A new country for me!

After a comfortable but very short night at an airport hotel, I caught a shuttle to the airport at 5:40 AM. My bag was slightly overweight, but they let it go. After checking in, I got eggs and smoked salmon for breakfast. It was delicious, but an enormous amount of salmon, actually more than I could eat! I snapped a picture of Reykjavik as we left. It's not a very big city, though it feels bigger when you are driving through. The flight to Bergen was only 2 hours, and it was cloudy the entire trip. I think I'm also 2 hours further ahead, which makes it 6 hours later than Virginia now. (It's almost noon here, which makes it almost 6 AM on the east coast.)

Reykjavik from the air

Bridge I flew over as I approached Bergen

After I got my luggage, I discovered that Norwegian customs are...different. (I mean entering the country type customs.) I went through the door that said Nothing to Declare and found myself outside. No passport control at all, which means no stamp in my passport. 🙁 Oh, and Norwegian signs for the restrooms are also different.

John met me outside. I'd seen his picture, but I didn't recognize him, but he recognized me, so it was okay. I guess I should explain the connection. His father was a musician (singer) and my mom really liked his music. She tracked him down about 20 years ago, and they became friends, emailing daily. She started coming over to visit, and came every year for a while, staying with Henrich (I may be spelling his name wrong) and his wife Kari. They had 2 adult children, John and Astrid. Astrid and I became friends and she visited the US once. (I took her to Golden Corral, to experience a US smorgasbord. I wrote about this at the time, as I don't think she ever got over the experience.) She and I stayed in touch, and, tragically, she died last year, far too young. (It was not Covid-related.) Earlier this year, John asked me what was happening with Mom. During that conversation, I commented that I'd love to meet him some time, and he said, come on over! I did! I'm staying in Astrid's apartment, which is part of the house where my mom visited (both of John's parents are dead now). John and Renate are in one part, I'm in Astrid's apartment, and John's son lives in the third apartment, with his partner and adorable two year old daughter.

Anyway, back on track. It is much warmer here (high 50s yesterday), but it was pouring rain. I wish there were some way to explain the streets in this neighborhood. It felt like coming through a (very narrow) maze of streets to find the apartment. I have a pretty good sense of directions, but this place might defeat me. I tried doing a Google maps image, but it makes the streets look much bigger than they are. We came to the apartment and hauled my stuff in. It's very spacious, and mine for the duration of the visit. I've already spread my stuff out all over the place.

I got to meet everyone else, including a lovely dog (who likes me as much as I like him) and many cats. There are even some adorable 3 week old kittens (pictures later).

John took me to the grocery store to get food for dinner and so I could stock my apartment with some essentials. It was a good sized store, but not large. I'd like to go back and take some pictures of the more unusual items. I got a good variety of things, from yogurt and fruit to coffee and cider. I also found the cured lamb slices like the kind I tasted at our fancy dinner at Slippurinn Restaurant in the Westman Islands. I can't wait to try that again! After I got back and put the food away, I slept for a couple of hours, until John texted me that dinner is ready. He says I need to try real Norwegian food, and had made meatballs, fish cakes, potatoes, and cauliflower. There was also a sauerkraut in a packet, and it's different from what I'm used to, sweeter with caraway seeds. I ate everything! John is working nights while I'm here, so that he can show me around during the day, something I hadn't expected. He drives a cab, and he and his son have two electric vehicles, a Mercedes van and a Tesla, that they drive for work.

I finally got some laundry done. I hadn't run out of clothes yet, but I was getting close—of course, that was my fault, since almost every campground I stayed in had a washer and dryer available. I am not sure what settings I used on the washer and dryer, since Google translate failed me there (and I was too tired to care). I used a portable hanger rack for my wool things anyway—after all the money I've spent on wool shirts and socks, I'm not about to wreck them by drying them on the wrong heat setting!

I did see a variety of gastropods outside the apartment. I took some cell phone pics, and will try to get better shots later.

That was it for me for the night. I loved everything I did in Iceland, but it was nice to have a quiet night in a bed, and to sleep as long as I need to to get caught up. We are heading to a nearby fjord shortly. Later today, I'll figure out what I'm going to do next week. I'd thought about flying to Tromsø in the far north and driving back, but that would be super expensive with the one-way travel. If I instead book a round trip flight to Tromsø and rent a car for a week, it will be less than half the cost of a one way flight and dropping the car off at a different location! I looked at Airbnb, and there seems to be a good range of places to stay that are not expensive.

I think my biggest wish for a do-over would be with my carry-on luggage. I bought a new camera backpack from Peak Design for the trip, bigger than my old one. It's a great bag, but wheels are the only way to go when you've got to hike through airports. I'm actually hoping to find an inexpensive wheeled carryon that the backpack will fit in for the rest of the trip. Luckily, I can resell the backpack when I get home, as I don't think I'll want to use it again—certainly not for air travel! My back and shoulders wouldn't survive it!