From my Norwegian tourist book,
I got the name of a woman who took backpackers in for the night. This private house was in Paradis somewhere up
in the hills that surrounded Bergen. (I
can always brag that I spent a couple of days in Paradis). After several miles riding a bus and a few
walking, I managed to find the place. After
I got acquainted with the lady, it was apparent that she liked foreigners, but
not Marines, especially American ones. I
should have kept my mouth shut, but you have to give them your passport and
identify yourself which meant I showed her my pink Marine Corps reservist ID. 
I stayed at the lady’s house for two
or three days and went down into the city to look at the North Sea aquarium and
take the Mount Flǿen cable car to see the sights from the mountain top. Bergen is huge. Only by taking several
pictures and joining them together can you appreciate the full view. At the aquarium they had nearly all the North
Sea fish you could think of including penguins (Antarctica?) and an electric
shark that swam around an electrode that emitted a Geiger counter noise.
Norwegians have a wonderful park,
Lille Lungegardsvann, that’s centrally located. I spent several hours there watching families and
grandparents parade among the ducks with their kids and huge baby carriages. It’s odd, but I never saw a young man
accompanying his wife and baby carriage in Scandinavia. Another tourist destination that I did not
know about at the time was located in the heart of Bergen, the Leprosy Museum
at St. George’s Hospital. I’ve only
discover recently that between 1850 and 1900 Norway was called the “international
capital of Leprosy.”
I also saw the famous hundreds
of year’s old stave church that overlooks the city up in the hills. It was preserved by being entirely encased in
tar and pitch and was all black, of course, a photographer’s worst nightmare. Tragically, a pyromaniac burned the place
down in 1992. Perhaps, it was a tragedy
waiting to happen because I saw no security guard and few tourists. Since it’s inception as a pagan church in
1150 A.D., it was eerie inside even though it was changed to a Christian church
hundreds of years ago. Someone placed a huge stone cross in the ground to mark the transition.