Which cheese goes best with reindeer?

As uttered by my husband today in the 7-eleven. We were trying to find a cheese to go with the reindeer meat we bought at the market this morning. Turns out it was a salami-ish reindeer meat. We had an over processed cheese with red pepper and tomato bits in it with the salami-ish reindeer and we ate it on fresh bread from a bread store. Excellent picinic we had, topped off with a cinnamon roll that had sugar over the top instead of frosting. And, all of the breads were more sweet than we`re used to. Very, very yummy. But, I`m getting ahead of myself.

We started the day off lazily. We`d intended to get up around 7:45, and I actually woke up long before then, but Chris was sleeping so soundly and was having a hard time waking up, so I let him sleep for an extra hour or so. I finished reading my book (The 5th Horesman by James Patterson - very good), and by the time he got up, I was ready to go. We hit the fish market. Apparently, it used to be a huge fish market, but these days it`s more stuff for the tourists and less fish. Don`t get me wrong, there were still awesome fish stands, but only 3 of them.

The tourist stands were interesting. We actuall bought a couple of things. A Christmas ornament that looks like the front of a Viking ship, and a bauble for Bob (see, I didn`t forget!). We passed by a fur stand. And by fur, I mean pelts straight of the back of local animals. The one they had the most of was seal. Wow! What a wonderful feeling fur. I found myself feeling bad that it was no longer on the back of a super cute little seal, but they are in abundance here, and probably think of them like we would.....well, I`m not sure what we`d think of, but there`s got to be something. The craziest thing was the full wolf skin, replete with face (minus the eyes, of course...it was only the pelt, after all) and feet. Yes, the feet were still on it, and it was hanging by them. And, to tell the truth, it was creepy. Now, we all know I have no problem with the hunting, but these are things I`m not used to seeing, and it was creepy!

At one of the fish stands, we had a sample of salmon caviar. Yum! I think I liked it more than chris. I felt badnot buying anything after the guy gave us the taste. He had a sign announcing the 7 languages spoken at his booth, so I know it was quite touristy, but still. Never fear, on the other end of the stand, we found salmon sandwiches. Yum!! It was fresh (swimming around yesterday, in my mouth today) and tasty. Smoked salmon (raw, but that`s cool) on bread with some sort of spread. As Rachael Ray would say, Yum-o! We`d also gotten grapes at one of the booth and drank a Norwegian beer with it all. So, at not quite 11:00 in the morning, there we sat, salmon, beer, and grapes. It was perfect!

We were originally on our way to the local TI (the tourist information office, the saving grace of tourists in Europe), so we headed that way after our "breakfast," but not without a detour back to the room to get our Eurail passes. oops! No worries, though. When we came back, the girl who helped us get set up for Norway in a Nutshell tomorrow also told us about an event going on today that would have a parade of drummers at 2:00. I doubt our original helper would have told us about it, and it ended up being very cool. But again, I digress.

We deemed it necessary to see some sort of museum. There are tons here, and the local regular arts museum is HUGE!! So, we went to the Hanseatic Museum. Very interesting. The Hanseatic section of Bergen Dates from the 1300s and is called Brygge (or something close to that). It was where a group of German traders ran business (some small, some large) trading the local catch of fish (mainly cod) here and in other areas of Europe. They were based in Lubeck (yep, been there!), and were here until the mid-1700s when the locals took over the trade. It was fascinating. There were several beds in cabinets (literally) in the upper floors where they also did the business end of things, and the bottom floor was where they took care of the fish. Dried Cod, mostly. Not an attractive fish, if you ask me!

We finished at the museum just in time to head over to the "parade." There is a large open area in the middle of the downtown shopping district. It`s long and wide and has a fountain with reliefs depicting local life. I commented yesterday that it would be the perfect place for a bunch of good Socialists to march. Whaddaya know? That`s where they were marching. We weren`t sure exactly what was going on, but there was a lot of drumming and marching and wee little boys carrying crosses. After they passed us, we moved on ahead a little, and caught up to them. There, I was trying to take a picture and oops! I bumped into a lady (just a little, I promise!). She turned aournd and said something to me in Norwegian after I said sorry. Most people here get that we`re American after just one word and immediately start speaking English (a little unnerving at times, if you ask me!). This lady, not so much, so I said, "Oh, I`m sorry, I`m American, I don`t understand." She just looked at me for a moment and then turned away. Another moment later, she turned back and started talking to me. What a boon! She told me all about what was going on and even pushed me closer to the action to get better pictures (yes, literally pushed me. I have a tendancy to want to stay back in not get in people`s way to get pictures. I am only a hobbyist, after all). I`m glad she did push me, I got some fabulous shots. It turns out that this was the 150th anniversary of a local drum corps. Many of the areas of town have these corps that the boys join when they are quite small ( I swear some were 5). When they are old enough, they start drumming, and when they are 20, they have to quit drumming. They`re still members, but they don`t drum any more. On Saturdays (and somtimes Sundays - they had to make special groups for the families that worked on Sat.), you will see (and more imporatantly hear) them marching all over town. The crosses the little boys were carrying were not crosses at all, but pretend bows, and on their hips they wore a quivver painted in the corps`colors. It was all very cool.

