In Norge, playing catch up

ACHTUNG!!: THIS IS A LONG POST. SO EITHER STRAP ON YO' SEAT BELT AND GIVE YOURSELF SOME TIME OR TAKE IT IN CHUNKS THROUGHOUT YOUR WEEK. or just enjoy the perty pictures right now.




Here is a pic of the fish and chip shop we resorted to on our fourth wedding anniversary. The food was great but the owner was a ultra loyal Man. United fan, which was too bad for him. Don't worry, we more than made up for it with an amazing meal in Stockholm. Although this was quite a dissapointing meal for an anniversary, we had to laugh together as we have had four very unique anniversaries in a row now...

well, we have really enjoyed this time in Scandinavia. Right now, we are on thê south coast of norway visiting my old room-mate, Shaggy as well as his wife, Mona and their children, Lisa and Mathias. Tonight, i PROMISED myself that i would update the blog. i think i found a way to get pics on again so i'll do that in this post, too....(UPDATED LATER: AFTER WRITING THIS POST, IT IS QUITE LATE AND I HAVE NO ENERGY LEFT TO PUT A BUNCH OF PHOTOS ON IT. SO, INSTEAD, I WILL DO A PHOTO ONLY POSTING TOMORROW BEFORE WE LEAVE THIS FREE INTERNET ACCESS.)

Ailsa will be writing of our trip from her opinion tomorrow, but i wanted to put in a little time and talk a bit about our lovely visit with my distant family in the region of Lunner, Norway and in the SALTSYREDALEN (saltacid valley...). Back in 1997 i made a phone call to Kari Broten, a distant cousin of my Grandma Doris' and asked if i could spend Christmas with her and my 'long, lost family'. well, being a bit naive and just a bit of a git, i succeded in of course scaring her, as she didn't speak english as well as now and was just confused as to what i was about and who i was. they did, after contacting my grandma, figure out who i was and wrote me a nice letter of formal invitation to Christmas but i had already made christmas plans in Denmark, so was unable to make it. Needless to say, i was overjoyed to see that hear back from them in a much more positive way when i contacted them this time. The man who i first made the contact with this time 'round is Viggo Brothen, a gotee wearin', drum playin', very funny fellow, who has unfortunately contracted VEÅSJUKEN (the wood sickness), a disease that causes fits of uncontrollable wood chopping. When he picked us up from the train station i had only given him an hour, if that, notice that we were actually on our way (we found ourselves a bit ahead of schedule). It was so great of them to come get us at the early hour of 9 AM! and it was his day off too!! it was lovely to be finally be greeted by family i have heard so much about in the last decade or so. My uncle Doug, Aunt Vickie, Grandma Doris went to visit this family back in '88, so it had been a while since they had seen a Hall. It takes a bit of time to recover, after all.
Before i talk of some of the wonderful day we had there i will give you a quick background. You see, my grandma, probably one of the most determined and sweetest people in the world tracked this family down in Norway after 14 years of looking. She has just recently written a book on the subject, which i am now quite eager to read after seeing the family myself. In a nutshell (tell me if i get this wrong Grandma), my Grandma's father, Sigvart Marius Wilhelmsen left Norway when he was only 17 for reasons still unknown. There he later met his Swedish wife and had a handfull of children, one being my awesome grandma. Well, Sigvart decided to change his last name to Burch and hide the fact that he came from Norway. He never told his children and possibly even his wife