Chapter 12

12. Bergen

 

During the autumn semester, I was going to teach a couple of courses in economics, as a lecturer. At the same time, I was looking to do something else, but preferably stay in Sweden. One day I saw an announcement on the department's bulletin board, looking for an economist at the Christian Michelsen Institute (CMI) for Oil Economics in Bergen. The salary was two times higher compared to the lecturer position and Bergen was a beautiful city that I had visited several years earlier. I applied right away and a month later I was offered the position that would start in January 1987. I accepted the position immediately and we agreed that I would go there later in November to meet them and be informed of all the necessary things.

No to post-doc in the US

At the same time as I accepted the position in Bergen, Bengt-Christer asked if I was interested in a post-doc position either at Harvard, or Stanford. It was Dale Jørgensen, a professor at Harvard, who was the opponent of Jonas Agell's doctoral thesis in May, who asked if I was interested in a position there. Jonas had already accepted one of the two offered positions. It would be a couple of years in the US for research. But after my trip to the US, I had decided to "never again in the US", and I answered bluntly, without thinking, "no, but thank you for the offer".

He was a bit shocked and asked why and if I had any better options. Then I replied that I did not want to leave the Nordic countries for the United States, even though it was a flattering offer and I preferred Bergen, where I had just been given a position there.  He laughed out loud and wondered if I had gone crazy. How could I turn down the well-known universities in the United States and move to rainy Bergen? He also said that it was a bit embarrassing to turn down an American professor's offer and that we don't get such generous post-docs from there.

I didn't want to tell him why I preferred the rain of Bergen to the arrogance of the United States. The conversation led nowhere and I think Bengt-Christer never understood my decision. I don't know what he said to Dale Jørgensen. A few years later, he fell ill and died, and I wonder what Jørgensen thought when a Greek bullied a post-doc in the United States to move to Bergen.

Incidentally, when it comes to the generosity of the Americans towards new Swedish doctors, I have always been very skeptical about. Many prominent American economists love to come to Sweden to make more contacts with all the Swedish professors who sit on the Nobel Committee and thus increase the likelihood that they themselves will receive the Nobel Prize. Many who had received the Nobel Prize had been to Sweden before, as visiting professors. I do not know if the purpose of Dale Jørgensen's frequent visits to Sweden was to increase the chances of receiving the Nobel Prize. At the same time, he was one of the best economists at then and many tipped him as a strong candidate for the prize, which he did not get.

At the end of November, I went to Bergen to meet with the management at CMI. They received me with joy and they planned what I would do, where I would live and all the other practical things. I had a Swedish, but temporary residence permit and it was also valid for Norway. The weather in Bergen was gray and rainy, which they pointed out in case I didn't know. We agreed on the salary and that I would start after the Christmas holidays in January. It was a permanent employment that was to be renewed automatically after a trial period of six months.

After a day there, I went back to Uppsala to plan my move to Bergen. I left the apartment and moved my furniture to my girlfriend's sister's basement. I also left my Saab with them because it would be difficult to go by car to Bergen in Winter. At that time, you had to drive up to the mountains and down to the valley because the long tunnel that exists today was not built. My girlfriend was about to finish her studies in Uppsala and she stayed. We celebrated Christmas together with her parents in Dalarna. By the way, her father had just won SEK 1.8 million on Lotto, but my girlfriend hardly got any money. She continued to work part-time to complete her studies. I felt a little sorry for her and I appreciated my poor father even more for what he did for me.

The move and life in Bergen

At the beginning of January, I took the flight from Arlanda to Bergen, via Oslo. When I left Arlanda early in the morning it was -12 degrees and when we arrived in Oslo it was -16. But when we landed in Bergen, just before lunch, it was +1, with thick clouds, some fog and drizzle and it felt significantly colder. I took a taxi to CMI where they were waiting for me. They showed me around, my office, introduced my colleagues and offered some light lunch that they served at CMI's cafeteria. Then we went to the bank to fix an account and to the villa where I was going to live.

It was a two-floor house on a hill, close to Haukeland Hospital. The villa was owned by a CMI director who had moved to Canada to work in an oil institute for a couple of years. It was very large, furnished and quite old. According to an agreement CMI had with the owner, I was to pay a low rent, and of course take care of the house. Then they showed me the bus stop and we went to a grocery store to buy some food. In the evening, they left me and we were supposed to meet the next day at CMI. I first ate some dinner and then watched TV. There were only two Norwegian channels and after an hour or so I went to bed. The bedroom was upstairs and when I went to sleep, I noticed that the fog was so low and dense. The street and outdoor lighting on the villas nearby was barely visible.

