Once we had consumed our dinner on out return to the Youth Hostel, many of the orchestra members soon turned their thoughts to dressing up for the 'party' written into out itineraries. I wasn't one of them, as I already knew what I was wearing: the now-infamous power station t-shirt, even though it was my brother's, but I was beginning to ignore this. Other people who weren 't feeling up to deliberating their appearance were Clio, Meghan, Rebecca, Pat, Damon, Xander, Tony and Ophelia, so naturally this was another opportune time of both Snap and Cheat.

'Wow,' said Meg, out of nowhere. 'You've got loads of bottles!'

A whole host of empty mineral water and soft drink bottles were piled up beside the sink.

'Yes,' said Tony. 'We should start a bottle orchestra, except none of us can be bothered.'

'I'll do it!' I offered. 'You don't have enough bottles for an octave, though.'

'Let's go and get some from our room,' suggested Clio.

Meg, Rebecca and I agreed to this immediately and went to fetch some spare bottles from our room. To our amazement, we had built up quite a collection ourselves without even noticing it. There were now definitely enough bottles for an octave.

Just before the party, I went next door to put on the power station t-shirt, then, en masse, the card players made their way up to the dining hall bang on time, clutching random CDs that we were hoping to get played. Alas, there was to be no Ooberman or Nirvana. A group of second violins turned up in togas fashioned from their bed sheets, which they found exceedingly amusing. Our group of non-second violins haughtily ignored such absurdity and concentrated on more important things such as Dancing Really Badly or Sitting to One Side and Laughing at People Dancing Really Badly. I took part in the former, grabbing a surprised Damon from his seat and taking for a waltz around the dance floor, even though the song was in 4/4. The first half-hour or so went on in this way, with m pausing only to most to S Club 7 with Clio. After that, though, I lost interests and settled into becoming a member of the elite aforementioned latter group. I was seated beside Damon, and I soon noticed that his trousers were very strokeable. Hence, I spent the next half-hour stroking his knee and laughing at everybody else's dancing.

Then came presentations and declarations of thanks. Mr Morris thanked Olaf, Frank and Woody the coach drivers, and all the peris. Olaf, Frank, Woody and all the peris thanked him back to much cheering and general yelling, which I suspect mostly came from the Seconds. Other people clapped politely. This had all taken a fair amount of time, so Meg, Rebecca, Clio, Ophelia, Pat, Damon, Tony, Xander and I took its ending as a good cue to leave the party and proceed with Tony's bottle orchestra idea. I mentioned the idea to Sheila and Annie, and they decided to join us, stopping first at their room to pick up some empty bottles.

In the boys' room, I lined the bottles up on the floor and began filling them with water. After a while, I had managed an octave, complete with horribly out-of-tune semitones. The fact that I can't pitch notes terribly well hindered the project considerably, and I soon became fed up. Meg's tuneless version of 'Oh When the Saints Go Marching In' on my orchestra was particularly disheartening, and it made me finally lose what was left of my composure.

'Argh!' I cried. 'I give up! Let's just tip the whole lot out of the window!'

'Huh?' asked Sheila.

'Really, it's best if you just ignore the insensible bits and join in with the general idea,' said Clio, and picked up a couple of bottles whilst I opened a window.

By around 11pm, everybody had filtered back to their own rooms, tired of our last-night high spirits. Only Meg, Clio and I remained, Rebecca having returned to our room.

'Your light switch is wonky,' I pointed out.

'Ooh, I think I'll take a picture of it, then,' said Xander.

'Yes,' I replied, but you need somebody's hand in the shot pointing at its wonkiness.'

This made for an interesting photograph.

Soon after, Rose Pendragon came to kick us out, and Clio and I plotted to return once she had left our corridor, as we had decided that we were going to try to stay another night next door. In the mean time, we occupied out time with packing, which consisted of throwing anything that was outs into our bags and hoping that we hadn't forgotten anything. Once we had decided that Rose Pendragon had left, Clio and I made out way back to two-doors-down. Xander had decided that he was going to take a photo of everybody in their pyjamas, and took another at my insistence so that he could play spot the difference when his photos were developed (Damon and I had swapped places). Unfortunately, Rose Pendragon and Carol Marrow turned up at around half-past-one, throwing out plans out of the window like the fated water from the bottle orchestra, so Clio and I decided to call it a day and go to bed.

The next morning was again a lovely, sunshiney Norwegian morning. It would be our last day in Bergen, as the ferry was to leave late in the afternoon, which left us with time for one last wander around Bergen before the much-hyped visit to Troldhaugen. By now, we all knew Bergen fairly well, or so we thought. Clio, Meghan, Rebecca, Richard, a first violin from the other coach, Bobby, Steven and I were wandering along the main street aimlessly when I saw a sign for a toyshop. Following it up a side street, we came upon a toy treasure trove. The shop was full of the clich�d cuddly toys and jigsaw puzzles et cetera, but as well as that, there were kites, rubber stamps and a giant keyboard on the floor to be played with using customers' feet. Steven attempted 'Wedding Day at Troldhaugen' on it, but there weren' t enough keys. I found a xylophone on a table and played my bass part for the first movement of the English Folk Song Suite. This was incredibly easy for me, as the line nearly completely consisted of Fs, Cs, and B flats.

