voss, flåm and bergen, norway

oh, geez, this place is AMAZING!!!! if it were further south, i'd move here. it's a bit chilly, about as cold as i ever like it to get, so thankfully i am wearing a shortsleeve shirt, longsleeve shirt, midweight fleece, and a rain-windbreaker. but today is mostly sunny, which is a huge blessing!! it rained yesterday, which made the trail i was on to see a waterfall a little slippery, adn i fell. but the waterfall was awesome, and i made it back in one piece, with just a few scrapes and bruises.

i went kayaking on the fjords tuesday. thankfully, another good weatther day, and not too cold. it was AWESOME!! we put into nærøysfjord and went up about halfway to a little farm place for lunch. we made a fire and cooked the best pork chops i've ever had (sorry mom) and fed the sheep GORP (raisins and peanuts). it was really spectacular and i took over 150 pictures. woohoo!!

yesterday i took the bus to gudvangen, near where we kayaked the day before and i took the 2 hr ferry up that fjord and down the next. we landed in flåm, and i walked around town and up to the waterfall. when i started hiking is when it started raining. i didn't like flåm much, there wasn't anything to do but shop in the now closed stores or hike, which i'd had my fill of. so i took the next train up the mountain to myrdal. THAT was amazing. the trainride, that is. it goes up over 850m in 20k, and had spectacular views as it criss-crossed the valley. unfortunately, i didn't check the train schedule close enough and had to wait in the rain and fog at myrdal for the train. but it was beautiful and reminded me a lot of tasmania. i was the only one there, too, so i could put on my ipod and sing aloud along with it. i did make it back to my hostel in voss ok and made a nice warm cup of tomato soup.

today i took the train into bergen, on the west coast. i walked around town, saw the beautiful churches and headed for the torget, the fish market. it reminded me of the fish market in sydney, but that's just because that's the only other fish market i've ever been to. this city is amazing. i think if you crossed seattle with colorado, this is what you'd get. sweetness. well, i walked thru the old wooden buildings part of town up to the fort on the hillside and watched a big ship load up. then i took the train-thingy up the hill to hike around the mountains a bit before heading back down to catch my overnight train to oslo.