Day 79: Oslo => Flam => Sognefjord => Bergen

The morning started out a bit stressful. We had an early early 6:38am train to catch, but after waiting at the tram stop for a while, we looked at the schedule to discover that the tram just doesn't run that early on a Sunday morning. Eek, we should have checked out the tram schedule last night! Thankfully, eventually a taxi passed by, and we managed to wiggle our way to a slightly lower taxi fare from the super-nice driver ^-^;; After that, we made our train and everything was happy ^o^

Oslo to Bergen is one of the most scenic train routes in Europe (though we only did half of it by train). Right as it got colder, we started seeing more snow, water, falling water, and also some cute towns. We got off the train at Flam and got some food as we waited for a boat to take us the rest of the way.



Fjord: a word that entered my vocabulary during scrabble in college, played by the ever-so-knowledgeable E. Even after that, I never really *knew* what it meant until last year. Explained in the context of something I already knew, it's like Yosemite Valley, except filled with water (both were carved by glaciers).

Here I was, seeing a fjord in person. I can't believe I'm saying it... actually, I was a little underwhelmed. I think it's one of those meeting-of-expectations times. Like our train ride earlier in the day, there was snow, water, falling water, and cute towns, but this time, we were seeing it from water instead of land. Waterfalls falling into water one after another... it was incredible! But there was something missing. We've been to amazingly gorgeous places set on water (e.g. Halong Bay) and my expectations were high. After the exhilarating train ride in the morning, I had even higher expectations >_< Perhaps if we were hiking next to the fjord it would have been different?

Having said all that, I did have a good time. It was cold and super-windy outside the boat. K says this is a really weird-looking picture of me. Of course it is! My face is all distorted by the wind!

I was standing at the very front of the boat at the time and took the picture with one hand while holding on to the railing with the other. I would have been blown back otherwise! I had a tough time keeping my eyes open, too. Once most people actually got to the front of the boat, they started heading back pretty quickly. I stayed there longer than most ^-^ K went out for only a couple of minutes and promptly returned back inside where he could enjoy the scenery from the comfort of his seat. I absolutely loved the wind, but it eventually just became too cold to stay out there!

Typical fjord scenery...



Entering into Bergen harbor was a definite highlight; it all looked so cute from the water! It was 9pm and as expected, there was still plenty of light out.


A few more twitter recaps from Oslo:
- Midnight. Looks like darkness might finally be starting to settle in. Maybe in another hour? (Or two?)
- False friend... applesin = orange!
- Actually, it never really gets fully dark! Nearly there and then haha, just kidding.