My trip to Norway

In March 1992, I made a trip to Norway with two of my flatmates (one of whom was Norwegian). It was my first time abroad!

My photos from the trip are stuck in an old album that would be difficult to scan, so I thought it would be fun to show my drawings and paintings instead (although some of them were done from photos when I got home!).

We took the ferry to Bergen, taking my mum's carrot cake and some large bottles of cola to sustain us. When we got to Bergen we stayed at the beautiful (and book-filled!) home of my flatmate Erlend's parents.

View from Erlend's parents' house

We took the funicular up Mount Floyen, which gave great views out over Bergen, explored the centre of Bergen, including Bryggen (a street of old wooden buildings next to the water), went to the fish market, and to Bergen Aquarium.

One day we went skiing (it was my first and only time!). Another day we took the cable car up Mount Ulriken, which had some snow at the top and also had fantastic views (this is the painting at the top of this post). We looked around some of the islands, exploring them in my flatmate (boyfriend of the time!) John's red Mini. And the children would shout "Cool car, cool car!" as we passed by! 

Erlend's dad was the head of a lab at the Fisheries Directorate, so we got a chance to look round there (which was interesting to me because I was studying Chemistry!) and his mum was a teacher so we also got a look round the school she worked in. Both buildings seemed very modern to me

Grieg's house

We visited Grieg's house. We also visited a couple of stave churches, which are beautiful old wooden churches.

A Stave church

We took a ferry along the stunning Sognefjord, and spent the night by the fjord at the home of some old relatives of Erlend. They didn't speak any English, and the only Norwegian John and I knew was "Takk for maten" (thank you for the meal). They did teach us to count in Norwegian, though!

Huge statue of Fridtjof in Vangsnes by Sognefjord

We ate lots of lovely food, but I ate far too many dill flavoured crisps, and sickened myself of the taste of dill for life! I also discovered another flavour that didn't agree with me... Norwegian brown cheese!

Another thing I remember is seeing people sunbathing at the side of the road in the mountains, in snow that was deeper than they were tall!