Bergen, Norway

Bergen's a nice little town to spend a weekend. On Friday touristed around with Tanya, and took a million pictures. A lot of places within town are UNESCO World Heritage sites, and very photogenic. Took the funicular up one of the hills surrounding the town. There's seven hills (ranging from 200m - 300m) about the town, and a couple weekends from now there's a traditional walk of the seven peaks that takes all day, that most of the townspeople participate in. It was also a rather nice day yesterday, one of the sunniest we've had so far.

Went out to an italian restaurant to celebrate Tanya's birthday and also the last night before she took off back for home. Funny thing is, the prices for dinner seem to always be the same whether we eat at a nice restaurant or a cheap one or McDonald's (though we haven't eaten dinner there). Had a few drinks at fusion kaffe&bar, which had a DJ playing old-school New York lounge music.

This morning Tanya took off for the "Norway-in-a-nutshell" tour back to Oslo. I've met up with a couple of people from the Washington Post (Stacey and Michael), and I'm hanging out with them until I leave. Tonight we're going to see Meshell Ndegeocello, one of the shows in the NightJazz festival taking place right now in Bergen.

It was very easy to get tickets. Reserved them over the web, and then went to the post office to pick them up. Yep, the post office. The post office here has reinvented themselves as, amongst other things, the last-mile provider. The last-mile is a common problem of purchasing over the web, how to get the product to the consumer. Well here you go to the post office to pick up your stuff. Which makes sense, the post office has the infrastructure for distribution and physical sites in central locations. Very easy.

Touristed some more around town this afternoon, I am surprised how much there is to see here.

Oh yah, last night I got ID'd when Tanya and I were out bar hopping. The drinking age is 18, which meant they thought I was 17?!? Anyways I don't normally carry photo ID when I'm travelling, but Tanya showed her passport and the guy was surprised at our age and let us in. The show we're seeing tonight is 18+ (I guess because they'll be serving alocohol) so I think I will take my passport just in case.