Saturday 24 March 2001

Pic of the day: A picture from the farm, taken during my visit there. As you can see, it is like a website: Constantly under construction unless something else is said.

My trip to the city

My father drove me to the express boat, and started quite early. We both prefer being early, but we left so early that Cassie got no time to log on and save the latest news for me. Luckily I have had plenty of other things to read; and I've also been writing as much as I dare for my hands. (Uhm, that's dare for my hands, not write for my hands. I guess I write for my eyes only, since this was fiction.)

When taking the boat to Bergen, we usually just say that we go to the City. For centuries, Bergen have been The City for much of the west coast, including pretty much the whole province of Sogn & Fjordane. (If memory serves, the province was earlier known as Nordre Bergenshus Amt, or The Northern Province of the House of Bergen.) There is officially a city in the province, actually there may be more now since virtually any municipality with property taxes can call itself a city these days. But when people just say "the City", they mean Bergen.

Bergen is a solemn and mature city, quite unlike the current capital, Oslo. Even the drunkards have style. And now Bergen is also the world's first city with umbrella dispensers in public places. Just insert a smart card and out pops an umbrella. Free umbrella cards were thrown to the cheering crowd today at the official inauguration or some such. But today, typically, the sun kept shining from a cold blue sky. So they had to play The Weather Girls very loudly to get into the spirit. (The song was of course It's raining men, which incidentally includes the line "leave those umbrellas at home!" ...)

Unlike the otherwise excellent Kristiansand, Bergen boasts at least two Burger King fast restaurants. Their Wopper Cheese is simply superior, though their shakes are no better than McDonald's in my taste. Spending more than 10 hours in Bergen, I ate not one but two of the tasty burgers. The last one was actually to gain access to their lavatory, but the burger was OK too. This should be most of the food I need for my 30 hour trip ... Actually one might have been enough. I eat quite little when I travel, for the sake of my digestion. It is easily confused and less than effective when I'm tossed and shaken for hours on end, and I often get sick after a voyage.

I also got to see Bergen's bauekorps (bowyer corps), the city's child militia. Actually the children march with toy weapons, but there's no doubt that the proud citizens of Bergen stick to their right to bear arms. I am not sure if other cities have similar traditions, I have not seen them. These are not musical marching bands - only the drums accompany rows of boys parading dummy crossbows, rifles and a few rapiers. Not quite up to date in weapons technology, but I guess it is the thought that counts.

I am writing this at 9PM at Bergen railway station. The place is almost empty. I can't help but compare to other railway stations I have seen here in Norway, where drunk and bothersome men congregate at times like this to compete in public display of obnoxious stupidity. Bergen is not like other cities - it has pride.