that he had come from Norway or that his real last name was Wilhelmsen. In fact, when his children asked where their grandparents were he took them to a grave site that had the two last names 'Burch' on the tombstones and said they lay there. It was only many years after her father passed on that Grandman Doris found her father's old bible and the name Sigvart Marius WILHELMSEN written on the inside cover. This got our grandma a bit curious and she tracked down her dad's name in a list of people that had taken a boat across the atlantic into New York. She then spent many years trying to write and unearth the location of Mr. Wilhelmsen's real family. Well, she did. They live in the small village of Lunner, about an hour or so north of Oslo. What an amazing piece of effort from grandma. Even though she doesn't have all of the answers, such as to the mystery of why her father would not talk of Norway, she has found family in Norway!! Hopefully the rest will be discovered in time...
So, after being introduced to Viggo, Kari and Viggo's great girlfriend, Åsta, we sat down to a lovely Norweigen breakfast of BRUNDST (brown cheese), fresh bread, meats, juice and amazing, strong, black coffee. We were blown away by the hospitality!! They took us around the little town, we got to see a school burn down and the highlight of the day, we went to the ruins of SIGVART'S home in FURUSET where he grew up. I stood there on top of the crumbled, moss covered, rock walls of a little cottage where, essentially, i was concieved. We all did. It was quite a huge moment for me and i don't think i was able to take it all in.
After climbing the fences back to the car (Kari, who is in her seventies, was so impressive, hopping over fences like she was 15 years old!) we went back to the house and had a great chat over some coffee and then went to fiest at Kari and Alf's home. WE HAD SOOOO MUCH GOOD FOOD!! I was humming and ahhing like i was standing in front of the Taj Mahal the food was so good. Kari is an amazing cook and i could really get used to that Norweigen food. We had pork meatballs, POTATOES, sauteed mushrooms, some of the best brocoli i've ever had and a nice Danish beer to wash it all down. For desert (the first of two) we had _____________ berries (i forgot the name!!) with whipped cream. So nice! Unbeknownst to myself we were to soon find ourselves in front of another desert of special Norweigen cake, and the creamiest ice cream ever with, again, wonderfully strong, black coffee. As full as i was (and i was bursting) i couldn't stop eating. :)
We finished the evenning chatting over a beer and talking about the many differences in our countries and cultures. Viggo and Åsta stayed up until 2 am when they took us to the train station to catch our overnight train to the south coast. They all were so nice and hospitable to us and if you are reading this, my family, then i will reiterate that you must come to Alaska so we can attempt to return your gift of hospitality. The hot-tub is waiting for you!!
HERE ARE A COUPLE PHOTOS OF THAT TIME:
This is the family tree that Viggo has been working on. I am able to zoom in on it and see my name next to Chad, Colby, Kristin and the rest of us cousins. Whoa.
Here, we are holding pieces of the actual frame of the cottage where my great, great grandma and grandpa lived.
Here is a picture of the next generation the great, great, great grandchild of the owners of this once fine cottage. I am holding a piece of rock from the foundation and a piece of brick from the wall, which i hope to mix into the actual foundation of our future home in homer alaska or wherever it may be. :)