The next day I took the bus to CMI. It was much darker than it was in Uppsala at 8 o'clock in the morning, partly because it was cloudy and rainy, partly because Bergen is about 1000 kilometers west of Uppsala and we have the same time zone. The roads in Bergen are narrow and crooked and the bus drove quite slowly.

I got off near CMI and then I walked the long uphill towards the headquarters. Outside my room were three scientists, an Italian, a Frenchman, and an Israeli, whom I had not met before. They introduced themselves and after a while they asked me if lunch is served at workplaces in Sweden! I was really surprised by their question and replied: "of course". The Israeli then turned to everyone else and said, " You see, that's what you do in civilized countries!" Immediately after, they asked me to accompany them to the HR manager to inform him that we do have lunch at the workplaces in Sweden.

We went up to him, whom I had met the day before, and then the Italian said that I should tell him about the lunch in Sweden. The personnel manager, who had received the same complaint several times before, turned to him and said in a loud voice: "I repeat what I have said before. We're not going to have lunch and siesta in Norway, period. Here you eat a small light lunch, such as sandwiches and yogurt, which is available in the cafeteria. You'll be fine until you have an early dinner after work." They shook their heads and were sad, of course. We left and one of them wondered how I could leave the civilized Sweden and move to Bergen.

I didn't think lunch was that important and it went well with sandwiches and yogurt that the cafeteria served, but after a couple of weeks I got tired of the one-sided lunch. In conversations with people at CMI, I learned that Bergen, unlike Oslo, adhered to traditions and did not serve lunch, neither at workplaces nor at restaurants out in the city. The restaurants, on the other hand, started with dinner at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, until 9 in the evening! I experienced it once when I went to a restaurant near my residence after 8 in the evening. The dishes were almost sold out and they were supposed to close at 9.30. All Bergen residents were home that late, or no one would order dinner that late.

A few weeks later, I noticed that many people brought sandwiches or other packed lunches from home, especially when we had lunch seminars a couple of times a week. I remember one day during a lunch seminar, a senior Statoil manager came to present us with a new project. He took out his sandwich package from his Helly Hansen rain jacket and started eating while he presented the project. On the other side of the table sat the Israeli and the Frenchman who chuckled and shook their heads when they saw this scene. Afterwards, the Frenchman came to my room and asked how it felt when a high-ranking Statoil manager did that. Of course, he believed that such things only happen in Norway and never in France.

In my position, my colleagues and I would analyze and evaluate various strategic oil projects, for the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate, or oil companies like Hydro and Statoil. The head of the research unit was a Swedish mathematics professor from Linköping University of Technology, who had left Sweden a few years earlier. The head of the unit was a Dane. In addition to economists, there were also optimizers and programmers, and most of them were Norwegians and doctors. Depending on the project and participation, we switched between Norwegian and English. When I wrote in Swedish, with my Norwegian keyboard, it felt a bit strange, but the friendly secretary corrected all Swedish words into Norwegian.

Life in Bergen continued in the same dull way. Take the bus to CMI, work until four or five, buy food from groceries and return home to make a dinner. Sometimes I went out in the rain or snow. It was a little brighter in the afternoons there compared to Sweden, but late in the evening there were hardly any people outside. One Saturday in February, I took the Fløibanen funicular to get some impressions of the fantastic view of Bergen. Unfortunately, visibility was poor then, almost everything was covered by the fog. I waited until April to experience this wonderful view. But I was fascinated by the fish market where customers bought live salmon swimming in a pool and the fishmonger caught for them.

Meeting the Greeks

Another cold and humid Saturday, I went to a cafeteria in the city center to drink a coffee and, of course, to warm up. When I went to sit down, I heard laughter and loud noises in Greek. Be funny, Greeks in Bergen, I thought. I asked them in Greek if they lived there. They were surprised that there was another Greek there. Then I sat with them and we started talking.

One of them, Vasilis, had lived there for a long time, was a programmer, married to a Norwegian and had a child. The other two, Takis and Irini, were dentists, and made a certain specialty in pediatric dentistry, which it was considered among the best in Europe at the time. I thought it was nice to hang out with other compatriots there. Takis and Irini also thought it was good that I knew Swedish to maybe help them if needed, even though the Bergen dialect has a very harsh sound. Since that day we became good friends and hung out almost every day. I found out that there was another Greek girl who was married to a Norwegian and lived just outside Bergen who they also hung out with. There were also a few more Greeks on the west coast, in Stavanger, Haugesund and Trondheim.

