Stavanger!

We're in Stavanger! At a hospital hotel. It said on the website that it was a short walk from the city center, which is true, if by short walk they mean thirty minutes uphill. But the hotel totally makes up for it, it's awesome! After spending two nights in a hostel with a bunch of metal-heads (Bergen was having the Black Metal festival when we were there- which was actually fun, everyone looked evil but were super nice), it's nice to spend the night in comfy room with a nice bathroom and a TV. We're watching The Family Guy in bed and it's only 7pm. We walked all over the city though and we're pooped. It's nice to come back early, shower, eat and veg a bit. Tomorrow morning we're taking the train to Kristiansand, and then another train to Grimstad to meet up with some family friends so we hope to be well-rested.

Here are some pictures from today (and the full set here):

These first two were taken from the Flaggruten boat ride from Bergen to Stavanger, which was about 4 and half hours long. It was a lot better than the Fjord cruise, we had plenty of room to spread out with no old ladies trying to take our seats, and they had wi-fi! It was really cool scenery along the way too, so many little islands! I got a little queasy on the ride, as I posted earlier, but it wasn't too bad. The view kept me pre-occupied.

Once we arrived in Stavanger, we set straight out for the hotel, but passed through the city center from the harbor and saw some shops and this crazy old church. It was built in 1125!! 1125!!!!!! The inside was beautiful... we bought a candle and lit it, said a little prayer, and hung out a bit. It's hard not to feel spiritual in a place like this. Really amazing.

Norwegian kitty! We were just remarking to each other how weird it was that we hadn't seen any animals (other than dogs on leashes) in Stavanger. No birds, squirrels, or cats until this guy showed up. It was a lovely warm and sunny day in the city too so it was surprising we didn't see more cats out sunbathing. And believe me, I was lookin'. 

The internet is a bit slow here at the hotel so I'm just posting these pictures. The rest are on the flickr page! Sorry there aren't any comments on the pictures, which I know would be helpful to know what you're looking at... maybe I'll have Jeff get on that tomorrow. Like he'd remember the names... :)