The Cosmaustinite: Bergen and Norway in a Nutshell

As far as I'm concerned, Norway is the land of beauty. Beautiful people surrounded by beautiful landscapes. And Bergen is a beautiful town.

We found a little fair near these iconic buildings. I think it may have been a pancake festival. Pancakes were the most popular food at the fair. At about $3 this may be how the Bergeners deal financially and emotionally with sky high cost of living.

They also had little fish (pan)cakes that cram into your face real easy.

We also found a book store cafe, Krog og Kringel Bokcafe. There are a lot of great pastries in Norway but these had the best I've tasted.

A chocolate hazelnut cake that tasted like it had some really soft brittle in it. Goddam! Food costs range from 2-3x anywhere I've ever lived. Luckily a really nice girl from Madrid mistook me for Spanish at first (first of two people to make that mistake this day) and convinced her grillmaster to throw an extra piece of fish on our fresh lunch.

This is the most expensive city I've ever been to, which makes for a very sad little $10 half pint with dinner.

We left Bergen for Oslo but the day was really about the journey. There is a direct train from Bergen to Oslo but our "Norway in a Nutshell" journey took a train to a bus to a ferry to a train to another train. This public transportation tour took us through the Norwegian countryside and the Sognefjord, a series of steep mountains and cliffs along an inlet. All of it was carved out by glaciers a few years ago.