Whitsunday

Today is Whitsunday, the 50th day after Easter, the day the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles. So naturally everyone dresses in their beautiful traditional dresses and suits! Whole families have matching sets. These young ladies were coming into the hotel lobby with their grandmother. I asked if I could take their picture, and the grandmother said no, but the girls posed for me. Beautiful sparkly necklaces and colorful embroidered patterns are on all of them. Many women have matching cloaks.

On the subject of clothes, the "in" style for women here is calf-length tights under empire-waisted smocks. I haven't seen a single bare midriff under a too-small T-shirt. Otherwise the styles are the same here as in Seattle. If you don't count Whitsunday!

At breakfast, I sat with Katarina, from Slovakia. She helped me with my new cell phone. It was in Norwegian, as is the manual, so I couldn't figure out how to change the language to English. She figured it out, plus I think she accidentally took a picture with it. We set out to explore Bergen by walking everywhere and pointing out landmarks to each other until early afternoon. We each learned a lot. Here she is on the way to the Aquarium. We wanted a picture of the flowers, and the mermaid on the house behind her. I think the picture gets bigger if you click on it.

I'm loving the food. The breakfast buffet includes hard and soft boiled eggs, fried eggs, scrambled eggs, cereals, yogurts, cheese, what I would call lunchmeats, fruits, and the most delicious whole grain breads. For lunch, I had a salad that had a Mediterranean flavor to it, and a bun. After that I went to the Fisherman's market and tried their salmon (not as smoky as Seattle smoked salmon) and their shrimp. The shrimp was the best I've ever had, so I bought a handful and brought it back to the room for later.

No problem finding English-speakers. Also, the information booth is great. They have a good set of displays, and they can answer questions, sell you tickets, and change money.

The days here are very long already and it's only May. Sunset is at 10 pm. Sunrise is at 5 am. Today was overcast, but tomorrow is likely to be sunny again. Since tomorrow is a holiday, Whitmonday, I am taking an all-day tour. Wish you were here!