Still in Norway

Hi Everyone!

This is just a really quick blog to let you all know that I'm still in Norway, still having a great time. I have still been very lucky with the weather so far, and today is another beautiful sunny day (too nice to be indoors typing a long, detailed blog). I've finished my cruise on the Hurtigruten (saw some amazing coastline and had a great time), and I'm currently in Stavanger visiting Ryan and doing some sightseeing. I leave on Thursday morning and arrive back in Oslo Thursday night (hopefully the train ride will be less eventful than my trip from Oslo to Stavanger last week, but more on that later), and fly to Rome on Friday morning.

Anyway, I hope you're all well wherever you are reading this from. My inbox was full of junk mail and not a lot else today, so hopefully that will all change the next time I check it... ;)

Love,
Lis x.

Bergen

Hi Everyone!

I arrived in Bergen a little after 11pm on Friday night, and caught a bus from the airport to the city centre. My hotel was only a short walk from the central bus station, which I was pleased about, as I was tired again after another long day.

I woke up on Saturday morning and looked out my fourth floor window and fell in love with Bergen instantly. It is a really beautiful city. From my window, there are coloured houses across the street, behind which you can see the mountains which are covered in snow and more coloured houses. It is very picturesque!

The view outside my hotel room window

After having a shower, etc, I walked down the street to a bakery where I had a fruit bun and coffee for breakfast. I then walked to the Tourist Office to see if I could get some ideas on how to spend the 3 days I have here in Bergen, and to see if I could get a decent street map.

After visiting the tourist centre, I decided to make the most of the fine weather and catch the funicular up Mt Floyen. At the top, there is a viewing platform with a spectacular panorama over the harbour and the surrounding mountains and fjord. I was accompanied by other tourists and some locals , who had brought along their tobogans and skis and looked to be having a great time at the top. I suspect that many of them just brought a one-way ticket up and were planning on sliding or skiing the way down.

View from the top of Mt Floyen

The funicular going back down the mountain

The view of Bergen

Me on the viewing platform at Mt FloyenThe view from a behind the café on top of Mt Floyen

After catching the funicular back down to the bottom, (where the line to go up the funicular was packed!) I had a walk along Bryggen, the oldest part of Bergen, and a Unesco World Heritage-listed area.

Bryggen

I also walked along by the fish market and had lunch at a tapas bar down by the wharf. In the afternoon, I wandered through some of the streets in the central area of the city.

The Fish Market

At 4:30 this morning, I was woken by some very loud dance music and the thumping of what could have only been a herd of baby elephants having a disco in the room above mine. I didn't get back to sleep until after 6am, so I decided that I deserved a sleep in this morning, so it turned out that I had my breakfast at about lunch time!

It was such a lovely day again today that I didn't feel like being cooped up inside a museum all day, so I spent the day wandering around the streets again, just soaking up the vibe of the Sunday afternoon. I wandered a little further from the city centre, out towards the aquarium (not to visit, just to have a look). There were so many people out, including lots of families who appeared to be having fun again with their winter sport gear.

A totem pole behind the Aquarium

A street in Bergen

Another street in Bergen

I had an early dinner tonight at a lovely seafood/sushi restaurant. The seafood here is (unsurprisingly) good.

Tomorrow I plan on checking out one or two of the museums, before I catch the Hurtigruten and start my voyage north!

Hope to hear from you all soon,
Love,
Lis x.

Prague

I feel very lucky! I set my alarm for 2:15am on Tuesday morning so that I could check my airline website, the London Gatwick website, the Gatwick Express website, the National Express website, and phone Easyjet (voice recording only at that time of day) and Gatwick Express (an actual operator believe it or not!) to find out if my flight was expected to go ahead, and if so, how I could get to the airport. After doing all of the above, I couldn't find any concrete evidence that my flight was cancelled, so set off to catch the 3:30am National Express coach to London Gatwick.

