Written by: Kieran Brown, Andre Thomas, Hailey Tracy, and Roxi Wessel
Jet lag hit us all pretty hard the first few days after arrival, but we quickly found the solution; good company, a whole lot of coffee, and fresh air. A small group and I walked around the quaint “Hallmark”-esc town looking for a good cafe. Once we stumbled onto Color Street or “Ølvre Holmegate”, we knew this was the place for us. Our cafe of choice was called Bøker og Børst (it was also a bar and bookstore)! We settled outside, where a disco ball and Beatles music greeted us. Everyone got their warm drinks and settled in for conversations of travel, Stavanger and St. Olaf. Since it was a cool and cloudy day, the nice barista asked us if we needed the outside heater on. We responded in unison “No thanks”, because truthfully, we were all a bit warm.
We’ve already found ourselves on Color Street quite often in the past few days. The roads and buildings are painted with various styles of street art from artists of all different backgrounds, which gives the area a fun atmosphere despite there not being many other people around. One of the most notable pieces is a large rainbow painted on the ground, although I was also partial to the tiny statues standing on electrical boxes of buildings. Color Street is lined with lots of inviting stores and coffee shops, many of which we made a point to visit as soon as we could, such as the previously mentioned coffee shop!
Color Street gave us a run for our money. It’s always a challenge to shop somewhere with an unfamiliar currency, but luckily for us, Norwegian kroner are fairly easy to convert: divide the listed price by ten, and you’ll have a ballpark estimate in USD (and the dollar is so strong right now the ratio is more like 8.5 to 1, so if you account for 10, you’re basically saving money!). In addition to wrestling with the kroner, we have been playing a fun game called credit card roulette wherein some peoples’ cards refuse to work at small local establishments, or have a minimum transaction amount, or cease to function at random. To the barista at Bøker og Børst (a Color Street cafe we visited) who successfully rang up roughly half of us, we are very sorry.
As we wandered around the city, it really stood out to me just how walkable Stravanger is. Though it has some twisting streets that can get confusing, all of the places we wanted to visit were only a short walk away, usually around 6-10 minutes. This is something I find we don’t really see a lot in the modern US anymore; cars have become our main method of transportation and our cities have grown to adapt to that. Being able to walk around a busy city so easily was a breath of fresh air. Stravanger is really dense, but instead of feeling claustrophobic the small, cobblestone streets felt cozy and inviting, illuminated by lights. For the large part the cobbled streets are free from cars, leaving them open for pedestrians and the occasional electric scooter. Even when there are cars, drivers always yield to pedestrians, and are very considerate. On larger streets, crosswalks are replaced by underground tunnels that dip below the street, many of which are decorated with murals that are scattered throughout the town.
