Dec 29th – Bergen 1st day

I woke up around 8, packed camp till quarter to nine and made my way into the city with Norunn’s (exchange coordinator for the Bergen school who is supposed to set me up with my apartment) phone number. I found a payphone and was about to lift the receiver when a bumbling drunk knocked into me. I checked my pockets real quick and then we attempted to make conversation amidst poor knowledge of eachothers languages, heavy accents and drunken slurs. It turned out he was at a party in Denmark last night and woke up somewhere in Bergen this morning. He said it was a good night, and judging by the fresh cuts on his face and twisted bloody nose id say that was either a very large under or over statement. I saw some coins in my hand and forcefully begged for them to make a phone call to the hotel in Denmark where his girlfriend and him were partying last night in hopes that she would still be there. In any case he failed at operating the payphone, threw the leftover change at me and took off bumbling on about something while staggering 5 ft left to right. Finally it was my turn at the phone, I also failed because the number that Norunn gave me is not in service, or at least that’s what I think the phone said.
I made found some breakfast, 2 chocolate bars and a small jug of OJ for 40NOK (about 10 bucks) and realized that I had to use the toalet badly. Because of the hot jerky I knew I had a real noisy one coming so I didn’t use the toalet in Enke’s quite house in fear they may kick me out sooner than expected. i had not used the toalet since I left Detroit 2.5 days ago and there were no public washrooms in sight, so I sucked it up and thought about what to do next. I went to the ritzy hotel and talked to Nina who was still working and asked how to correctly use the phones in Norway, she helped me dial and looked up some info to find that NHH and SIB and the YMCA hostel (the cheap place to stay) were all closed until jan 3rd ( 4 days from now) she was curious where I went last night and had was taken aback when I said I hiked up the mountain to tent. She said it was getting much colder tonight (it was plenty cold enough last night for me) and gave me a list of some more hotels and said if they all fail she’ll find a spare room for me in the hotel. (again tusen takk (thank you very much) mom and dad for the Canada tags) and again, its all in the smile 
I took off and found a hostel that was open, dorm.no, which had one 15x15 room, 12 beds for 220 NOK (about 45 canadian) and dropped my bag off and used a toalet, oh, that was glorious. I toured the city and found a park near campus to walk through, bad choice. A group of 20 people or more all sketchy looking came flying out of the bushes offering weed, estacy, pills, coke asking what kind of drugs I had in my camera bag and were grabbing for it. It would have been bad to run, its their territory and its far out of sight and sound of anyone else. I had to get on their side. I clutched my bag and thanked them all for the offers and said I wasn’t carrying anything right now ( had to make it look like I was a druggie or they might get un-easy) and slowly walked through smiling and wishing them a good day saying id be back later. As I walked farther into the park I watch people weigh out their pills and hash, I watched people tie off their arms and shoot up, saw I guy snort a line off a rock, but I think he got some snow in there because he complained it was cold. I found a cool spot to take a shot of the sunrise 5ft feet from a couple of guys shooting up, carefully blocking view of the camera with my body and then found a cool willow tree for some pics a little father. And that was as much as I felt comfortable with in the drug park with my camera on me. Nice to know its only steps from campus….
The rest of the day was pretty normal, I bought course book on how to speak Norwegian and went to the fish market and saw life crabs and a large ugly fish called a Mok fish. I also saw my first starfish, it was drinking from a beer bottle and I got a few shots of it. I also bought the cheapest softdrink I could find for 20 NOK (6 bucksish) and it was so carbonated my mouth went numb in a few minutes. I also priced out some food at the grocery store. it looked like the only diet I can afford is potatoes, boiled and frozen spinach, water and the fish I catch from the fjord. This made me a little sad. Especially with the way the store smelled. Then I found an asian store that sells 20kg bags of rice for 220 NOK (about 45 bucks) and that made me happy. Well im in the dorm room right now and im mighty tired, jetlag and lack of sleep from partying with the Germans and freezing on a mountain have caught up to me. Looks like tomorrow I start my residence permits with the police (if they are not on holidays) and if this hostel is not open on new years eve I might take Nina up on that offer for a spare room in the fancy hotel or try and talk up Morilyn some more. Good night.

check out some pics at

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasonmader/sets/72157623103620350/detail/