Just as we were leaving, I aspied a shelf of miniature spirit bottles labelled 'Raindrops from Beautiful Bergen.' I couldn't resist, so I bought a mini gin bottle full of tap water because I thought that it would be funny.

We exited the toy shop after I had made my purchase, but after that excursion we discovered that we still had a fair amount of time left and nothing to do in them.

'I suppose we could take Steven to have his hair cut,' I suggested as we walked past a hairdressing salon.

'Are you saying my hair's bad?' asked Steven.

'No, but I just want to see how you'd react with sharp objects and me close to your head,' I answered.

'Actually,' said Richard, 'I'd like to go and look for an SK Brann shirt.'

'Huh?' said Steven.

'SK Brann is the local football team,' explained Richard.

'Oh,' said everybody who wasn't Richard.

Nobody expressed a desire to accompany poor Richard and I needed a mission, so I decided to go with him. As soon as I agreed to the search, Bobby and Rebecca folded, and so the four of us set off for the main shopping centre in the middle of town. Having trekked round all the shops that weren't in the great hulking mall that we were avoiding, and not finding any sports shops, we decided that we had better bite the bullet and face the monstrosity of the mall. It wasn't actually as bad as I had anticipated, and we soon found a sports shop. Near its entrance was a rack of SK Brann merchandise. Objective achieved. Richard took one look at the price tag, however, and immediately lost heart, which annoyed me exceedingly.

'Well, why don't you just get a scarf, then'' I asked him.

'But I want a shirt,' he said.

'So get a shirt!' I practically yelled at him

'But it costs as much as all the money I've got left,' he whined.

'Come on, Richard,' I said, 'We're going back this afternoon, and you can buy food on the ferry with your English money.'

He was coming around slightly, but he was fighting with himself to be sensible.

'No,' Richard finally said. 'I'm not going to get the shirt.'

'What?!' This time I was yelling. 'This is your only chance to get an Sk Brann shirt and you're just going to talk away. If you don't get it then you'll regret it and you'll be dwelling on it for ages after we've got back!'

'No.' He was remaining steadfast in his completely unsilly decision. There was no pleasing some people.

It was time to rendezvous at the coaches again, so we made our way back. I vaguely wondered if the barbershop quartet minus one would be singing again, and then I remembered that I was still angry with Richard for not buying the shirt, so I scolded him again.

The coaches set off for Troldhaugen. It was mid-morning by the time that we arrived, and the sun continued to shine down on us cheerfully. Richard was on the other coach, and his absence had managed to dissipate my annoyance at his inability to buy the football shirt. The coaches parked, and we all walked from the car park to the entrance to the Grieg shrine, Out admissions were paid for, and I entered the Grieg Museum with the over-enthusiasm of a properly na�ve young musician. The museum was a fairly modern building, all concrete and glass, and I felt that I had to read all the information there and examine the side displays. This proved to be rather boring, however, and most of the orchestra couldn' t be bothered and headed straight for Grieg's house. Whilst contemplating a replica of Grieg's composing shed with Meghan, we were met by Fern and Jim.

'What do think?' asked Fern.

'It's a bit wordy,' I said, 'But I'm really looking forward to seeing the house now.'

'As long as they don't try to sell me any more teatowels or fudge with Grieg's face on the box,' said Jim.

The house was another fine example of Norwegian architecture, constructed of solid wood and painted a lovely pastel yellow with dark green bits. A flag hung limply from a pole on the roof. It was surrounded by lots of lush greenery, and a path to the nearby lake led away from one side of the house. Entering the house, we discovered that all its period d�cor had been painstakingly preserved, and also that we weren't allowed to take any photographs of it ' a cunning marketing ploy in order to make tourists purchase postcards of the house at the shop.

The further we progressed through the house, the more we realised what a commercialised scheme the whole set-up was. When we finally arrived at Grieg's piano, it's lid was locked shut so that nobody could see the colour of the keys, determine its age and thus be able to tell if it was a replacement or not. I quickly yelled 'Fake!' a few times then exited the house, disappointed overall. At least they show the old, browned keys of Beethoven's pianos in Bonn, and the keyboards are protected by pieces of glass. Bearing this in mind, I yelled 'Fake!' a few more times and pointed at the house. Meg and I then made haste to the lake before the people who ran the place threw me out.

Because he day was so clear, the lake's surface reflected back everything perfectly. It was surrounded by tall evergreens, and on the hills beyond the trees, colourfully-painted houses were dotted sporadically. The view was beautiful, and Meg and I stayed there until we had to go back to the coach, having met up with most of the rest of the orchestra by the lakeside. Once seated in the coach, a tape was placed over the sound system, and realising what the tune was, everybody joined in, each singing their own part. It was 'Wedding Day at Troldhaugen.' A nice touch.

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