Hello again! I'm now settled in my dorm at the University of Oslo. I'll spend the next couple days writing in installments about my adventures the past few weeks, then I'll be caught up and continue writing about Norway as my adventures here progress.
After I left Hamburg I hopped on a train to Bremen, where I spent a couple hours in the afternoon and wanted to spend more. Bremen is lovely! It's full of beautiful old buildings like the City Hall and old churches. I has rostbratwurst for lunch (sausage in a roll), and then wandered around town, exploring, as usual. I went into a nice church at one point and noticed that it seemed to have strange background noise. The noise changed at one point, and sounded like an organ, but without a tune. I went into one of the ancient crypts and discovered that someone was tuning the organ! That was entertaining. I also explored the schnoor, the old part of Bremen that has some extremely cute 400-year-old houses, narrow alleys, and delicious ice cream.
I wouldn't have minded staying in Bremen for another day, but I decided to stick to my (rough sketch) schedule and hop on a train to Amsterdam. When I arrived at the station in Amsterdam it was overcast and pretty dreary, so I took a spontaneous decision to skip Amsterdam for the day and head to Utrecht, about a half-hour train ride away. Utrecht was also overcast, and I wandered around for a while before finally finding an OK hostel, all the while wishing I knew some Dutch. I was placed in a 14-bed room with 5 guy roommates, but the hostel had wifi (none in Germany whatsoever), so it was fine (and I switched to a smaller room the next night).
Utrecht the next day was warm, sunny, and beautiful (I now understand how much the weather effects my perception of a place...). It's a cute university town/city with a lot of history, and as luck would have it, I was there on its 888th birthday! I got into museums free and got to watch people gathering in a square listening to someone important speaking Dutch. After hot chocolate and a croissant I wandered around the canals, narrowly getting run over by bikers (a common theme in that area of the world... more bikes than cars). I saw a church and a museum called the "Utrecht Archives," that was certainly not like any other archives I've heard of. It actually seemed like a few modern-art exhibits scattered around with a bit of history. But it was free, so I can't complain.
After having turkish food for lunch (another common activity) I climbed up Utrecht's beautiful church tower (the tallest in the Netherlands), which has more than 400 steps. The tower is separated from the rest of the church because the connecting section collapsed in 1674, and they haven't bothered to rebuild it yet. As usual, I took a handstand picture at one of the lookout points. Later that afternoon I had ice cream at one of the many stands around town, and was surprised to receive exactly two scoop-sized scoops. Anyone who has ordered ice cream in America will realize how strange that seems.
The next day I took off to Amsterdam, where this time it was sunny and welcoming. In the next few posts I'll take you through my travels in Amsterdam, an impromptu night in Brussels, two weeks in Spain and Portugal, a quick stop back in Denmark and Sweden, and finally my arrive in Oslo.
For now, ha det bra! (That's bye in Norwegian).
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