There had been no buses running the previous day in London, so I was also a bit unsure as to whether the coach was going to be running at all, but the alternative was to pay about seventy pounds for a taxi, or wait until 5:30am when the first Gatwick Express was due to leave and risk not getting to the airport in time for check-in.

There were several other people waiting at Victoria Coach Station when I arrived, so I took that as a good sign, and thought that at least I'd have a few people to share a taxi with if it came down to it! The bus did arrive, and it did get us to the airport in good time (although it looked a bit doubtful for a few minutes when the driver stopped to pick up a colleague, and we got a bit stuck in the snow!). My flight even boarded on time, although we did sit on the tarmac for a while whilst they did some de-icing (whether it was to the plane, the runway, or both, I don't know- I was asleep by then).

So, that is one of the reasons why I feel very lucky, after all the fuss the snow caused in London the previous day, I was quite convinced that I wouldn't be going to Prague after all!

Prague was lovely. After checking into my hotel- which was in a great location in the centre of town- I made my way to the Old Town, first stopping at a bakery for some lunch. I then walked to the Old Town Square where I watched the Astronomical Clock do it's thing. I wandered around the streets, checked out a little street market, walked over the Charles Bridge, then back to my hotel again where I got ready for dinner- which I had next door at the Palladium, a shopping centre which had quite a few restaurants on the top floor. I had fajitas at a Mexican restaurant. I had an early night that night, as I was feeling quite exhausted after my early morning.

The Old Town Square

The Astronomical ClockThe Old Town SquareView from Charles Bridge of Prague CastleCharles Bridge

The next day I decided to check out the New Town section of Prague. I walked to Wenceslas Square (Václavské námestí in Czech) which is the main shopping area of Prague. At the end is the huge National Museum, and a statue of King Wenceslas on his horse. Inside one of the shopping plazas, there is another statue of King Wenseslas on his horse.

Wenceslas Square (more of a street, really)

King Wenceslas on his horseThe National MuseumKing Wenceslas on his other horse

I walked back to the Old Town Square, where I got a potato pancake from a street vendor. It was quite greasy, but very flavoursome- I think there was quite a bit of garlic in it! I then went to the Palladium Shopping Centre and had a look around the shops (and I'm pleased to announce that I didn't buy anything, not even a pair of shoes!).

Strangely, I felt a bit jet-lagged that afternoon (that one hour time difference sure can knock you about!) so I decided to pretend that I was in Spain and had a bit of a siesta. In the evening, I went to a Japanese restaurant in the Palladium. I didn't eat all that I ordered and got a little bit of a telling off I think by the waiter for ordering too much (he did it very nicely though).

The Municipal House (Obecní dum)

A tram whizzing past The Palladium

On my last full day, I decided that I should make an effort to see some of the attractions and sites that Prague has to offer, and was walking to the Jewish Quarter when I spotted a free walking tour in English that was obviously just about to start. I decided to join that instead, as although it took me to many of the sites I'd seen the previous 2 days, it gave me a bit more background information which made it a bit more interesting. Our guide's name was Jenna and she was a Prague local. She had a funny way of speaking, so that it seemed like she was telling a ghost story most of the time, even if it was just a piece of history. She was about my age I am guessing and she was quite young when Czechoslovakia was a communist country. She told us that she couldn't remember a lot, but that she could remember lining up to buy bananas at Christmas time, and that her mother would line up separately from her and tell her that from that moment she wasn't her mother and didn't know her, until they would meet up again outside the shop with enough bananas for everyone for Christmas (they were only allowed to buy 1kg each).

The tour finished up at the Jewish Quarter, where Jenna pointed out a few places that we might like to go for lunch to experience some traditional Czech food. I went to a pub, where I had the beef goulash which was served with dumplings and potato cakes. I washed it down with a Pilsner, the most famous Czech beer.

After lunch, I continued on my sight-seeing by visiting the Spanish Synagogue, the Pinkasova Synagogue, the Old Jewish Cemetery, and the Ceremonial Hall. The inside of the Spanish Synagogue was lavishly decorated, in the style of the Alhambra (which is why it's called the Spanish Synagogue). Inside is also the Jewish Museum, which gives a history of Jewish life in Prague.