The snow-white ski suit

It was still winter and you could buy nice winter jackets on sale. Takis told me that his sister in Athens wanted a snow-white ski overall. He asked me if I had time on Saturday to accompany him to the stores and help him with the purchase. And I had plenty of time. First, we went to a big store in town without finding snow-white overalls. There were plenty of overalls in wonderful colors instead. We moved on to the next store, which was a little smaller. Same thing there. Elegant overalls but no snow-white. I then told Takis that it must be difficult with a snow-white overall, as it is not visible on the slopes or in avalanches and may not be made in snow-white.

While we were looking, a salesman came and asked us if he could help. I explained to him what Takis' sister wanted. He immediately replied that they did not have white and that it was difficult to find in Norway due to visibility aspects and wondered why she wanted snow-white. I turned to Takis and asked him in Greek why his sister wanted a snow- white. Takis then told us a long story, while the salesman stared at us. After a couple of minutes, I turned to the salesman and said that she wasn't really going to ski, she just wanted to wear it this winter in Athens. The salesman shook his head and we left.

The story that Takis talked about his sister was actually interesting. Back then, in Athens' most elegant and luxurious Kolonaki Square, the wealthy young people used to park their expensive cars with ski equipment on the roof, while they themselves sat in cafes dressed in their beautiful overalls, as if heading to the ski mountains outside Athens. They could sit there for hours, especially on weekends, without going to the ski resorts at all. Some could barely ski. They simply wanted to impress everyone else in the square. And while all the other friends of his sister wore overalls in different colors, no one had snow-white! It was just as well that I didn't tell the whole truth to the salesperson! He would think that not only was his sister really spoiled, but we were also crazy as we walked around in the raining Bergen looking for a snow-white overall to be worn in a cafeteria in Athens.

Life in Svalbard

Takis and Irini worked in the same department with Åse, a dental nurse. All three also socialized privately. When Åse had her birthday, she invited a few people to her home, but also me, since I had met her a few weeks earlier. She lived quite close to the Fløibanen funicular with a nice view of the sea. 

It was a nice event at Åse's home, with Norwegian food, dancing, and funny stories. In the evening, Åse told us that last summer she had gone on holiday in Svalbard and what she experienced there was outstanding. Before she went there, she had to fill out a few forms, preferably she would have a firearms license, maybe bring extra canned goods and crispbread, inform the authorities where and for how long she would be staying, and so on.

Since neither Takis nor Irini understood Norwegian, Åse spoke English. When Irini asked why you should have a gun license, Åse replied to rent a rifle in case you met a bear while walking around alone. She pointed out that in Svalbard, it is the bears that are free, while people walk on fenced streets and roads instead. When Takis asked her why you should have canned goods and crispbread with you, Åse replied that you can get lost in the snow and it was just as well to have some extra food, and maybe even feed the bears! Svalbard is quite restrictive against mass tourism and people who go there must accept certain restrictions, said Åse. And then she ended by saying "people over there live like that ".

Takis looked at her intently and said that "live" was a wrong verb to use. Åse protested, she turned to me and said in Norwegian "I mean live, not leave", so that I would translate in Greek to Takis, in case he thought she used the verb "leave". I translated it to Takis and he just smiled. He turned to her again and said a little ironically: "I understand, but you should use survive instead, not live". Åse turned a little sad, but Takis continued, with everything Åse told us about Svalbard, it was a question of survival and not of life. And if Åse wants to see what life is like, she can come with him to Athens to experience it!

Åse got very angry with him and it was the first time I heard an angry woman swear in Norwegian. Takis apologized, but he still thought he was right, something that Åse reluctantly accepted. She then insisted that he and many Greeks should go to Svalbard instead if they wanted to understand and learn from nature and not trying to find a snow-white overall to wear it in a cafeteria in Athens! Then she showed some beautiful pictures from Svalbard and the atmosphere became much nicer.

Easter in Bergen

In the beginning of April, I flew to Uppsala to pick up my car. I changed to summer tires and drove back to Bergen during Easter week and my girlfriend came along. It was a fantastic journey. We spent the night northwest of Oslo and the next day we drove to Bergen. At Eide fjord we took a ferry across the other side of Hardagen fjord. It was a magnificent and nasty nature with thundering waterfalls from very high cliffs quite close to the narrow and crooked roads we drove. It was cold but sunny and when we found some small parking spaces, we stopped to admire the rugged nature and take some pictures.

