More Inderøy; Land of our Questad/Kvistad Forefathers

We had a leisurely Monday morning. We were going to tour around Inderøy before meeting at Jan Olav’s for dinner at 7:30pm. We didn’t leave our cabin until around one or so and drove by the Old Sakshaug Church first to see if it was open, nope. This is the church that Jacob Questad (and the Kvistad relatives before him) was baptized in and confirmed in. (And our Kvistad ancestors were buried at.) It is located just past the driveway to the Kvistad farm, so we then went up there to take more pictures of the farm and to hike to the top of the Kvistad-Våtta. The Våtta is the highest point of the Kvistad farm, and one of the highest points in all of Inderøy, where there is now a radio tower and paths for people to walk up. As soon as we got there we parked the car and started walking up the gravel road to the top; of course this was probably the nicest day, warm, and we were going to dinner and then to an outdoor play. We were all quite sweaty on the hike, but it was still something I have wanted to do. One reason is because there was a geocache at the top with the Kvistad name in the title that I wanted to find, but also because I wanted to be able to just walk around the farm of my ancestors. It was probably a little over a mile up the hill, and it was a nice walk up. (And yes, I found the geocache!) The walk down wasn’t too bad, but the insects were quite annoying!

When we got back down to the main farm we walked around taking pictures of the house and outbuildings. Jan Olav’s brother Torgeir works in the morning and then again in the evening (they both work on dairy farms), so he was home when we stopped by. He came out and visited a little bit, mainly with David, as we ran around taking pictures. After this we said goodbye and thanks to Torgeir and then started to drive into town for some lunch. As we were driving by the Old Sakshaug Church on the main road my dad looked up and saw that the door was open! He slammed on the brakes, we made a u-turn, and quickly drove back up and around to the church. There were a few other people inside the church and a woman was playing the organ. She told us that they were holding a service that night, so she was practicing playing for it. (They occasionally have services in the old church during the summers.) We walked around inside and took many pictures and enjoyed being in the actual church building that our ancestors attended church in, were baptized in, confirmed in, and had their funeral services and burials at. It was beautiful inside and our time inside was made extra special by having someone play the organ while we were there.

After we took all of our pictures and spent our time in the church we drove down to the water and ate at a restaurant that had a deck overlooking the fjord. We were trying to eat light, because we were going to dinner about four hours later. (I didn’t even finish my meal!) We relaxed a little bit after eating and then walked through a few shops. We still had quite a bit of time, so we decided to drive around the “Golden Road.” This is a road that drives around Inderøy and has many different shops and farms with some kind of “store” in them; whether it was a candle making shop or a dairy farm selling ice cream. Most of the stores were closed, but we saw some beautiful landscape and farms. We stopped off at the best marina in Inderøy and took some pictures. There was one large, old wooden sail boat sitting in the harbor, it was a very nice boat. We still had some time so we drove to a nearby town, Steinkjer, just to see it. This was the town I was originally going to stay in when I was first planning my trip, because it was close to Jan Olav’s, but the Gullberget Campgrounds won out. After driving through Steinkjer we drove back down into Inderøy and went to the mini mart for coffee (obviously not for me!) and relaxed for about ten minutes before heading up to Jan Olav’s house.

I was a bit nervous and skeptical about the dinner. Jan Olav’s mother Marna was going to fix us a traditional meal for the Trøndelag area; sodd. I am always nervous to try new dishes, but this one was just beef and mutton in a soup/stew, so I was fairly confident that I would like it fine, or at least be able to eat it without any problems. (Am I sounding hopeful?) Jan Olav had told us before that his mother wanted to make sodd for us, so we had looked into the meal before leaving, so at least we knew what to expect. I was also a bit nervous to meet that many more new people. Besides Marna, Jan Olav’s sister Ingunn and her husband Gunnar were going to be there. Only a couple people, no big deal. We pulled up to his house and it felt like a million people were there. In reality there were only two more people than we expected, but when they were all sitting outside around the back door it seemed like a lot of people. Ingunn and Gunnar’s two sons also came for the meal. We were introduced to everyone, a big hug from Marna. We had said “hello” multiple times through Jan Olav’s and my emails over the years, so it was great to be able to meet her in person as well.

