Norway: Bergen Town

Did I mention it was windy?

All right. Bergen. I used Rick Steve's book on Norway again to find a low key local place for dinner. This is Pingvin (and I picked it not only because I am partial to penguins:)). It had real Norwegian food that the kids...um...did not love. Well, Mark and Katya didn't. 

Alex had some blue sausages that were very unique but quite good. And I had the most delicious mixture of fish and mashed potatoes. You can see me savoring every bite of it in this picture below-hahaha. 

After our early dinner, we walked towards the port. On the way, I stopped by one of the convenience shops and bought a chocolate bar that we opened immediately and started eating. A moment later, one of the homeless guys came up to me really-really close holding a plastic cup asking for money. I had to think quick, so I just broke off a good piece of chocolate from my chocolate bar and dropped it in his cup:). It made us all smile and I knew he was happy too, although probably thinking that we were the weirdest people ever. 

The fish market was almost closed but the kids got a look at this huge crabs! 

This part of town is called Bryggen. Our goofballs.

This is in Brygge as well. We were trying to figure out how to take a family picture when suddenly a youngish guy came up to us and enthusiastically offered to take our picture for us. We agreed with some hesitation as he was trying to tell us how they had very few family pictures with his parents when they travelled. 

As he was taking these pictures, I kept telling Robert quietly to get ready to run after this guy with our camera. There was just something so unrealistically helpful in him that I was afraid he would just run off with our Cannon! On this picture you can see me sort of stepping away from Robert getting ready to sprint-hahaha. 

Well, nothing happened! The guy was just a genuine Norwegian volunteer to help. 

In fact, this is a good time to mention that in Norway we found so many people--strangers--who cared about helping us. They weren't just answering our questions briskly--they went above and beyond to help and showed their concern for our well being. Whether it was someone helping us with directions, or someone caring to warn the kids to not drink the water, or a ticket lady at the museum taking the extra time to give us more info--we were impressed. Kindness still exists in the world!