Bergen: "All Norwegians speak English. You are just lazy."

The other day, I took a ride up the Fløibanen (the Bergen funicular). It takes you up part of Mount Fløyen and boasts some of the best views of the city and its environs. I put on my ski pants, stuffed my day pack with some gear, a sandwich, and a block of Freia chocolate, and set off to do some serious winter hiking.

I was not alone.

Rosy-cheeked teenagers with sleds, whole families armed with poles and cross-country skis, even older couples with their dogs, all squeezed into the funicular for the steep ride up. The Mount Fløyen area is chock-full of trails. In the summer, it's used as a running area; in the winter, XC-skiing and sledding. You can hike year-round.

When I stepped off at the top, I booked it towards the information station/souvenir shop. I wanted to double check which trail would lead me to Mount Ulriken, the longer, more challenging, and more rewarding hike out of Mount Fløyen.

I walked up to the counter, and asked the man behind it if he spoke English.

He looked me up and down with his sea blue eyes, exhaled sharply, and replied:

"All Norwegians speak English. You are just lazy."

I laughed it off with a placating comment, something like, "Yes, you're right. Ha ha ha."

But it got to me. I mean, I am in Norway. I hate to assume that everyone here speaks English when this isn't an English-speaking country. Isn't that insanely presumptuous and arrogant?

I am well aware that Norwegians speak excellent English. Christ, some even sound American.

"It's because nothing is dubbed here. And the Norwegians watch a lot of American telly," I was informed later that day. The informant: Gavin Gillis, a 30-year old Scottish fisherman, stopping through Bergen on his way home to the highlands of Scotland. Gavin and his friend (and colleague), David MacLeod, were both on their first day of leave from work. I ran into them after my hike, once I'd gotten back to the hostel. Too exhausted to get out of my ski pants and warming my hands on an apple-cinnamon-and raisin tea, I'd hunkered down over an old copy of Le Nouvel Observateur. Gav and Dave strode in with multiple brown bags: an assortment of white wines, port, and beer.

I looked up from my reading, smiled, and looked back down.

"D'ya want a bit o' wine, then?" I looked back up, and there stood Gav, proferring a bottle of Australian Chardonnay.

I accepted. First one glass, then another.

Gav and Dave are Scottish fisherman working in Norway (better pay, better benefits). Gav is tall and built like a pickup truck. He is a self-proclaimed skipper, born and bred in the highlands, up past Glasgow. His green eyes, bloodshot on account of early morning drinking ("We're on holiday," he explained), bore holes into my skull while we spoke. I learned that he had a son named Johnny Allen who had turned 3 years old the day before, February 6th. And that he and his son's mother were separated but enjoyed an amicable relationship.

Dave took a bit longer to open up. He observed, first, with warm toffee-colored eyes. Eventually he revealed that he was from the Isle of Skye. Dave has a Master's in Ethnology from the University of Edinborough and had recently quit smoking. The smoking was a big deal. Dave confessed he had been in quite a slump for the past few years: in an abusive relationship with a cheating girlfriend, "not living up to [his] potential," both intellectual and physical (Dave, a though taller than Gav, has a doughier build than his friend). Quitting smoking, he boasted, was something he had done completely on his own. No patch. No support group.

"If I can quit smoking, I can do anything."

Dave and I talked for a long time, with Gav contributing a few comments between cigarette breaks.

Scotland, apparently, makes bank money for the United Kingdom thanks to its revenues from whisky, oil, and tourism. I asked them what they thought about Scottish independence. Gavin, as I had expected, gave a fiery response. Because his ancestors had fought and died for Scotland, he, too, would do the same if need be. Dave offered a surprisingly balanced and humble answer. He said he would likely be in favor of the union with England and Wales, given that Scotland has done alright under this paradigm.

"I would have to learn more about it. It's a difficult question..."

He went on to give a riveting history of the Highland Clearances, the forced displacement of so many Scottish Highlanders in the 18th- and 19th-centuries in order to make the land more profitable for the government and landowners.

"They valued sheep more than people." Dave spoke through now port-stained lips. Though it's as a result of this, he continued, that tourism now thrives in Scotland. The Highland Clearances scattered Scottish people to other parts of the world - especially Canada (e.g. Nova Scotia). Hundreds of years later, their descendents keep returning to Scotland to study their family history, to learn about the old clans.

Dave knows a good deal about the history of Scotland and, in particular, Highland folklore. He dreams, one day, of starting up his own company that will offer tours to descendents of Highlanders. He wants to set his services apart with his expertise in ethnography. His tours will match Scottish descendents up with individuals and families in the highlands. In areas ripe with folk stories and oral tradition. Areas, as of yet, untapped by ethnographers.

Dave shook his head and looked down at the Elderberry beer we were now drinking (a traditional, Scottish beer).

"There are so many stories to tell. And they are dying out."

People paying for his services would not only benefit from a unique travel experience, customized to their ancestral roots. The stories they elicit would then go to the National Archives. These tourists would actively contribute to the preservation of Scottish ethnohistory.

I told him that, like ecotourism, ethnotourism, if implemented responsibly and sustainably, I liked it.

At about 9 pm (I was shocked by how the hours flew by), we decided to head out to an Irish pub around the corner. The night degenerated pretty soon after that. Two Norwegian musicians provided live music: mostly Irish jigs and Scottish songs. And, trust me, you wouldn't have imagined they could be anything but Irish or Scottish had you been outside of Norway.

We made friends with a lovely Irish girl sitting at the bar. Sheelagh, in Bergen on business (of the livestock nutrition variety), promised to try to get me tickets to the next World Equestrian Games in 2010. Which are to be held in Kentucky. I'm really excited.

I met Espen, a tatooed Norwegian with a shaved head and smooth pale skin, who had dropped out of the University because he doesn't like to "produce text." I met Christina, a pool-playing Norwegian I confused for English. I met a man I will call Mr. Viking, as he had a long ponytail of blond hair and a braided chin beard, who twirled me around on the dance floor and then asked very politely if I would like to go home with him (I turned him down). We all drank lots of Hansa. At one point I believe there were 12-14 pints on the bar.

You assume, quite rightly, that I spoke to everyone in English.

Gav told me something else about "the English question" in Norway. When I asked, earlier in the evening, if he and Dave spoke Norwegian, they said no. Dave can actually say a few basic things; Gav, a bit less. But the point is, the Norwegians "don't give you any motivation to learn their language." They all speak English so well, you don't actually need to be able to speak Norwegian. Even, said Gav, after being here for three years.

I don't feel so lazy after all.