When we got home, I called Takis and Irini to meet the next day. Unfortunately, everything was closed that day, because it was Maundy Thursday. Norwegians usually go skiing during Easter week and the big holiday starts on Maundy Thursday. We bought some food at a Hydro gas station and had dinner with us.

On Good Friday we went up to the mountains to hike on the ice. After an hour or so we finally found a small cafeteria for a coffee break. Early in the afternoon, the weather changed quickly and it started snowing. We got a little worried and we decided to go down to Bergen before the roads got covered in the snow and the visibility became too poor. I had just switched to summer tires and was not a good idea.

We celebrated Easter at our house and Vasili's family also joined us. It was alternate break and rain, but not so cold and we even had time to grill some meat and sausages out in the yard, before it started to rain again.

The weather continued to be rainy and it became brighter and warmer. I remember when Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland was to give her May Day speech in Bergen, it was delayed by three hours because of the dense fog. Since the plane couldn't land, it returned to Stavanger and she took the helicopter instead! The Flesland airport in Bergen is located next to the fjord with some mountains nearby and it can be quite difficult to land. Gro began her speech by apologizing for the delay and it was wrong to be optimistic about Bergen's weather.

Lawn

At the beginning of May, I went with some colleagues to a three-day conference in Karlstad. At the same time, I asked for a two-day vacation and took the opportunity to meet my girlfriend in Uppsala.

A week later, I took the last flight from Arlanda, via Oslo, to Bergen. I had left the car to Takis who came to the airport to pick me up. It was scary when we landed because it was very foggy with light rain. I drove Takis home first and then I continued towards the villa.

When I arrived, it was dark, but I noticed that the lawn had grown a lot. Half of the villa was covered in the fog. Just as I was about to open the door, I saw two wet papers hanging. I came in and read what was written. It was the neighbor who wondered why I didn't mow the lawn. I didn't care and went to bed.

The next day I drove to CMI. On my desk was a small note saying that I had to contact the secretary. I went to her and she told me that the neighbor had complained because the lawn had grown. I thought it was ridiculous but I promised that I would cut it after work. Honestly, before I went to Sweden there was hardly any grass to cut. But because of the light and humidity, the grass grew significantly in a week!

When I drove home, I saw the neighbor mowing his own lawn in the rain. Even though I tried to hide behind the bushes, he noticed my car and came with firm steps towards me. He was quite angry and wondered why I ignored his notes. I explained that I was abroad and I will do so as soon as the rain stops. Then he got very angry and yelled at me: "If you wait for the rain to stop in Bergen, the grass will come up to the roof! I also got annoyed and asked him why he cared about another villa's lawn. He replied that the homeowner had told him to check that the villa was taken care of and since they were going to celebrate the National day on May 17 in a week or so, everything had to be neat and tidy!

I went inside, put on the owner's Helly Hansen rain jacket, and went outside to mow the lawn. It didn't work, it was so wet and everything got stuck in the lawn mower. In addition, I slipped because the lawn was on a sloping level. After a few attempts, I gave up and went back into the house. He knocked on the door again and said that I had to continue, otherwise it would get even worse. But I was tired and angry and replied that I will talk to CMI tomorrow and not be able to take any more of his complaints.

The next day I told the secretary that it was not possible and that I wanted to move to another residence. She was kind and arranged a small tractor lawn machine and they mowed the lawn. But in the future, I would make sure not to let the grass grow, or wait for the rain to stop! And there I learned to mow the lawn despite the eternal rain!

May 17th

May 17, 1987 was on a Sunday. Already on Saturday, the weather turned to high pressure. Suddenly you could see the blue sky, the magnificent greenery, and the beautiful flowers all around. All the villas had hoisted the Norwegian flag and everything was so festive. My colleagues at CMI warned me not to go with my Swedish Saab to town on May 17. On the one hand, it would be impossible to find parking and on the other hand, there was a risk that a Swedish-registered car could be vandalized on this day. So, I took the bus instead and met Takis and Irini near the square.

In the city, several thousand people had probably gathered to celebrate the National day. School and high school students as well as university students were to participate in a parade. Everyone had their own little flag that was waved with joy and everyone was so happy and proud. I have never seen so many Norwegian flags in the same place. The dark blue sky, the brown-green water, and the colorful houses at Bryggen, the fine villas up by the flute that looked like they had grown between the trees and the Norwegian colors made for an incredibly beautiful interior. All photographers must wait for such sunny days to photograph Bergen, I thought.

