About that Time I went to Florida and it was cold and rainy

The few days before we left were tough. The shooting of two queer people in front of a gay bar in Bratislava has shaken the emotionally sound part of the Slovak public and has transformed the political debate. This happened on Wednesday night. 

I had to wake up early on Thursday and hurry to catch a court session involving a corrupt judge Monika Jankovska. She didn't even show up. I was tired from the previous weeks, as work kept me busy, and was holding on to my vacation, starting on Friday. I was already leaving for Vienna in the evening and had the plan to catch a bus from the same building as I have scheduled my afternoon interview. 

One of our photographers took a day off, however, and so it turned out, I was set out to photograph our president lighting up candles in front of the pub Teplaren. I also photographed her later at our office and then rushed to the train station to hitch a train to Wien Houbtbahnhof. I was meeting a travel buddy there. 

We had to wake up early to catch a plane to Krakow and, subsequently, to Bergen. Thankfully my uncle drove us to the airport. We arrived in Norway at about 3 pm. My friend Šimon whom we were visiting, picked us up at the airport, and we hopped on tram number one to the city center. Allegedly there exists a line number 2 in Bergen, but I haven't seen it and continue to doubt its existence. 

Of course, it was raining, I mean, we were in Bergen. I didn't bring a raincoat or an umbrella because I thought I could just campaign against the weather. 

We arrived at our accommodation in the city center only to find out, the key safe was empty. Scared, that we got scammed, I managed to contact the landlord and get a key to a different room. The surprise was, that the key from our room and the entrance door to the whole building was the same. 

After we sorted that out, we had a couple of drinks with Šimon, who was only too eager to gobble up the whiskey we'd brought him, as alcohol in Norway is too expensive for students to buy. After that, we headed out. St. John's Church was marking the end of the main street, and seemed monumental, as it stood on a battery of stairs. We have elevated to its level and walked towards the port. 

Ever since the time I lived in Iceland, I am fascinated by the northern seas. Plus, I have written a story about the port on the Danube in Bratislava recently, so I was quite interested to see the ships. As we walked towards the Unesco world heritage marked wooden houses, a beautiful sunset found its way to crawl through clouds and reflect the colors off the water spots throughout the pavement. Once we'd walked far enough, we walked into a 10-story tall cruise ship, which made us throw up in our mouths a little bit. 

In pursuit of beer, we have settled in a student bar at the faculty of arts at the local uni. It cost us 5 euros, which was less than we expected. We each bought Šimon a beer and left for home. We were worn out. 

Our steps in the morning lead towards Ulirken, the tallest mountain out of the hills surrounding the town. We walked through a very strange route, but after passing a football field and a hospital garage, we found ourselves at the heel of the mount. Realizing the prices of the cable car weren't a joke, we've started working the steps. Nature was beautiful, although the steps were such that they visually blended together, and it took enormous mental effort, to calculate each step. 

Martinas back gave up after about three sets of stairs, so we've had to call a retreat on a mission. We returned to the city, passing beautiful fall trees and other tourists heading up Ulriken. We greeted them as if we were tryhards already returning from the summit. 

A grocery store with a retro-futuristic name REMA 1000 has lured us in, and I've bought a chocolate bar and an apple. Waiting outside for my peers, I was surprised for them to come out of the shop with a pair of guys from my hometown of Košice in Slovakia. I've grown accustomed to this happening. When I visited Berlin earlier this year, I couldn't, for the love of me, speak German, because every stranger I met started speaking Slovak back to me. 

We walked past a shipyard and a housing facility and played water foosball. It's like a regular foosball, only the table has pools of water in it, because it's in Bergen, and it friggin rains all the time. Well, it didn't rain that day, but you get the point. 

