Bergen, Norway at 16,39h on 26. December 2023.

‘How does it get so dark so early?! It’s literally 3 o’clock’, exclaimed my son. It was already the afternoon of our first full day in Bergen.

I let him sleep in far longer than either of us would have liked. But he needed the sleep. I had to get a few things done for the day, so I awoke much earlier than I would have liked.

I enjoyed the sounds of the rain and the raindrops lingering on the slanted windows. The view up to Mount Fløyen was beautiful, as was the view of the surrounding residences with Christmas stars lighting up the windows.

I had not yet booked our next flights to Denmark and was stressed about the unexpected costs and not getting the anticipated funds I had planned on getting for Christmas. Seeing how we had limited time in Denmark, we needed the quickest possible way, which also meant the most expensive.

Lesson to learn: Do not base your travel budget on what you expect your Christmas bonus will be. I certainly did not think it would be less than last year, but some money is better than none. I would somehow need to figure it out. And soon. Thankfully I had savings, though I didn’t really plan to use it for this trip.

A trip such as this one would have benefited from more months of research. The two months that I had since getting the idea in my head to go see the Northern Lights close to the North Pole was not enough. But it was either that or we stayed home and wished we had gone. I had to make it work.

Travelling to the Arctic required clothes we did not own. We spent several days at REI buying base layers, socks, warmer layers, gloves, and coats. I spent hours and days and weeks reading reviews for boots and finally decided on the Escalate boots from Baffin. I purchased these because they claimed to be both waterproof and slip proof.

Our experience with the snow boots last night as we arrived in Bergen in a light rain proved they were neither. Our socks were soaked. I immediately wrote to Julie at Baffin, the customer service lady I contacted when we were buying the boots, and told her of our experience and awaited her reply.

We left our flat at 16,24h. The roads were icy and we had to be careful not to slip. We walked around the city, looking for somewhere to eat. Almost every place was still closed for the Christmas holidays.

We walked into the fancy Starbucks Kjøttbasaren, above Restaurant Egon. We wanted to enjoy some coffee and pastries, but quickly turned around and walked out the door as we noticed the prices. They were double than that in Austin and higher than even in London.

Walking down the stairs to Restaurant Egon, we browsed the menu and hoped to find something affordable. No such luck. The burgers were the equivalent of $60! We were really hungry, hangry even, and running out of options.

We were getting a bit disillusioned with the entire experience so far in Bergen. The high prices. Everything being closed. And the boots not working out as intended. Our last resort was the same pub we stopped by last night, when we arrived after the kitchen had closed. Brian Boru Irish Pub.

‘You were here yesterday’, stated the guy behind the counter.

‘Yes’, I replied and asked for a suggestion for an affordable restaurant.

‘You’re in Norway’, was his reply. Meaning we would not find anything affordable no matter how many places we tried.

We placed one order of fish and chips to share. I even considered ordering a Guinness until I found out it was the equivalent of $12. Damn Norway!

We sat in the back of the pub amidst groups of people congregated around tables. Friends meeting up for drinks. Two large screens hung on the walls, both playing the Premier League game. I happened to see the Liverpool coach and something mentioning Burnley, which was interesting since these were the exact two teams that I took my son to see play in Liverpool back in March 2017.

Our food arrived. It was a small portion for us two. One fish and a tiny portion of fries. We ate that and left, still hungry.

We walked around a bit more through the center of town by a large Christmas tree and browsing menus posted outside some restaurants and cafes.

‘How is toast like $12?!’, my son exclaimed outside of Café Opera.

We decided to return to Bunnpris. Many people were inside, making it difficult to walk through the aisles. At one point by the refrigerated section, I had to step back into the stock room just to let people by as I tried to figure out which of the packages was butter. A quick Google search revealed that I needed ‘Usaltet Meierismør’.

We bought cinnamon rolls with a pastry cream in the middle, and the bread and cheese to make melted cheese bread. Since we were staying in a flat, I wanted to take advantage of that and bake something. I had brought along my little scale I use for measuring my baking ingredients and my red notebook where I write down recipes I make on my travels.

The easiest thing to make, which required few ingredients, was shortbread. A simple 1-2-3 recipe where I used one part butter, two parts sugar, and three parts flour. The flat had no basic ingredients. Not even salt. So, I had to buy all of that and once again turned to Google translate for ‘flour’ in Norwegian, which wasn’t too different from the German ‘Mehl’.

Back at the loft apartment, I responded to the email from Julie. She instructed me to send photos of the labels and all parts of the boots, which I immediately provided. Then my son placed the cinnamon rolls on plates and set the table in the living room.

I ended up being too tired to make the shortbread and decided to enjoy the rest of the evening with my son. Eating our simple meal and watching Cecilia Blomdahl’s YouTube episode, the content creator from Svalbard.