Now, if I had my pictures on flickr better organized (see Our Trip To and From Bergen after you click the link with jzkfeld at the bottom of this post), or had kept a proper log when I took them, you would know exactly where each was taken and whether on the way or on the way back. Alas, no such luck (except that the pictures from Bergen proper are clearly from Bergen proper). I was too busy taking in the spectacular scenery to carefully note each time I went "click."
On our first day of traveling, my tummy rebelled at the curvy roads; a rarely indulged-in Coke helped a bit (though not, I regret to say, enough). However, said tum seemed to acclimate so that our return trip on Saturday and Sunday, with a stopover in Loen, was infinitely better.
It was an unusually sunny day in Bergen on Friday, and quite warm, perfect for walking. We also had the pleasure of youthful company: Halvard's son Magnus and his wife Elizabeth, who are both studying for their Masters degrees in Bergen, met us at 11 at our hotel and were our guides for the entire day, ending with dinner at a Chinese restaurant. We started out at the harbor where we strolled among the old wooden Hanseatic buildings on the wharf. I learned something about what I'd wondered about... the widespread use of wood in buildings in Norway (from stave churches onward) and how some of them have lasted for such a very long time; isn't wood subject to rotting? It seems wood does indeed sometimes rot; apparently salt accidentally preserved some wooden buildings and repairs or reconstruction may involve timbers floated in sea water--at least in the case of these structures on the wharf. From the harbor, we set out for nearby Hakons Hall, originally erected in the 13th century by King Hakon Hakonsson for ceremonial and daily use, falling into disuse during the centuries without a monarchy, used as storage, eventually for Bergenhus Castle, restored and refurbished at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, destroyed except for the walls when a German ammunition ship exploded in the harbor in 1944, and restored again. While we were looking at a curious gargoyle, Magnus was reminded of an interesting story about a statue of the archangel Gabriel on the cathedral at Trondheim; apparently the sculpture who was commissioned for the job used Bob Dylan's face as the model for the archangel. Talk about popularity!
On our stroll, we passed a statue of a famous Norwegian violinist--Ole Bull. Below the statue there is a mythic figure--as Elizabeth explained--with a kind of harp. It seems this somewhat demonic figure is associated with the idea that Ole Bull "sold his soul" in exchange for receiving his very great musical talent. I wondered if this juxtaposition undermines the very tribute to the violinist implied in the creation of the statue. After talking with Elizabeth, and later with a very interesting anthropology graduate student with whom I went to the National Gallery, as well as with Heidi, I came to the conclusion that there is a certain ambiguity in the statue. I learned that Ole Bull's talents were so great that people went into a kind of frenzy or even fainted when he played; thus, the mythic figure may be saying something like "his gifts were so great, he could only have gotten them from a demon" in a somewhat humorous way. On the other hand, there was such a negative attitude toward music and dancing on the part of extreme pietistic sects in Western Norway, that they may have believed more literally that such music was from the dark powers! Not quite knowing how to take this statue is, I guess, just an example of being just a bit outside Norwegian culture.
After lunch we decided we would like to see the Bergen Aquarium, all of us being fond of watching seals, penguins, and fish. I was amaze
d to discover a pacifier depository in the carp pond (Karpedammen). Note the picture!Children are apparently encouraged to give up their pacifiers by depositing them in this pond (and you can see them, too, though I did not see a carp with a pacifier in its mouth). Was this another example of the culture of the welfare state? The state (or is it the city or the equivalent of a county?) steps in to help parents help their children grow up? Quite extraordinary! (By the way, I'd recently discovered that the state DOES help people not to get inebriated after work or on the weekends. Supermarkets cannot sell alcohol later in the evening--after 8 o'clock on weekdays and after 6 o'clock on Saturdays, I believe.)
Altogether a very lovely day. Interesting conversations with Magnus and Elizabeth throughout. I was particularly interested in Elizabeth's anecdote about her brother's school's accommodation with the wishes of a Muslim girl's parents. (Her brother is the vice principal.)
Apparently, the girl's father did not want her to play co-ed sports or take showers with all the other girls. But Elizabeth's brother was eventually able to convince him to allow her to play sports with the boys, while at the same time granting his other wish by providing separate shower facilities for two Muslim girls. I've heard other stories, as well, with examples about problem-solving and the development of trust on an ad hoc basis, like this one. But the issue of the integration of Muslim immigrants into Norwegian society is much too complex to go into here.
Water is never far away in Norway--fiords, lakes, rivers (calm or full of rapids). At the lower elevations, delicate birches blazed bright yellow among the evergreens in lush valleys; the higher elevations without trees had their own stark beauty. Even there, we saw the occasional small dwelling. For a while I thought that some Norwegians might have had their "hytte" or cabin in these cold high spots (population density seems so low, and farmhouses are widely dispersed rather than clumped; Norwegians don't seem to mind isolation at all), but I soon learned that these dwellings were used by those pasturing their sheep in the summer at the higher elevations. New word for me: transhumance. See the links for pictures of the magnificence.
