Novice Nomad: May 2013

Second day exploring Bergen today. We met up with Ina & Katrine and went to Bryggen and the fish market. While we were waiting to cross the street to go get something to eat, a middle-aged asian woman walked up to all of us and pointed at her husband who had a camera. At first we thought she wanted us to take a picture of them. It took a while to figure it out because she didn't speak a word of English or Norwegian but we soon found out that nope, she wanted to take a picture with us. So we took a picture with some random lady....then we figured why not? and we took a picture with her and her husband. Probably the funnies part of the day. Why did she want to take a picture with us do you ask? We have no idea....most likely guess is that she thought we were famous, or crazy looking.
After our random picture incident and lunch we walked around the area some more and ended up at Bergen's fortress. Udara and I were amazed by it and had a fun time looking around and taking pictures. We all talked about the fact that awe towards a place or event or anything really is subjective to how you grew up and where you are from. Seeing someone else experience something for the first time that you see all the time really helps you to see your surroundings in a new way. This is exactly how I felt showing Ina around places in California, it makes you appreciate what is around you!
More exploring of Bergen tomorrow! Maybe some hiking? Who knows!

Fortress...legit door!

Part of the fortress

Taking pictchaaaaz

Our new tourist friends ;) (I'm cracking up)

Walkway to the fortress

The wait is over, after over a year of planning and waiting the summer we have been hoping would come faster is finally here. Udara and I are off on our adventure. This first post will be a long one because I have some catching up to do!
Summer was kicked off with my cousin Melissa & Luke's wedding in Colorado. It has been a while since I have been to a state outside California so it was a nice change! Always fun seeing the CO Georges too. (I guess CO George/Fraizers now!) The morning after the wedding the family left our hotel at 5:30AM CO time (4:30AM CA) to go to the Denver airport to start my day of travel. Once at the LAX airport we met up with Udara at the American Airlines terminal only to find out that our flight was United, at the terminal our flight from Denver had landed in. First bump in the road! We had a quick flight to San Francisco, after we finally got into the air. We were delayed about 30 minutes on the ground waiting in the plane on the runway to take off. (Bump #2) This delay caused us to have 15 minutes to make our next flight, 10 after we got off the flight and spoke to the United clerk to hold the flight. On our way to our gate we asked an airport officer where our gate was and guess what?? Bump #3! It was his first day and he had no idea. We were those girls...running across the airport frantically looking at the signs to figure it out. I guess eventually everyone is in that position sometime or another. But we made it, barely. They were about to call our names when we (speed/sped) walked to the gate, last ones there for the flight. But, that did mean we didn't have to wait around in the terminal for our next flight! So we were off to Copenhagen, and I was hitting my halfway mark for travel, about 13 hours in out of my eventual 27. Once to Copenhagen we found our gate to Bergen and went through passport security without a problem. Finally landed in Bergen aaaand, bump #4, Udara's bag is missing. They still haven't found it.
But, even though we had to jump through a few hoops to get here, WE MADE IT! Ina & Sondre picked us up at the airport, I can't believe it has been two years since Ina and I have seen each other, two years too long!!! We arrived at Marken Gjesthuse as I hit the 27th hour.
Two days ago (our arrival day/Tuesday) we used an elevator with a gate for the first time, that was cool :) Marken is a really good hostel, a good first hostel I hear as most have told me that this is very nice. We were pretty tired so we settled in & went right to sleep.
Today we wandered around Bergen with nowhere in particular in mind. We stumbled upon Johanneskirken(church), Bergen's city park & a museum of religious history at a university (which we got into free with Udara's student ID) There was one interesting exhibit called 'animals you wouldn't want to see in real life.' Freaky. After our day of exploring we walked to Ina and Sondre's apartment (where we got buzzed in, we are from Lake Forest its exciting, OK?) then to Nygårdsparken for a BBQ, chicken & shrimp skewers, corn, salad, & potato salad. Good stuff! We walked back to our hostel at 9:30 PM and it was still light out, weird (and convenient) that we can walk home late and still see everything around us!