Day Five

We left early in the morning for Gudvangen at 745AM and (after lots of coffee) continued to the town of Flam.

We took the Flam Railway and saw the Flam valley and stopped at the Kjosfossen waterfall. There is an old Norwegian folk tale about woman in the mountains called Hooras. Hooras come out of the mountains and lure young men into the woods with their beautiful songs and enchanting looks! So they re-create this tale on the train trip. The best way to describe it is ... the train stops, we all get out to take pictures of the waterfall, and suddenly this loud folk music starts playing and a woman in traditional dress pops out from near the top of the waterfall and starts dancing to the music. Keep in mind this is at the top of a very active waterfall and it is very steep. If we were not warned about this it could be frightening because it looks at times as if she were going to fall and she was so close to the edge!

Video of the Hooras:

Lesson on the pronunciation of Hoora:

Sara got a picture of all the Japanese tourists, they were in everyone's pictures ... funny.

After the train experience we got back on the bus and headed for Bergen and the Clarion Admiral hotel. We had some free time before returning to our group so the four of us girls went to a local Pub. After a while we noticed we were the only Americans and the only woman, the old men were saying things to us in Norwegian and laughing and laughing. Anyway, the food was great and the beer was great too!

We then headed for a three hour guided tour of Bergen. We saw some really old buildings and learned a lot of history.

Apparently in Bergen the most popular thing for a Norwegian to eat is pizza, believe it or not. So we stopped and had pizza, just the four of us girls. We had a fun time sharing stories and laughing.

Then we rode the tram up the hill. Here is a video looking out over Bergen at 10:30pm.