Because it was such beautiful weather we all ate outside on Jan Olav’s deck. The view of the fjord is spectacular! We only had about two hours before we had to leave for our play that night, so we ate almost immediately after we got there. The meal was different, but actually quite good. It was mainly mutton, with a little beef, in a broth; not really a stew, but not a soup either. We also had carrots and potatoes that we added to our mutton and beef. With the seasoning, it almost had a sausage type of flavor. After a couple helpings of sodd, we visited for a bit before having dessert; strawberries and cream. I took a little more ribbing about not liking coffee (it happened multiple times in Hammerfest), but they let me off easy. Right before dessert, Jan Olav’s wife and two of his children came over. It was great for me (as well as the others) to be able to meet them. I have heard about them and said “hello” to them many, many times over the last years through Jan Olav. We didn’t really know what to expect with this new group of relatives, hence one of the reasons we only had about two hours before we had to leave, but we all wished we had more time. It was hard to leave in order to make our play; but the play was one of the deciding factors for the timing of our trip to Norway.

I have read much about the kings of Norway and the Battle of Stiklestad, which took place on July 29, 1030, where King Olav was killed. The Battle is probably the most famous one in all of Norwegian history. One thing that always intrigued and interested me in the history of this battle is that a man named Torgeir from the Kvistad farm was mentioned in the history books. Not only was he mentioned, but he had words with the king before the battle took place, and before King Olav was killed he killed Torgeir during the battle. There is no known connection with our family and this Torgeir, but because he was from the same farm that our family eventually owned, it has always held a great place for me. There is some controversy about the actual date of the battle, but it is written in the history books as having taken place on July 29, 1030. Therefore, the reenactment takes place at that time. They actually have several plays for about a week before, but the finale takes place on July 29. This is the day that I planned our time in Inderøy around so we could go to the play on that day. Jan Olav attended the play with us, so David and I hopped in with him and my parents followed in their car and we headed to Stiklestad. (Stiklestad is close to half way between Jan Olav’s and our cabin, so he drove separately so we wouldn’t have to drive him home; the play didn’t start until 11:00pm.) When we got to Stiklestad it was crowded! It is a very popular play, it was July 29 and the finale showing, it was beautiful weather, and this was the first year for the play to be at night, so it was packed. Our seats were center stage, about seven rows up; perfect. We also had the best weather on our whole trip that night; perfect. Even though the play didn’t start until 11:00pm, we didn’t even put our coats on until close to the end of the play. Remember, we are still pretty far north, so with the clear skies it was still twilight throughout the play, so it set a really neat setting for the play. Although we didn’t understand the dialogue, except for a few humorous parts (including one about Torgeir of Kvistad), we were able to get the gist of everything. After dinner, Marna gave us a synopsis of the play and Jan Olav explained a few things during the play, so we followed along fairly well. (My parents also bought a program with another synopsis in English.) The play lasted until close to 1:00am and it was fantastic! The acting, the symphony, the singers, the lighting; it was a great night. After the play we said goodbye to Jan Olav (the last time my parents were to see him) and we drove home to our cabin, because of traffic getting out of Stiklestad we got back around 2:00am.

