Mon 02-Aug-2004  The day started with Lizzie waking up ~2:30, I tried to interest her in a video on the laptop but she wasn't buying it without an adult. Karen and I got up and after a brief unspoken conversation, Karen stayed up with Lizzie and I gratefully went back to bed. -A    Waking up ~6:30 definitely felt like a luxury after coming out to see Karen with Emma and Lizze. After taking stock of the food situation it was decided that a trip to the store would be necessary. Knut, Emma, Lizzie and I all piled into our rental car and set off to the little local grocery store, "Co-op." We arrived at 8:00 to find the store wouldn't open till 9:00, so we drove around, stopping at a bank and a gas station till the store opened. Emma was particularly happy to find little shopping carts that she could push around and had a great time picking out items that we needed and putting them in her cart. -A Both girls have been cyclic, between buzzing around and collapsing into sleep, all day long. After the shopping trip, Emma went to sleep and refused to wake up. It was quite a struggle to get her up at 12:00. But we were headed into central Bergen to see King Haakan's Hall and the Rosenkrantz Tower. The tower had a wonderfull view of downtown Bergen. Emma was a real trooper and had a great time climbing up and down the spiral staircases, Lizzie (sleeping) stayed outside with Knut and Nina. -A     After the Rosencrantz Tower we went next door to King Haakan's Hall, a high-vaulted stone hall originally built in the 12th century to accommodate formal events like royal coronations. The current hall's roof and all its wooden parts were rebuilt after 1944, when a German ammunition ship exploded while moored alongside the hall. Emma was fascinated by the concept of an explosion so big that it would destroy the tower and the hall. She spent a lot of time looking at a diorama of what the buildings looked like after the explosion, and continued to ask questions about explosions a couple of different times as we were walking or sitting together. It was really fun explaining what an explosion is; the hard part for me of course is trying to explain the concept correctly without getting overly technical. -A Sometimes it's a little hard to be as big a person as I am; fortunately I have Emma and Elizabeth to help out . . . . -A We celebrated the end of our tourist-walking with the first ice-creams of the vacation. Aaron needed something to console him for the current Scandinavian hotdog score (Thomas: 2, Aaron: 0), and it was hot and sunny. Emma handled her ice-cream neatly; it was Lizzie who needed to be wiped off every 30 seconds, and clung tenaciously to her cone, even when it was dribbling vanilla and chocolate all down her front. Bathtimes for everyone tonight. -K