Scandinavia day 6

In planning my trip, I wanted to go someplace I'd never been and decided on Ålesund after one of my facebook friends posted this video :



I mean, seriously!!! How beautiful is that? So here are some views from the boat:

Docking in Ålesund...








Once I arrived in Ålesund, I set out to explore this lovely little city at the crack of dawn (sort of... the sun never really set up there), but first I needed some breakfast! I walked for quite a while until I found a grocery store where I found my most favorite "second breakfast" from when I lived in Norway. I never liked yogurt before I tried Norwegian yogurt. Then I didn't eat it for about 10 years after I came home. I can tolerate some American yogurt, but I'm still partial to theirs.



Views of the city...

(tulips!!)

After checking into my hotel, I hiked up the the Aksla viewpoint overlooking the city. I got a couple of photos before my camera battery died (another moment of poor planning -- I didn't bring a converter and planned to use Julia's but by the time my battery died, we were in different countries).
To get to the top, you have to walk up 418 steps....

But here's the reward... ice cream, of course!

Here I am, wearing my new sweater...





After the hike/sightseeing, it was (finally) shopping time...
They have a very cute gågate, but since my battery was dead, I have no pictures. I wanted to get some hats and gloves for my nieces and nephews, but they don't really sell that stuff in May. So, I found one hat for my niece, seen here.


I also bought some sweaters . You can never have too many.

While I was talking to Bowcutt the night before, I said, "I can't believe I haven't seen any missionaries! When we were missionaries, we were always out." And low and behold, the very next day, I ran into two elders on the gågate. The upshot of the conversation I had with them... They asked if I still knew the language. My answer, "Not really." When I told them I had lived in Bodø, they kind of freaked -- not only that sisters were that far north, but that we had missionaries there at all. They told me that their mission president pulled all the missionaries out of the north so that they could concentrate on the southern part of the country with the hopes of getting a second stake, and had only recently put missionaries back in Ålesund, but nowhere else. (Of course, Trondheim always has plenty.) I have to admit that I laughed, almost patted them on the back and said, "A second stake? Good luck with that!!" Nineteen years ago, we were talking about a second stake plus a temple.... and about the same amount of members, but more than double the missionaries. So.... yeah... good luck!! Can you believe that they have something like 56 missionaries, and only SIX sisters?? What if you were one of six sisters and got stuck with some lame companion for, like, half your mission? (I'm not naming any names, but I'll just say it rhymes with Crunch.) Nightmare!!

After shopping, I went back to my hotel for dinner. It wasn't the best dinner ever, however, they did have three kinds of pudding with vaniljesaus:



(can you believe they have a youtube video for this?? I'm drooling right now!!)

The last thing I did in Norway, besides taking a cab to the airport, was to go to the gift shop of my hotel and try to spend down the last of my kroner. I had just enough for this tasty treat...