Martha Carlson let us know that my great-grandfather Chris Holmgren’s brother Jakob was buried at the Nidaros Cathedral so we wanted to go and find his headstone. Tuesday was our day to go back down to Trondheim to look at other churches and try to find headstones for other family members (on the Rostad side of the family) and my mom wanted to go to a restaurant with a rotating floor that overlooked Trondheim. Because we were up so late on Monday night, we took our time getting out of bed on Tuesday morning. We drove down to the Nidaros Cathedral and because it was so busy with their Olav’s Festival, my dad dropped David and I off at the cathedral to try and track down Jakob Holmgren’s gravesite and he and my mom would try to find a parking spot. The museum told me to walk down a block from the cathedral to the offices where they are the caretakers of the cemetery at Nidaros. David waited for my parents and went and found the office. The woman who helped me said I was lucky that she could find his gravesite, because they do not have the greatest records and do not have all of them searchable. I went back to the cathedral and found everyone (ok, I found David and my dad, and together we had to go searching through all of the fair booths to find my mom) and we went off to find the headstone. The office gave me a picture of the headstone and had showed it to me on a map, but it still took us a little while to find it; the picture was from many years ago and the background had changed. But in the end, we found the headstone, took our pictures, and went on our merry way. We walked back to the street where my dad had parked the car, and as we were walking up the street I saw a car that looked illegally parked to me and I said to myself, “Who would park their car there?” Lo and behold, my father did. Guess what, my dad also got an expensive souvenir, too! The parking ticket was something we joked about and laughed about the rest of the day.

We then drove around to three different churches where our Rostad side of the family attended. Two of the three churches were built around 1900, so they are too new for our ancestors to have used those actual buildings, but it was still neat to go and see them and the areas. I searched through every cemetery, but like before, there were very few old headstones. I am not sure if I mentioned it before, but things work a little differently over here regarding headstones. After a person is buried, they only have rights to the plot for a limited amount of time. After this, the family has to pay rent to keep the headstone in place. This is the reason for there being so few old headstones. After looking at the churches we drove back into Trondheim and went to the Tyholt Tower, where the Egon Restaurant has its rotating restaurant at the top that completes its rotation in one hour. We enjoyed a great meal and, by the time dessert was done, we had completed the rotation. The weather turned quite stormy during our meal and we were able to see a nice lightning storm from the top, but the rain made the trip back to Åsen a little less enjoyable. After we got back to our cabin, my parents and I took a scenic drive out to an island to see it and the old ruins of a cloister. It was small, but neat to see. We then drove back to our cabin for the night.

Wednesday was the day my parents were to leave and our joint trip was to end. David and I were also to change cabins to a smaller one for the remainder of our time in Åsen. This was also our last chance to make it to the Inderøy library, which closed at 2:00pm and wasn’t going to be open again until after we left. Our smaller cabin was ready around 11:00am so we moved our belongings over, said our goodbyes to my parents, and headed for Inderøy. We arrived at noon and Jan Olav met us there about 20 minutes later. Good thing too. My lack of Norwegian had me looking all over and Jan Olav pointed me to some interesting books and articles. We stayed there until the library closed at two and then Jan Olav went back home and David and I drove around Inderøy a bit before heading back to Åsen. We then drove to a mall, about 20 minutes away, and wandered around a bit and then ate dinner in one of its many restaurants. We then drove back to our cabin and relaxed for the rest of the evening. It rained hard nonstop all day, so it was a great day to go to the library and stay indoors.

[Earlier I was telling David how hard/tiring it is to write this blog, then after finishing it we had a good chuckle. I wrote everything important about Wednesday in one paragraph; David said that we needed more days like this and it would make my writing the blog easier J ]

Well, more exciting stuff planned for the upcoming days!

The end of the Hurtigruten journey, and on to Inderøy!

We woke up to another great morning on the Hurtigruten. We spent the first few hours relaxing on the ship and then got off on the port before our destination, Sandnessjøen. We only walked around the town for a little while (the port call was only a half hour) and looked through a store, and then went back on the ship. A little under three hours later we disembarked in Brønnøysund. We walked down the gangplank looking for Jan Olav, but he was nowhere around; then again, our ship was about fifteen minutes early. I hadn’t really thought about it until I looked into it then, but Jan Olav drove almost 5 hours to pick us up! We sat on a bench for about 15 to 20 minutes and then he drove up. We were able to visit a lot on the four and a half hour drive back to his house. We took a shorter drive on the way to Jan Olav’s home that used a ferry to cross a fjord, he took the longer drive getting there because sometimes the ferry line can be quite long and he didn’t want to take any chance with it. I took over the driving duties with about two hours to go, and he explained much about the areas that we drove through on the drive; he also explained some of the driving rules, which were much appreciated.