The thing that cracked me up the most was that if they march in the streets, the cars are required to stop for them. I guess they don`t use the sidewalks because they`re too narrow? Whatever the reason, each of the three corps we saw today were in the street (we assume the 3 we heard but didn`t see were the same way). The gal I spoke to was from Bergen originally and now lives in Oslo. She was here for the weekend to help tie up ends from her brother moving into a nursing home. That stuff was finished, so now she was just enjoying. She was so kind...explained the whole thing to me!

After spending waaaay to much time at the parade, we headed back to Brygge and wound our way through the old buildings. They are painted fun colors and crooked and leaning and house lots of interesting shops. We didn`t stop in many because, what do we need? But we did stop in one and bought a poster of the harbor. Very cool. Can`t wait to hang it on the wall.

We intended to go up the funicular, but I remember there was a church I wanted to get a picture of after the parade, and got so into things I plum forgot. Even thought it was on the completely opposite side of town, we headed over. On the way, we wandered into a paper store. Anyone surprised? Anyway, how knew that out the back door was a 5 story mall? I can tell you who, the teenagers. No matter what country you`re in, you can find the teenagers at the mall! We looked around a bit, but didnt`t want to buy anything, so we headed on.

The gal told me that was the University section, and we could really tell the difference. We stopped for a hot dog (more like a sausage, really) at 7-eleven. We have seen no less than 6 of them, including the one in the airport. Guess just `cuz you don`t see them in OK anymore, that doesn`t mean a thing! Let me tell you, it was a great hot dog! We also stopped at a local bread chain, Godt Bread. We both got a pastry (guess you dont`t call them a Danish in Norway) that the girl told us was almond flavored. I guess raisin in Norwegian translates into almond in English. There was no kind of almond in them, and tons of raisns. Blech. I hated it. Should have gone with the carrot cake I originally wanted. But, the church (outside only) was interesting, and we saw a little more of the city (including yet another 7-eleven).

We headed over to the train station to get our Rail Passes validated. Didn`t really need to, just thought it would be one less thing to do tomorrow. Our train leaves at 8:40, and we`re already going to have to get up earlier than Chris would like on vacation (or not on vacation, really!). The stinking station was closed! It was 6:00, and the ticket office was closed. The stinkers! The trains still ran, but you could only buy the tickets from an electronic stand. Oh well, at least we got to see even more of the city!

We finally made it to the funicular up the "mountain." Wow! It was definitely worth the money! What a view over the whole city and harbor. My lens cap slipped out of the bag and off the viewing platform. Thankfully, my knight in shining armor when down through a blocked off area and retrieved it for me (not that I wouldn`t have done it myself, but I was glad I didn`t have to). We walked around a bit, enjoying the gift shop and the super-sized troll before venturing into the forsest a bit. We didn`t go far, but it was gorgeous. We found some trolls carved out of trees and strolled around them. Totally relaxing and fun. We took a ton of pictures of and with them!

We tried to eat at the restaurant at the top of the hill. Ricky recommended it; but it was closed and some well-helled party was making it`s way there. So, down we went. But, not before some rude teenagers decided to not respect the que (that`s Chris`s latest catch phrase) and got the front seat. Grrrrrrr.  We were hungry by this point. Seriously hungry. So, we went to one of the restaurants Ricky recommended. We wanted to try whale. When we finally found it, it was closed. And by closed I mean never openeing again. Darn it! I was really, really hungry, and tired, and my back hurt. So we headed for another restaurant. On the way, we tried to stop at a couple of others, but we couldn`t figure them out (and they had things in English), so we forged ahead....all the way back to the base of the funicular. Which wasn`t where the restaurant was! AAAARRRGGHHHH!!! We were only a couple of streets off, though and we found it without too much effort (a little, but not too much....the addresses are crazy here. they stop on one side of the street, but continue on the other. so, it may be number 20 on one side and number 5 on the other. it`s acutally logical, but not when you`re used to things the way  we do the).

Dinner was fabulous. We totally blew the budget on it, but didn`t care one iota. It was awesome. We shared a smoked salmon appetizer, Chris had reindeer for dinner, I had pan-fried halibut, and we shared apple cake for dessert. Again, yum-o! We even drank wine! Me, I actually drank more than one glass of wine. It was Italian from Puglia, and it even got better as the meal wore on. Wow! Oh, and the waiter was outstanding. We`ve met some wonderful people here. They don`t appear outwardly friendly, but all you have to do is talk to them, and their awesome!

So here we are in another internet cafe. Chris is waiting for me (some might call it impatiently). We`re headed back to the room for him to shower, some packing, and sleepy-time. The alarm rings way too early tomorrow (he has to get up earlier than he does for work).