Copenhagen with Louise

So on my sightseeing day in Copenhagen with Louise, we go on this boat tour. And the ONE thing I know about, and want to see there is the statue of the Little Mermaid.

Which is, conveniently, currently in China for 10 months!!! SUCKFEST! Nice boat tour though.

Lame replacement sign for mermaid statue, lol :)

While we were on the boat trip, there was a small child. A few actually, but one in particular. I had actually given up trying to learn all the languages I was exposed to on this trip, mostly because I changed countries every three days, and with that came new money AND a new language with a bunch of new vowels.... ANYWAY.

There was ONE sentence that I actually kept in mind that could almost (with small changes in pronounciation) pass through all of Norway, Sweden and Denmark, and I knew I had succeeded in my ONE sentence, when this small child turns to her parents, and says in Danish;

"Ar vi das nacht?"

(spelling wrong, I know...)

And I TOTALLY turned to Louise and said, "Did... she just say what I... think she said???"

YES!!

I totally understood a Danish child speaking Danish!!! Like, the exact WORDS of my sentence, not even something similar!!!!!! She said my actual sentence -

"Are we there yet?????"

I could hear the crowds cheering at my brilliant success for a week afterwards..... I totally understood a Danish child. Take THAT random foreign languages, HAH! Yes I know, it's very sad that I choose the randomest phrases to memorise... At least I didn't ask how to say "I want to steal your bike" or, "your shoelaces are untied"....

'nuff said...

Giant church type place that I forget the name of...

Guards at the place where the royal family lives. What's with these guys and their hats???

After the boat tour, we rode around the place on bikes. And there was an observatory in the middle of the city that was a few hundred years old, and had a RAMP up to the top so that a horse and carriage could drive someone up there!!! It was sweet. There were little niches in the walls every so often, so people could get out of the horses way I assume! But the Observatory itself wasn't open on the day I went there!!!! NOOOOO! So I couldn't look through the telescope. (sad face) But I got a good view of the city - lots of red roofs, and random pointy buildings spread around.

Me in a niche at the observatory :) You can kinda see the ramp...

Louise and her bike :)

After all that, I bought a bunch of candy at the shops, INCLUDING this really thin chocolate that you put on your toast!!!!! AND IT WAS FAIR TRADE!!!! SO awesome, lol!!! mmmm chocolate on toast.... Pity they don't export it yet, SO not cool!

Bergen

I liked Bergen. Reminded me of Vancouver - west coast, sea on one side and mountains on the other. And all the times I've been to Vancouver it's been sunny too, so there's another one.

This is a big sculpture thing made of metal - I took many photos of it :)

This is the reason it was so hard to find my way around :) Street names are death...

These are some really old buildings that break all the building codes I've ever heard of, lol. Google "Bryggen" it's heritage listed I think.

This is me smiling with scenery in the background. I think this is up the top of a hill where there is a fort :)

And this is the front of Bryggen. This is on a bunch of postcards.

So that was Bergen in a nutshell! Very nice place, good hostel. Tah dah!

Norway in a Nutshell pics :)

First, here is the river in Flam - where I stayed a night at the Hostel.


After Flam, there was a ferry trip around the Fjord. This was one of the towns we stopped at to drop off mail - but I don't know what it's called...

Nice fjord...

After the fjord ferry, there was a bus trip from Gudvangen to Bergen. This was the cool view just after we left Gudvangen...

Norway in a Nutshell

Norway has cool fjords :)

Norway in a Nutshell is this cool tour company that just gets you the tickets and then you travel as you want.

I went from Oslo - Myrdal - Flam - Gudvangen - Voss - Bergen. Across Norway from East to West. I stayed in Flam for a night, and it was sweet. I'll get some photos up so you can see...



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Oslo

July 20th was the day Janne showed me around Oslo :)

Here's some of the things I saw...

This is Janne in one of the cool behind-the-scenes city streets :)

She'll kill me, but I forget where this cool lion and flag shot was...

Me on an old cannon at the fort at the top of the hill :)

REALLY cool and REALLY old "stave church". It was built in like, the 1200's or something. This was at a place that showed old buildings of Norway - there were these 2 storey ones with outdoor walkways and everything - it was sweet.

It was also so weird checking out all these old places that were around long before Australia even "existed". None of our buildings are older than 200 years old.

This church kinda freaked me out to start (when I was inside) because it smelled old, and it was very dark inside, and I knew that people had been living and dying around it for like, 800 years. Then I realised - it's a church. It's a house of God, and people have been worshipping God here for that long. The same God I believe in, who doesn't change. So really this is an old family building. And it wasn't that freaky after that.

This was SO funny. There was a park with a whole heap of statues in it like this - depicting different stages of life. Old people, young people, babies etc. This one was just so random, cos he's being attacked by infants???? That's like, child abuse!!!!

I also went on top of the roof of the Olso Opera House - which is big and white like the Sydney one, but other than that - completely different, lol! But you could walk to the top of the roof which was really cool (it was slanted, like two ramps).

Great day. Totally exhausting, and my feet hated me, but I got to see heaps, and Janne's a pro tour guide :) :P