|
|
We're now in Oslo, definitely a less gorgeous...
July 26, 2007 by Meg in Lytton
We're now in Oslo, definitely a less gorgeous and less charming place than Bergen. It's a bustling city, with public bikes you can borrow that have little transmitters on them and some mechanism for registering them, so life is not totally idyllic. The palace, however, has no gates and the Parliament building takes up 2/3 of a small block that it shares with a women's dress shop for the 20s crowd.
Mikayla is finally nearly better, though still weak, just recovering her appetite and intermittently nauseated. We extended our stay in the lovely hotel in Bergen instead of going on the overnight cruise up the fjord and northward to Alesund. We found out, when we cancelled, that all 3 cruise boats were beset by bad gastrointestinal illness outbreaks so it may have been a silver lining that only Kayla, not all 3 of us, ended up getting sick this trip!
Dick and I did do tourist things in Bergen--rode the funicular to the top on the mtn behind, breathtaking views, walked down the hill past houses squeezed in against the mtn in all orientations, with hairpin streets. I wonder how they manage in the snow?! It may not be all that bad--I met a guy on the train that said it usually gets no colder than about 0 Celcius, I assume because of the Gulf Stream. We also went to the Bryggensmuseum, a collection of excavated remains from Bergen's early days, when it was a collection of houses for fishning trade and then a bigger port that the Hanseatic League, a merchants' guild that ultimately set fish prices and made the rulers beholden to it because of tax revenues it paid.
Also fascinating was the Leper Museum, which was open until the mid 1940s. For some reason, there was a lot of leprosy in Norway, especially along the Western coast. The lepers, as well as anyone with any undiagnosed, ugly skin problem, were isolated in hopitals. Hansen, the Medical Director at the hospital in Bergen, was the first person to isolate the organism, Mycobacterium leprosum. It's is a very noninfectious infection and he tried all sorts of animals models to prove that the organism was the cause of leprosy (only armadilos and some rare bird work, though someone finally grew it on mouse foot pads). There was international skepticism about his theory so, out of frustration, he finally injected the organism into an unwilling female patient (I think he injected himself, the assistant medical director and a few assistants first, without success). She didn't develop the disease but he job as Medical Diractor (he got to stay on as leprosry research director) and the first Norwegian Patient Bill of Rights was deveoped! Ultimately, leprosy was named Hansen's disease. We now have a cure.
As a parting consolation for Mekayla, we bought knit mittens and hat for her in Bergen, then headed to Oslo yesterday (Wednesday) on the wondrous train through extraordinary mountain scenery, past glaciers, through dozens of tunnels chopped through bedrock. Mikayla vomited once, slept lots and was able to walk to dinner (her first meal since we arrived Sunday) to have a little rice. She woke at midnight, hungry, and is ready for breakfast this morning! Great relief here....
Off to the Peace Palace, the Viking ship and the Kon Tiki, etc.
|
|
Generic Heading
July 23, 2007 by Dick in Lytton
PS: Happy Birthday to Adam and Sue!!!
|
|
Hi all! We're in Bergen, Norway! We left from...
July 23, 2007 by Meg in Lytton
Hi all! We're in Bergen, Norway! We left from Newark, NJ airport Sat PM, after driving to Dick's Mom's for lunch and to leave our car. We took Amtrak to the airport and SAS to Stockholm, then on to Bergen. Sweden looks like Minnesota and upper midwest USA--same geologic forces at work.It's flat with lots of lakes, though there are flat, scoured-down mtns. that you can walk on top of, if you don't mind the wind. Norway, on the other hand, is unbelievably mountainous, with snow in spots even now. There are isolated houses and small villages but most of the country seems clustered along the coast. The fjords were created by the weight of snow and ice pushing the river valleys to enormous depths, up to 1250 m, 10 times deeper than most of the Norwegian sea.
Bergen is on a decent-sized plain by the sea but there is a larger "community" spread over many nearby islands and peninsulas. Bergen is lovely,clean from the nearly daily rains. The people nearly all speak English quite fluently (we only had to sign "binoculars")because it is taught from 1st grade on. The language is close enough to English that we figure out some signs. The people have been very friendly and helpful. The country seems very relaxed and accepting, although the tour book says public drunkeness and drunk driving are definite no-nos. Gays seem to be quietly accepted. They haven't been in a war (except The Resistence during WWII), don't have guns and have about 1 murder per week in the entire country.
Fish, meat and dairy are the staples here but we spotted Chinese, Thai, and Mongolian restaurants, as well as (yep, you guessed it) McDonalds and 7-Eleven. No American ice cream or ices--a definite shortcoming.
I sat with 2 young Swedish guys on the flight over--almost flawless English, without accents because lots of TV is in English. Apparently, Conan, Leno and Letterman are big hits. The Scans watch in English but the Germans have it dubbed with German. The Nords and Swedes are not totally enamored of each other. The Swedish guys said Danish is hard to read because they do weird things with consonants and that Finnish is closer to Russian so harder to understand. The Swedes have the same school year and school vacations that we have, with 12 years of school. College acceptance is based strictly on school grades, though school "slackers" can get a second chance by taking a 5 hr one-time exam that is not required if people have good grades. Sports and extra curricular activities have no bearing. University is paid for by the government and is 3 to 5 yrs long, including medicine and law and architecture. Architecture seems a popular career and the designs in our hotel reflect this.
There is a museum about the Hanseatic League era (the League had a monopoly and set fish prices here, even dictating the size and structure of shops). Greigg, whose home is about 7 km from town, is the home-town celebrity.
We haven't seen much of the town yet because Mikayla got sick and is still recovering. She started to vomit as we landed in Stockholm and continued through this AM. She has been sleeping about 2-3 hrs so I hope she'll be better when she wakes(it's 3 PM). We did get in a walk around downtown yesterday. We are arranging to stay here another day and will take an 5 hr fjord trip to Flam, then the famous train trip over the mtns to Oslo on Wednesday. Dick and the hotel and tour people have been great about quick plan changes.
As usual, this has been one of my over-long posts but I'll use it for our journal too.
Meg
|
|
Older Posts
|
|