Day 1

The first day of BiW is now behind and what a nice day it was. First in the morning there was registration and we were welcomed to the Bergen International Week at the Bergen University student center by the hosts. Learn more about BiW here http://biw.b.uib.no/

Right from the start I got the feeling that this event is really well organized and the atmosphere was very relaxed within our group. You can't always say that if the program is too hectic and you don't actually get a change to network.

What we learned when we shortly introduced ourselves was that we are many and we come from many countries: 57 participants from 17 countries. About half of us are from libraries and the other half come from international student administration. The biggest groups come from Spain, Italy, France, Germany, UK and Austria. There were two of us from Finland. The atmosphere was truly international inside the auditorium and outside it.

We also learned some basics of Bergen University by the vice-rector. If you want learn more, visit their website http://www.uib.no/en

After the lunch we had some time off before the guided city walk that lasted for two hours. Although I've been to Bergen twice, it was a really nice walk around the city and we all certainly learned new things about this nice city. It was cool to see how old buildings are saved here, especially if you come from a country like Finland where everything old is always replaced by new "innovative" things.

Then we headed up to the Floien with the funicular. Wikipedia tells more: "Fløyen or Fløyfjellet (originally written Fløien) is the most visited of the seven mountains that surround the city centre of Bergen, Norway. It has a funicular system Fløibanen that transports passengers from the centre of Bergen to a height of 320 metres in roughly 8 minutes, and the actual highest point (425 metres) on Fløifjellet is approximately 1 km to the northeast."

There, at the breathtaking scenery we had some nice barbecue dish and the atmosphere were even more relaxed, and even a Finn like me started really to getting friends with each other. I instantly learned something about the UK library system and how the German higher education works - thanks to the colleagues. And big thanks goes to our hosts who arranged this wonderful trip to the Floien!

Here are pictures that gives you some idea how nice and beautiful city Bergen really is.