[As mentioned in my first blog post, Jan Olav Agle has helped me out incredibly over the last many years as I did research for my family history book. If not for Jan Olav, this trip would never have even happened. His mother, Marna, was born and raised on the main Kvistad farm and when they were old enough, Jan Olav, being the eldest, took over his father’s farm, the Agle farm, and Jan Olav’s younger brother Torgeir took over his mother’s farm, the Kvistad farm. Meeting Jan Olav in person was great and something I have looked forward to for quite some time.]

When we arrived at his house it was already closing in on 9:00pm and we still had about an hour drive down to our cabin in Åsen that we were sharing with my parents. Åsen is about halfway between Inderøy and Trondheim. We chatted for a few minutes and then Jan Olav walked down to his mother Marna’s house (she lives in a house right next to his farm) and got her car. We were going to use Jan Olav’s car, the one he picked us up from Brønnøysund, but it was making a funny noise on the drive home and he decided to have us use his mother’s car instead. We then drove down to Åsen and met up with my parents in our cabin. The cabin was pretty new and was in great shape; I am a little nervous about the smaller cabin that David and I will move into when my parents leave on Wednesday. We had some dinner and then headed to bed after visiting for a short time.

We made plans to meet Jan Olav on Sunday, so that gave us Saturday to drive down to Trondheim and tour around. Saturday morning was beautiful and sunny out, so it made for a great day to sightsee in the city. We drove right to Nidarosdomen (Nidaros Cathedral) and parked right across the street. We then toured the cathedral, which was very impressive and massive. The cathedral started as a wood chapel in the year 1035, and the first stone addition was around 1090. It was added on to a few times as it grew and was completed around the year 1300. Fire, which destroyed half the roof on at least two different occasions, and neglect have been hard on it, but in 1869 they started 100 years of restoration and it was completely restored into what we see today. We also took the tour up to the top of the tower. It was 172 steps up a very narrow, steep circular stairway; not for the claustrophobic. (It was only created for maintenance, not for normal use.) When we got to the top we were able to walk completely around the outside of the tower and then we went back down the stairs; all in all it took about a half hour or so. Well worth the effort, as the views over Trondheim were spectacular. We then toured around the tombs and other areas of the cathedral, and then we went next door to the old residence of the archbishop where they have a museum of artifacts.

After touring around the cathedral and taking many pictures (pictures were not allowed inside, but we snuck a few in anyway), we then walked around town and ate at a sidewalk restaurant. The weather was really clouding up, but we kept touring after we ate. We wandered around and looked in a few shops and then worked our way over to the Old Bridge. It was a nice pedestrian bridge that connected to the old part of town where they had some shops in nice, old buildings. On the walk over we saw some lightning and heard the resounding thunder, but we pushed on. After we crossed the Old Bridge, it started to rain. We quickly took more pictures and then hustled back to our car amidst the lightning and thunder and rain. Luckily we made it back to our car before the downpour started. We then drove back to our cabin and spent the evening relaxing.

We did not have an exact time to meet at Jan Olav’s house, so we didn’t leave our cabin until around 9:30am, getting to his house at around 10:30am. He must have seen us coming up his driveway, because he was sitting on his back steps when we pulled up. After introducing him and my parents, we looked around his house and barns and then we walked up toward the back of his property so he could show us an old cotter’s place. It was very dilapidated, but still standing and it was interesting to see it and have Jan Olav explain the story about the man who used to live in it. It has not been lived in since around the 1960s or so. Jan Olav also explained how the road used to go right through his property, the “pathway” in which we walked, back in the days of horses, even before wagons were much in use. We then walked back to his house where we piled in the car and he took us on a tour of Inderøy. It was only going to be a quick tour to show us around, and then we could go back and take our time when we had time. This “tour” still took a few hours.