I can't say enough good things about the food...'stupendous', 'super-great'...'ultra-deliciouso'...

LAST GOODBYES

There is my trip highlight for you. What a wonderful time it was.
This whole endevour has been such a relaxing and pleasant journey together. i have been driving Ailsa crazy as i've been taking mass amounts of pictures. It's just that every city, little town or bits of nature we visit have so many beautiful little pieces to capture. The last time i wrote, we were just above Goteborg, Sweden in a little village called Restenas visiting a friend of mine and his family. Well, after a nice rest and visit there we trained to Stockholm for the purpose of catching an overnight ferry to Helsinki. The nice thing about buying the Eurail pass is that most of the travel occurs during the night, which means your accomidation if taken care of and you spend your evennings getting to the places you wish to see. This has enabled us to see a whole heck of a lot in short periods of time. The ferry to Helsinki takes about 11 hours or so. We were given a cabin with a shower and bed to share, which was a very nice change from sleeping on trains...a bit of a gentler rock to sleep. The ferry had all the cheezy, finnish and russian entertainment you could want, as well as loads of food, a movie theater, free video games, a waterslide and sauna. The nice thing about international waters is the tax free shopping you can do. And because all of Scandinavia puts a whopping 25% tax on all goods sold, this is where were able to see some somewhat reasonable pricing. Beer was finally an option again, but since we only have one hiking backpack now and it's on my shoulders i opted to get the essential ingredient for irish coffee for those cold fall evennings: a little bottle of Jamison. This has proved to be just the ticket when we stumble in to the many cozy coffee shops that have been found all throughout Scandinavia.
I'll let Ailsa talk about the details of all the places we've seen so far but i have to share a few of those details from my viewpoint. Again, i go to beer, an object that has helped me measure how expensive it really is here in Scaninavia. Skipping ahead a bit, just a few days ago, we were walking through a city in Western Norway and we noticed a menu outside of a recognizable chain, T.G.I. Fridays. Upon closer inspection we noticed that they served a beer of very ill repute among myself and fellow beer snobbs, Budweiser. 'Bud', as it's called even here now, has become much more popular since my last visit throughout Europe, something that i am very disheartened about. Back to the point. Bud in Bergen, Norway costs 61 Norweigen Krones. There are 5.39 Krones in 1 American dollar. This means, are you ready for this, that one bottle of ugly, stinky, similar-to-urine-looking 'Bud' costs $11.3172542!!!!!!!!!!!!! Truly shocking. I still keep thinking i have done that math wrong somehow...have i? No, i haven't...it's just the brutal truth. A few more facts about beautiful Norway: Nachos at TGI Fridays: $30 (with meat, $35). A milkshake: $15. The most expensive countries in Scandinavia in descending order: Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden.
So, how are we surviving, you are most likely muttering to yourselves... We buy wonderful bread, meats, cheeses, yoghurt and muesli at grocery stores for a much more reasonable price. We have learned (from our friends and family in Scandinavia) that most people here never go out for dinner but bring their food home. Ailsa's vegitables are taken in powder form in her drinks and she has a regimine of three different vitimins she takes daily.
So, in our opinion, we eat very well and sleep just fine...but i'm sure our way of traveling may not be everyone's cup of tea. Many people we have talked to about this particular trip told us to prepare to allot mass amounts of money for our two months of wondering around expensive Europe. While we have budgeted a generous amount for our spending (in our opinion) it is nothing close to what we were told to save. Of course, it really matters how you wish to see Europe, or any place you travel for that matter. I used to travel quite a bit about a decade or more now and i find that i have again adopted a very similar, but pregnancy version of traveling Europe. In my, probably over-simplified opinion, i think there are two types of travelers. If you are the more touristy type that must see and eat at every place that the guide books talk about, then prepare to break the bank...and i agree, you will have a blast doing so. But if you are able to fully experience a new environment, wherever it may be, by people watching, waiting for those chance encounters with the locals that always come or sitting at some eclectic caffe that looks like it grew out of the ancient stone street it sits on with an espresso, maybe a rolly and your journal, i think you will be suprised by how little money you will need to save for your adventure. i hope you understand that i'm not saying that our methods of traveling (being the latter) are any better anyone else's, including the person who must see it all and doesn't care about the cost. In fact, we often chat about just how much fun we would have with an unlimited budget (i think we would spend it all on the copious amounts of beatiful food we have seen!!). It's just that we find with traveling, just as with ordinary life (but on a much bigger scale), you can't buy your hapiness, even if you can have a lot more fun. Though that sounds like a bit of an oxymoron, i'm just saying that it's all relative and a matter of perspective. We are having the time of our lives and really spending not much at all. We have also found that, when we splurge, (which we have now on one occasion so far, on a fancy dinner out in our fav city of Stockholm) we appreciate it soooo very much, because these events are few and far between. Everyone is different, i just wanted to make some different comments on this thing other than the normal day to day journal layout i've stuck to so far.
so, all that to say we are enjoying norway still and have arrived in the smaller city of Arendale Sunday night. It is now Tuesday morning at 13.00 hours and i have yet to step out of this home of my friends. We have loved just eating, chatting and resting with our friends. Tomorrow we may do a bit of sightseeing and then after some norweigen board games pack to catch a train to copenhagen or a ferry to the north coast of Denmark, we haven't decided. We go on from there to begin our experience of mainland Europe, including but not limited to, Germany, Cech Rep., Austria, Switz., Italy, Greece, Turkey, S. France, Spain and finally Portugal. Depending on how we feel and if we totally fall in love with a particular place, the list of countries above may reduce or expand or be replaced with countries like Hungary, Croatia and Slovania. We have four more friends to visit and then we are all on our lonesome. So far we have been priviledged enough to be taken in by five sets of gracious friends and hosts. Thank you so much, Bry and Bre, Marieke, Rob and Veronica, my lovely family in Norway and our present hosts, Shaggy and Mona for openning your homes and your fridges to two stinky travellers. We had a blast and hope we can return the favor in our humble abode up north, north west sometime.

That's it for this post. In order to record this trip properly and for those who like details, we will be doing the personal journal format soon, covering the details of our trip in Scandinavia. bye.

Ø Æ Å µ € ¤ ~ the curious keys on a scandinavian keyboard