June 1: The most magical Norwegian Antique shop & riding the express boat through Sognefjord
When we woke up this morning, the rain was
falling thick and fast on top of the tent.
Nick rolled over and swore loudly.
We couldn’t leave the tent up and hope it would dry, because we were
leaving Bergen that afternoon. We’d have
to roll up a wet tent and towel it out in the evening – not ideal, but our only
choice.
We were both reluctant to make the move out
of the warm tent and into the cold, wet forest outside, so both lay tucked into
our sleeping bags until we were game enough to quickly venture out, pack down
the tent and start hurrying down the mountain.
Our bags were soon soaked through, as were
our jeans, so we popped our backpacks into another set of lockers to prevent
our things getting destroyed in the heavy rain. We then sought the shelter of the antique
shop we’d spotted the afternoon before in the hope we would dry off.
This shop was unlike any other antique
store I’d ever seen before. There
weren’t neat tables lined with vases and objects all in a row, all on
display. There wasn’t a section for
instruments and another for books and another for furniture. Cabinets were heaped on top of stacks of books,
and old cameras hung from trumpets, which hung from chandeliers. Vintage taxidermy birds – some of them quite
awful – was perched precariously on top of old table lamps, and one severed
cheetah head – another poor excuse for taxidermy – hung on a hook from a shelf.
One old reindeer pelt was strung up over
another chandelier, its hooves hanging limply from the light. Old paintings depicting nautical scenes were
pinned to the walls in a haphazard salon-style hang. Glass cabinets held other rare and strange
objects, including the tooth of a sperm whale.
A pair of carved ivories sat nearby and I wondered if you could even
sell ivory anymore.
The main room of the shop reflected in a mirror
The layout was somewhat daunting, and every
time you displaced a curious object to turn it between your fingers, 5 more
curious things would appear beneath it.
Everything we particularly wanted to buy we either, a) couldn’t get back
into Australia or, b) was far too large and unwieldy to cart around for the
foreseeable future. Wanting more things
than we could carry (and afford) we ventured back out onto the wet street.
We popped into jewelry shops, wool shops
and board game shops (we’ve been missing our board games, but have got some
accommodation in Tromsø with a lady who might play some with us). We happened upon a little store that sold wet
weather gear, and Nicholas treated me to a vinyl fisherman’s hat (like the one
Paddington wears, but black) so I could be a practical sea-faring witch next
time we went beach combing.
Hurriedly, I paid a visit to the Bergen
Lush store to curb my homesickness, before we picked up our bags and jumped on
the express boat that would drive us through the Sognefjord and up to Sogndal,
which would be our home for the next few days.
Halfway through the boat trip, we were moved onto a larger boat with an
open top deck, which meant we could jump up top and marvel at the vast
Sognefjord.
We arrived at Sogndal just before 10pm and quickly hopped up the nearest mountain to set up the tent, waving off the laughing, drunk partiers who invited us in to party with them. The sun was going down slowly over Sogndal and it was midnight when we finally finished setting up camp, but the sky was still the hazy blue of dusk.
The view from our campsite over Sogndal
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