- Start of day: Over the North Atlantic somewhere?
- End of day: Bergen, Norway (Hotel Park)
Days get a little fuzzy when you’re doing an overnighter.
It’s one of those situations where the bus picks you up at your plane and ferries you to the terminal, which is never fun. In our case they waited until the bus was completely full and then waited another 5 minutes until it was really fucking full. There were two buses right behind us ready for passengers. Incredible service. Anyway, passed through passport control and collected another stamp:
The Icelandic weather outside was wild, alternating between snow storms one minute and bright and sunny the next.
I spend a little time on the world’s most uncomfortable benches:
After close to 4 hours I board my flight for Bergen. This is my meal, which was surprisingly good. The dish on the left is just melted cheese, which I don’t mind at all.
Our flight was smooth, and how about this landing?
On the ground, I wonder if I’ll see my luggage come out on the carousel. It does! Off we go.
The light rail from Bergen airport to my stop, called Nonneseter, takes around 45 minutes, after which I have an 800m or so walk (the last 200m very uphill) to my hotel. This was the first of several hotels which would end up being cool about me checking in early.
The room is small but serviceable, a theme that would persist (by design) through the trip.
Instead of succumbing to my jet lag, I decide to summit a nearby mountain. By which I mean I paid ~$7.50 for a train to take me to the top. The base of the funicular is right in downtown Bergen, an easy 20 walk from the hotel.
The hike down Fløyen is beautiful, and no photo I’m able to take captures it well.
It’s around 300m of downhill, which my legs are not calibrated for. I do it, but the front of my quads and my shins are feeling jelly-adjacent. Meanwhile, I had at least one guy jog past me going up and then pass me going back down, and multiple other hikers and runners going uphill dressed for a casual walk. Mountain people are built different.
I ended the day with some thin-noodles pad Thai near the hotel:
Tomorrow’s plan is to be in the old part of Bergen by 11am for a walking tour I intentionally booked a few days ago so I’d get my ass out of bed. For tonight I’ll pray to the jet lag gods that I can bank some solid sack time.