It feels like SPRING in Bergen

Today it was sunny. The Bergen Marathon started off the morning. I had lunch with a friend, then we found the first farmers' market of the year! We bought a hunk of brown goat cheese to split, as well as a few other "necessities". On the way back to her place to cut the cheese in half, we posed at the crocus patch that's in front of the National Theater.

Here's Ingrid

Notice there's still snow on Ulriken

It's so nice to have a little color around. You can see from the next pictures that the trees are still leafless, though I have seen a few with buds.

I took a long walk in the afternoon up the side of Floyen. At the halfway, I turned north, instead of continuing up, which is my usual. The view was great, and I had the sound of the Buekorps boys beating their drums somewhere around Haakons Hall to keep me company.

I found the Bergen Waterworks building and turned uphill. Someone's umbrella escaped them! About then, I turned back toward town since I had a ticket for Iron Man 3 at 6 pm. The Buekorps boys were joined by a brass band playing a march. Then the church bells started ringing. Then there were birdsong and waterfall song. The sounds of laughing kids drifted uphill, too.

You can tell it's spring in Bergen when you hear the Buekorps drums and when you see the Russ pants on the high school seniors. Here are two cooperative young men, showing off their style. The one on the right gave me his Russ card with his Russ name - King David. We had a conversation about where I was from. They had no idea that Seattle was Bergen's sister city. Or even that Nordnes park has a totem pole from Seattle! 

Iron Man 3 was great fun. I had bought one seat (they are reserved seats here) and I knew that the one seat next to that one was empty. So when I came in, I struck up a conversation with the woman in that seat. She was from Manchester, here for work. I asked if she liked comic book hero movies, and she said she didn't like to admit that, but yes. She knew about looking for Stan Lee, and she made us stay all the way through the credits to see the extra bit at the end (definitely worth it!) So we went to what used to be my favorite cafe and is now a pub to talk about the movie, how we got our names, and our lives in general.

There may be no flowers or buds yet, but it is starting to feel a lot like spring!