were ready to get some rest. We arrived and met Rasa, our new host for the next 2 nights. We were super tired so we just exchanged pleasantries and hit the sack. We had a busy day ahead of us.

We woke up later than usual, 8am, ready to see this city that we were told was really beautiful. We took off for the approximately 3km walk back into the center of the city. Now, here lies the rub when it comes to couchsurfing. You are at the mercy of the location of the host. You can do your best to find a host that is centrally located, sometimes it can be difficult. Erika did an amazing job finding great, TRULY GREAT, people to stay with, but in Rasa's case, she lived a 30 minute walk from the city. But it's a great way to see a city. We walked through the University of Bergen, past the National Museum, through the Galleri (Gallery here means a section of cobblestone streets that are pedestrian only filled with restaurants and specialty stores), and down towards the waterfront and the Fish Market.

Ok, don’t get me wrong, Bergen really is a beautiful city, but it’s very touristy, expensive, filled with buses and the Flaggruten (Fjord tour boats). The ENTIRE city smells like diesel fuel and bus exhaust. It gave me a headache within 3 minutes of being downtown. What I really do not understand is the city is RIGHT on the water. It’s constantly windy… why doesn’t the smell dissipate? It’s also VERY dirty with a lot of garbage in the streets. Add rain and you get a pretty ugly sight. The other thing is Coldplay was playing that night so the town was PACKED. Every store we walked into was playing Coldplay. Though we did get to see the stage and hear their sound check which I do admit was pretty cool. You could hear it throughout the entire city. We could have seen the show, but it was $100US and while I like Coldplay, I don't listen to them enough to pay that much to see them live. Bergen is also a really small city so we really saw 90% of it walking.

We first hit up the Fish Market to get some lunch and see the fresh fish for sale. It’s a small market, maybe half a block long, but it’s AMAZING. The selection of seafood they have is impressive. Crab, lobster, all kinds of fresh fish, shrimp, crawfish, elk, reindeer, moose, whale, shark, caviar, smoked salmon… You can buy a plate of fresh crab meat, lobster, smoked salmon, maybe a few grilled shrimp, and a few generous spoonfills of caviar on a baguette for about $20US. Sounds expensive, until you see how big these plates are and how much they give you. Erika and I instead shared a HUGE Po-boy sandwich filled with shrimp, crab (imitation unfortunately), smoked salmon, and lettuce. We didn’t even finish it and we were pretty hungry. We also tried reindeer and moose salami (we bought reindeer). Afterwards, we walked down to the castle. I really wasn’t feeling very well due to all the exhaust smells so after seeing the castle, we headed inland a little to see the aquarium. We should have known better because the aquarium in Bergen is more like an animal shelter. It’s pretty small, like the city. We didn’t feel like paying the 150 kroner to get in so we walked back to town, while listening to Coldplay’s soundcheck. Before heading back to Rasa’s apartment, we grabbed a coke and some fries from the local McDonald’s which was a church back in the late 1880s. I don’t exactly know what kind of karma comes from turning a church into a McDonald’s but I tend to think even God likes their French fries. We started the long walk back with our fries in hand looking forward to learning more about our host.
We met her at her apartment and immediately she offered a cup of fresh herb tea. She was from Latvia and moved to Norway because Latvia is suffering from a terrible economy, the entire country is corrupt and broke, and there are simply no jobs. She first gave us a cup of fresh peppermint tea. Simple. Peppermint leaves and hot water. It was so freshing. Next, she gave us a cup of tea that was from a flower from a tree in Latvia. She tried to translate it for us but we didn’t quite make it out. It tasted like lemon and honey together. It was simply amazing. I had 3 cups. After taking to Rasa for several hours, we turned in knowing that we had a Fjord tour to get up for that left at 8am. That meant we had to bring our bags with us on the 30 minute walk back into the city. Something we weren’t really looking forward to. So while Bergen wasn’t my favorite city so far, a wonderful evening with Rasa made it all worth it. Next up: Off to the Fjords!