Bergen
On my trip, I'd only experienced rain for one hour on one day in Edinburgh. Roberta and I avoided the worst of it by going into the museum. The rain gods decided I'd had it WAY too easy. In Bergen, it rained (not drizzle, full rain - although not pouring) the ENTIRE time I went on my walking shore excursion. It soaked all of the participants and made a good tour fairly miserable. The only thing that saved it was that the tour guide was SO sincere, SO knowledgeable... I kept thinking: maybe I'll go back now... Oh... poor guy... he's trying SO hard! We started with a group of 20 and we lost two ladies (sisters I'd talked with several times on the ship) before we ever left the dock. We passed St. Mary's Church and stopped in a sheltered place (roof) to learn about the old wooden houses first built in the 1300s during the Hanseatic League, a commercial trading group started in Germany in which Northwestern and Central European countries participated. When our guide was finished with his history lesson, we lost 4 or 5 more people. They stayed in Bryggen houses which are now used by artisans to sell their wares.
Next we walked to the funicular. Flobanen took up up a rather steep hill to a viewing point. I can see how the view would be spectacular from there but on that day, it was like trying to peer through pea soup. Most of the people who went up went into the souvenir shop to get out of the rain. It was SOOOO packed, you couldn't move without coordinating your movements with the person in front of you, behind you AND to the sides of you. I went back to the funicular fairly quickly and was one of the first down. On the way down, a couple asked me to tell our guide that they were going back. Once the group was reassemble, 2 more couples asked for directions back to the ship. I think I would have gone back, too, if the guide hadn't looked so sad. We soldiered on in the miserable rain and honestly, I only took in half of what out guide was saying. It was (and I was) just SO wet. We ended up with 8 then 6 people before I departed the group at the wooden houses on our loop back towards the ship. In my pictures, you can see a picture of me that I took of myself in a mirror in a jewelry store ... wet rat describes it pretty much. I did buy a nice ring from Per, who customized the size as I waited.
I stripped off all my wet clothes when I got back to the ship and had a long, HOT shower to warm up. The clothes took 1.5 days to dry. I had to continually use the hair blower on my sneakers for the next 2 days so I could wear them on my trip home. It really was too bad that the day was so crappy. Our guide probably was one of the most interesting and knowledgeable ones that I'd had on Norwegian Cruise Line excursions. One good thing about this day... My new waterproof camera was none the worse for all it got rained on. Apologies for the soggy pictures though... even when I kept trying to wipe off the lens, it was hopeless to assume I'd get decent ones...
That night I did a solo dinner then went to Shane Hampsheir's show. Shane was a Michael Buble style singer. He was very good. Reminded me of the fact that Michael Buble had not performed in 2 years (young son with cancer took priority - good for Buble!) until just a few days ago, this July.