A statue of Franz Kafka outside the Spanish Synagogue

The walls of the Pinkasova Synagogue is covered with the names, dates of birth and dates of death of the 80,000 or so Czech Jews who were killed in the Holocaust. Upstairs were displays of artwork which were done by some of the children at Terezín, a concentration camp from where the inmates were sent to the gas chambers. The pictures had labels which gave the name, date of birth and date of death of the child who had created it. There were only one or two of which after the date of birth there was written survived. Seeing the names on the walls covering every square inch, gave some kind of perspective of the number of Jewish people who were executed during the Second World War. And this was just the amount of people from Czechoslovakia, just a fraction of the total number.

The Pinkasova leads onto the Jewish Cemetery, where there are an estimated 100,000 people buried. It is such a small space, they are buried one on top of the other, and the tombstones are arranged in a random manner, all over the ground. The Ceremonial Hall, just outside the Cemetery houses displays about Jewish traditions on burial and death.

The Old Jewish Cemetery

From the Jewish Quarter, I caught the metro to The Zizkov TV tower. This tower was originally built during the communist era to jam West German television transmissions. It has odd sculptures of babies climbing over it, which reminded me of some toys I used to collect. I can't remember what they were called, but you bought a little packet which you couldn't see into, which had a little figurine of a baby inside which was wearing a nappy. There were lots of different babies to collect, it was like a lucky dip every time!

Inside the Metro Station

Zizkov TV tower (complete with babies)The babies on Zizkov TV tower

I bought a ticket to visit the eighth floor of the tower, as there is an amazing view of Prague from it. Apparently. I could only see the surrounding streets clearly, as it was quite a cold, overcast day, and it was starting to get late by that stage, so all I could see was haze in the New and Old Town, which is what I was most interested in seeing. The surrounding streets were quite nice though, with lots of colourful, tall apartment buildings in them.

I really enjoyed Prague. It is a city with an interesting history and some lovely examples of different architecture. It is also very cheap!

I managed to catch my flight back to London with only a very short delay, and spent 8 hours at London Gatwick, drinking tea and coffee and trying to fill in time before my flight left for Bergen.

More Snow

Hi Everyone!

Just a quick update. On Thursday night, a few of us from the vet clinic in West Bromwich went out for dinner at Chiquitos, a Mexican restaurant in Birmingham. We had a lovely meal and a great night. It was nice to have a social gathering before I left the clinic. On Saturday morning, I finished up at work and headed to Jess and Andrew's house in Hitchin. It was quite sad to leave the clinic for the last time, but I know that I'll be back to visit one day, if I'm ever back in the UK.Jess and Andrew picked me up from the train station on Saturday afternoon and we went to a movie that evening. We saw Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, which was very enjoyable. That night we had Chinese takeaway for dinner.

Yesterday morning after breakfast, we went to a Greyhound Rescue Centre, where we took a few of the dogs out for a walk. In the evening, we went out to a pub for dinner. It was a lovely meal, and I have to say that I had one of the best desserts I think I've ever had- it was called a Tiramisu plate, but only because it was made up of the chocolate and coffee flavours, not because it was an actual tiramisu.

All yesterday Andrew was wishing for snow (because he is a teacher he gets a day off school if it's heavy enough), and this morning he got his wish... it has snowed heavily all over England. It has been particularly heavy in London which has played havoc with the transport system. I did manage to catch a train in to London and get across the city to my hotel on the Underground, but I have little hope that I'll get to the airport tomorrow morning or even if my plane will be taking off to Prague! Many flights were cancelled today from all of London's airports, and the Gatwick express was not running to or from the airport.

After checking into my hotel this afternoon, I went for a walk around the streets of Westminster and took some photos.Hopefully my next blog will be about Prague - if I ever get there!

Love,
Lis x.