If I remember correctly, it hadn't been sunny for a whole day since January. We had had a few hours of sunshine for a few days, of course, but often combined with fog or drizzle. Irini thought it was so sad that the wonderful beauty of the city is hidden by fog and low pressure. And we all agreed that the weather in Bergen must have had a major impact on both Henri Ibsen's writing and Edward Grieg's musical works.

On Monday, the rain started again. A nice and quite funny colleague from Oslo came to my room and asked me what I thought of May 17 and about the weather. I said that everything was wonderful of course. And then he replied "the weather gods were with us yesterday, but now Bergen has used up the quota of sunshine-hours this year and from today the rain will return. I wondered if he was joking, but he was referring to the local newspaper "Bergens Tidende" where you could see the whole weather statistics on a whole page.

I went to the conference room and checked the newspaper. I was quite depressed by what I read. Over the past five years, the number of rainy days was 260, compared to this year's 256. This year's precipitation was 2325 mm compared to the average for the last five years which was 2340 mm. In other words it will have to rain even more to reach the five-year average!

If I remember correctly, there were a few sunny days in May but the rain continued until mid-June and after a short break for a couple of weeks, the rainy season came back with some short breaks until mid-August.          

Some rain stories

There are plenty of funny stories about the rain in Bergen. I will only choose two that clearly illustrate what the rain means in Bergen.

The old actor Kirk Douglas once went on holiday to Bergen, many years after he starred in the classic film "The Heroes of Telemark". He waited a few hours in the hotel reception for the rain to stop and go out into town. But since the rain continued all the time, he walked up to the young receptionist. He told him that 25 years ago they were going to film some sunny scenes in Bergen and waited in vain for the rain to stop. And after a few days of hollow rain, they were forced to move to the United States and film these scenes in a studio. When he finished the story, he asked the guy "Does it always rain in Bergen?” And then the guy replied: "I wasn't born 25 years ago!"

Another shorter story is about the Norwegian school students when they had a geography test. On one of the questions, they would find the error on Norway's map, where the sun only shone over Bergen while it rained over the rest of the country. Only school children from Bergen were 100% right!  I like this story and every time the Swedish TV shows the weather map of the Nordic countries, my eyes get stuck over Bergen where a permanent rain cloud must have been programmed!

Last weeks in Bergen

At the beginning of July, it was not only rainy, but also around 10 degrees. Vasilis with his family, Takis and Irini, had gone on holiday to Greece. I could not go there because of the military service issues. Of course, it felt very sad and hopeless. What to do in such a city in the middle of summer when it rains?

On weekends, I often went to town and visited different museums and art galleries, or just walked around with my umbrella to meet some people and feel like I was alive. The funniest thing was when I went to the Grieg Hall and listened to Sissel Kyrkjebö, the young star from Bergen, who sang some beautiful songs.

Out on the quay there were often some American warships, and there I met some brave tourists with rain gear and umbrellas who walked up the Flöjbanan, or waited to take the Hurtigruten to the North Calotte. Vasilis had recommended Hurtigruten, but I didn't dare to pay for an expensive trip as there was an obvious risk of rain and fog and also miss the midnight sun.

According to the contract, if I do not resign by mid-June, I must continue with my position. But I couldn't take it anymore with 10 degrees and the eternal rain in the middle of summer. So, one day, I decided to quit at any time and communicated my decision to the manager. 

Of course, he tried to persuade me and since he was soon going on vacation, he asked me to be patient and we could discuss it again in early August. I couldn't wait and I wanted to stop in August, before the autumn rains would start.

He thought it was very sad because they were very happy with my work and finally, they had learned my long family name. He asked if it was about a higher salary and promised that he would raise it after the summer. I just said that I felt bad, mainly because of the rain and because of the lack of lunch at CMI, even though Bergen is the most beautiful city I've seen in my life. He replied that they had warned me about the rain, but I didn't care then, which is true. "But I expected rain two or three days a week, and not every day, for months" I told him.

Furthermore, I said that I would move back to Uppsala for the autumn semester, even though I did not have a permanent position there and the hourly wage at the university was significantly worse. In addition, my girlfriend expected me to move there. Since she was a mathematician, he promised to offer her a position at CMI as well. I knew she didn't want to because she had to put up with so much rain when she was here during Easter. He didn't manage to persuade me and we agreed that I would leave CMI in mid-August, after his vacation.

Ironically, the day I moved was the warmest and sunniest day I've experienced on the West Coast! It felt a bit melancholy when I packed my belongings in the car. On the other hand, it was so incredibly beautiful when I drove along the scary road at Hardagenvida. I spent the night in Geilo and the next day I returned to Uppsala.