Šimon later served us something he called Mechiko and me and Martina trashed him in front of his friends for like an hour. It's always fun when other people think we are actually assholes, but we are just friends like Jerry Seinfeld, Elaine Benes, and George Costanza. It's just tough to say who is who though. The dorm where Šimon stayed was quite different from my dorm in Brno. There were about 6 rooms, each with its bathroom, connected to this commonplace with couches, a balcony, and two mirrored kitchens. It was like a large flat really. “We are like on rehab here,” spoke one of the Šimons roommates “we don't have any alcohol, because we can not afford it. We eat little, and go on a bunch of hikes all the time.”

We left the apartment and entered a common gaming room in the neighboring building. Students had access to the pool and ping-pong tables there, I thought it was quite cool. 

I spent the next hours walking around the part of town called Florida with Šimon, having a good old talk like we used to have when we hung out almost daily during our university years in Brno. I'm sad my best friend moved to Norway, but who can blame him? Social tension in Slovakia is becoming unbearable, people now regularly choose violence, and opportunities are scarce and painful to realize.  

The port in Florida was interesting, although, from the architectural standpoint, it was a bit busy. It reminded me of those Lego towns some lunatics have in their basements. 

We passed a nightclub called Backstage, built in a cave. We've managed to visit Šimons university building, which has its own swimming pool. I thought my Alma Mater in Brno was quite modern, but god damn, this was years ahead. I mean, the whole country kinda is. Norway washes its oil-dirty hands off with an inland ecological revolution. Seeing a combustion engine car is a near to rare sight, and most big car manufacturers don't even offer non-electric vehicles here anymore. 

I guess what I liked about the city was also the calmness and quietness of the streets. I have no idea how but a town with precipitation like a freaking rainforest has managed to create a cozy feeling to it. 

After the walk, I bought a 12 euro, almost one-kilo salad in the grocery store, where I could mix it myself, and went home. I've taken a nap at home, exhausted from all the walking, and edited some pictures. Soon enough, Martina and I would pick up and head to Šimons dorm for some booze action. 

The night went well, after a short while, it was just the Slovak students (out of which one was from my high school, and I knew him, because he is also a friend of my buddy Lukáš, with whom I'd traveled to Berlin). We had a great time, we brought Šimon two liquor bottles from the duty-free store. One was a whiskey, which we'd drunk that night; another one was Zubrowka. We thought it was hilarious to bring these alcohol-deprived children booze they all hated.

Drunk, but still eager to take some images, I've managed to stop by Florida and capture these long exposure images at about 2 in the morning. 

When we got to the city center, it was full of drunk Norwegians. Quite a shit show to tell you the truth. They were all trying to cram into the tram, barely letting us hop off. The clubs in the city all close at 3 am for some reason. I must admit, though, the police were there in great numbers, ready to prevent any brawl from sparking. 

Surprisingly, the morning wasn't so bad. OH WAIT, OUTSIDE THE STRANGER WHO LITERALLY WALKED INTO OUR ROOM IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT. Yeah, so remember the keys? The one from our room was the same one that fits into the front door of the building, so it turned out, everybody had everybody's keys here :). Apparently, the Norwegian owner thought it was normal, for people not to steal other people's stuff, but hello (!!!), it's typically not the Norwegians that stay at a tourist accommodation! Needless to say, we were perplexed. 

It was pouring rain in the morning, so we had to wait before leaving. We planned to get to the top of another mountain called Fløyen, this time by (a much cheaper) cable car. We have caught a glimpse of this cloud formation unusual for Bergen called the blue blue sky. It was just for a couple of minutes, but just enough to catch the view. As we proceeded to descend back into the city, I realized how amazing this place is. The path was mingled with different streams and small waterfalls. Mash-covered tree roots made you feel like you were in ancient times, looking for a game to hunt. I thought it was amazing, this was a sight to be had only 20 or 30 minutes walking from the city center. In the last quarter of our way down, it started to rain heavily. We ran into a cozy warm coffee and had to wait for a free table for at least 15 minutes. 

This was one of the last of our adventures. Our flight in the morning was set to depart at about 8, so we had to get up early. I was then very thankful that the tram ran very simply from the city center, straight to the airport.