Summer in Bergen

It's been incredible, incredible weather lately. Especially for Bergen. Pretty much two weeks straight with no rain.

No rain, hardly any clouds, and only three hours of darkness a night.

This is becoming a problem.

I'm trying to see everyone again, check those final things off my list, use every minute...

And there are too many minutes.

And I have to force myself to stay home and pack, sleep, rest, do anything except wander around outside until I collapse of exhaustion.

I feel like a moth, drawn to the sun like a flame. Weak as it is here I feel the slight redness on my face when I come home each evening. Always gone by morning, but still.

These last days are killing me.

I will leave a lot of my heart here.

And yet I still find time for a few words, typed here and there, a short blog post.

Because there's a magic in words, in expression, and something beautiful for the future knowing I was here in this wonderful place when I chose these keys from the keyboard and wrote these last things when it was a living description of the present, not yet a memory.

Today was a sort of Rennaisance Festival thing, the Bjørgvin Medieval and Viking Market down south at the Hordamuseet alongside the Fjord. Very low-key but lovely. Cool but sunny. Harps and ocarinas, viking soup and butter with wild garlic, and delicious Israeli hummus (oddly enough). The costumes were simple but nice, and with so few tourists the percentage of people in costume was much higher than at most such events. Cute families, children playing with fake swords and drinking out of little horns. Becky and I learned how to shoot the bows and each got a bulls-eye (out of 6 tries - best not to ask about the other five. ;)) And we listened to the story of Odin's quest for knowledge in a 2,000 year old stone-circle.

Waited a long time for the bus, way out in the sticks and with the strike going on. But it was warm at the stop, and we had a view over lovely green farmland. A tractor driving about kicking up dust and followed by a cloud of seagulls. A father and a sun flying a red kite in the distance.