Last Day in Norway

We set out this morning to ride the funicular to the top of Mount Floyen to take in the wonderrful views of the Bergen area. According to our map, we expected to find the boarding point just up the steps from the restaurant where we had enjoyed a great dinner the previous evening. Well, we started up and continued up and could not find evidence of the funicular anywhere. It turned out that the car goes underground for the first part of the rise up the mountain. We did manage to find a station along the route and got to the top of the mountain before it started raining. The views were magnificent, and Steveo took a lot of pictures. We were a lot more efficient getting back to Bergen center and were surprised that the station was right where we started climbing the stairs.

We strolled through the city for our last afternoon of vacation and stopped at a department store to use the ladies room. While Sarah was indisposed, Steveo spotted two girls signing at the cafe and urged me to talk to them. As it turned out, one was deaf and the other has deaf parents, so they both sign Norwegian sign language. One of the girls texted her boyfriend to join us as he knew some ASL. We spent a wonderful few hours learning about high school in Norway. We finally found the answers to our questions about the "red pants". We had been seeing young people wearing them all over the city and assumed that they were the current rage. We learned, however, that high school seniors wear them for three weeks before May 17, which is their national holiday. They also party for those three weeks and perform a variety of silly stunts. One is to swim outside before May 1. Red pants are the most common and are worn by students taking a general course of study. Students who are in a business track wear blue, engineering students wear black, and green is for students in agricultural studies. On May 17 the seniors take off the red pants and put on their holiday best clothes. They then have one week to study and then their final exams. This tradition is called: Russefeiring. The students are very serious about it, even though they spend their nights riding in a party bus and going to bars.

Sarah enjoyed signing with the two girls and with Martin. They exchanged Facebook information and told us that they do all of their school work on Facebook and use no hard copy books or papers. This is part of the drive to be more ecological. 

Our last meal was a traditional Norwegian dinner....fish, chicken, meatballs, potatos and carrots. We are sad to leave, but excited for Sarah's new beginning......