This is Bergen, Norway. I like to describe it as a little slice of the best Seattle and San Francisco have to offer shoved into the end of a fjord.
My mom always said that one of my maternal great grandparents came from the Bergen region. After going through all of mom's stuff a year ago, I have no idea which great grandparent it was. I never met my great grandparents on my mother's side. My grandfather came to the US when he was 14 (almost 15) years old in 1904. Grampa Auseth would be 48 years old when my mother burst into being. His family was from a little town north of Oslo called Biri. My grandmother was born in Wisconsin to Norwegian immigrants from an area outside of Lillihammer called Gausdal. Apparently I still have a ton of relatives there!
I'm a cis, hetero, married white man who lives in the suburbs of Seattle. I grew up in a largely white middle class neighborhood in Los Gatos, CA. My parents scrimped, and sacrificed to make sure that my brother and I had a good childhood and upbringing. I got to go to a fancy elementary and middle school where I studied French and Latin. I swam 50 out of 52 weeks a year for almost 10 years. I got to see a lot of the country as a result of that. I did very well in school and was a really good swimmer... was never going to the Olympics, but I was good enough to start being recruited by colleges as a sophomore in high school.
In short... I had all the opportunity that could be afforded a white guy from the middle class. Nowhere near the same level of privilege that comes with being a rich white guy, but it was still a lot of unequal socio economic advantage. I've been conscious of this for a great long while and try my best to use it to help tip the scales in favor of POC, LGBTQ, immigrants, women, children however and whenever I can, realizing I can always do more, be better and learn by listening.
Given this, I've always been acutely aware of how my demographic is unrealistically positively portrayed in the media and popular culture. I can basically see "myself" in a heroic and positive light in any form of media anywhere at any time.
/End gratuitous virtue signaling.
What in the holy hell does any of this have to do with Bergen, Norway?!
Well, it was the first stop Kasia and I made on our honeymoon trip. Instead of a luxury, relaxing vacation on a sunny beach somewhere, we opted for a trip more like touring with a band than a honeymoon. It was our cultural heritage tour, so to speak.
We fly from Seattle to Reykjavik. Go through passport control into Schengen, get a nice hot dog and a surprisingly good cup of espresso. It's a short wait for our plane to Bergen. A little over 2 hours and we're at the airport in Bergen. I don't think I've ever seen more clearly marked restrooms in my life. Simple iconography of people in clearly defined "I desperately need to pee" positions.
We freshen up a bit and then get some more surprisingly good espresso. It's not Balkan truck stop good, but very little in this world is.
We catch a bus to the train station which is within walking distance of our hotel. After we're dropped off, we're both really turned around and the jet lag and lack of sleep is not helping at all. We finally make it to our hotel and since we're stupid Americans with chipless debit cards, we need to talk to the lone person working to help us check into what is supposed to be a totally automated hotel experience.
We get to our room and take a nap, freshen up, get the grime of travel off our jetlagged bodies. Once we're a little more coherent, we decide to head off into town to explore. Our friend Bill, who's done a just little traveling around the world with his popular 90s band, had given us a list of cafes and bars we need to visit in a bunch of the cities we're visiting. In Bergen, that place is Kafe Dromedar. We map its location and start heading into town.
For reference, in the posted photo, our hotel is just up beyond the upper left corner of the photo near the black glass and metal building which is a music center dedicated to a famous local classical musician.
It's about a 10 minute walk to the city center from the hotel past the big reservoir in the park in the picture. It's a beautiful city. Clean. Not a whiff of urine anywhere which is a strange thought as I associate with just about any park I visit back home with the smell of urine.
We pass through a cluster of retail stores and restaurants and enter the city center. It's the tail end of tourist season, so the streets are still packed with people.
We wind our way to the cafe. As we get off the tourist choked streets, I start getting a good look at the locals. And I'm struck by a realization... holy shit! This is where my genetic material comes from! Everyone looks like my mom, my brother, my grandma, my grandpa, my aunts. Just wow!
41 years as a white guy in America and I was largely numb to the fact that I was positively and disproportionately represented in society at large. I just kind of took it for granted. White men have it good in America.
I never really thought seriously about where I come from culturally and genetically. Sure, I'd read all the Norse mythology. Studied a bit of Norwegian history. Learned the important words like tak, skinke and ost. I never really realized just how close I really am to this place on a larger time scale. I'm a second generation Norwegian American.... but VERY MUCH an American. My grandfather and great grandmother were immigrants from this place!
In this instant I feel an intensely deep connection to this place. It feels comfortable, almost like its a place I could call home. That these are my people in a very real way, in a very historical way. It was a fascinating feeling.
All this and I've been in Norway FOR A WHOLE THREE HOURS AT THIS POINT!
I don't think I was saying much. Just absorbing it all. We wind our way to the cafe. It's on a very European side street. Bike traffic. Pedestrians. Sidewalk seating at every restaurant and cafe.
We order our coffee and a snack. At this point, Kasia is eating vegan, gluten free at home because of allergies. However, since we're in a country that has a conscientious and effective regulatory infrastructure, she decides she's going to test her allergies with the least irritating of them... wheat and dairy. So she orders a carrot cake with her cappuccino.
The coffee is really good. Again, not Rome airport vending machine good or Serbian convenience store good, but it's really quite good. We finish our drinks, take some photos. Text Bill to thank him for the suggestion. We continue wandering the streets of Bergen.
NO ALLERGIES! There was wheat and dairy in that carrot cake and NO ALLERGIES! This was a good sign for our dietary choices going forward on this trip.
I feel this wondrous connection with this place and Kasia can fearlessly eat the food she wants! Seriously, I could call this place home! I have no idea what I'd do for a living in this town, but I was seriously considering exploring the option. #norway #bergen #travel #weirdlygoodcoffee
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