While my dad drove, Jan Olav pointed out many farms and popular areas. It was an incredible experience for me to see all of these places and farms that I have read so much about during my research for my book. I have also transcribed some of the old church parish records for the National Archives of Norway, so it was great to see the farms of the people of whom their records I transcribed. One of the stops was the “Farmer Dispute” rock monument that I wrote about in my family book; that was also great to see in person. After this we drove up to the Kvistad farm. Thee Kvistad farm. Although the old buildings are gone from our first Kvistad ancestors, it was still an incredible experience to be on the farm that our ancestors moved on to and purchase in 1719. There are still a couple old buildings that were built around the time that Jacob Kvistad/Questad still lived in Inderøy. (Jacob Kvistad/Questad was our ancestor who came to America after living in Hammerfest for 20 years.) We met Jan Olav’s brother Torgeir, who is not a very talkative person (but walked around with us and chatted a little), and we walked around the farm a little. He would be at work the next week, but he told us to come up and look around whenever we wanted. While we walked around a little bit, the two brothers pointed out to us some of the smaller Kvistad farms that were split off of the main farm over the years. We said goodbye to Torgeir and then headed off to the Sørteigan farm; one of the smaller Kvistad farms that was split off in the 1800s. The Sørteigan farm is the farm that Jacob Kvistad/Questad was born and raised. Once again, the house is not the original, but it was still a great experience to be where he was raised and walk the ground that he did. It might not seem like a great deal to most people, but to someone like myself, so involved in genealogy, it is most certainly a great deal; hard to explain. It was a little awkward when we arrived. Jan Olav had mentioned to Anstein Holmen, the current owner of the Sørteigan farm, that visitors from America were going to be coming and visiting (Anstein was also one of the people who purchased my book), but he never gave him a call in quite a while. Jan Olav and Anstein have been friends since their teenage years, so it was not too big of a deal, but it was still a little awkward when we just showed up. They were more than accommodating and had no problem with us walking around and taking pictures, and he didn’t mind if we came back again at another time to take more pictures. We took some pictures of his house and surrounding property, and we also took pictures of the view of the fjord from his house. It was an incredible view and we laughed about why Jacob Kvistad/Questad would have moved from here to go to the flat barren plains of North Dakota! After we left the Sørteigan farm we drove around a little more while Jan Olav pointed out a few more farms and other places. We then went and dropped him back off at his house and then went to tour a little on our own.

We first drove to the Old Sakshaug Church, built in 1184. The church was closed when we were there (we are hoping to find the church open one of these days), but we walked around it taking pictures of it. And there was a cemetery; I cannot pass up a cemetery. Because it is a small cemetery, many of the graves are “reused.” Because of this, there are not very many old tombstones. I looked through them all anyway and took pictures of anyone I thought might be related; something I will have to look back through at a later date. We then drove to the Mosvik Bridge, a large suspension bridge from Inderøy to Mosvik. I remembered seeing this when I was “driving” around Inderøy on Google Streets. We stopped off at a rest area and walked up onto the bridge and took pictures and, once again, enjoyed the view. We then drove back into Inderøy and went to the New Sakshaug church, built in 1869. We took pictures of the church, and once again I wandered through the cemetery looking for relatives. David and my parents were patient as I quickly went through the entire cemetery. It is a newer cemetery, but it still had a few headstones for some older Kvistads (and other relatives) that I took pictures of. It probably took me an hour or so to go through the entire cemetery, but it was a nice afternoon/evening to be outside. We then drove back to Åsen where we stopped off at a gas station deli to have dinner. Most places are either closed or close early on Sundays, so our options were limited. We didn’t mind; David and I have wanted to have hot dogs one of these days anyway! We then went back to our cabin and relaxed. My parents went for a drive to see more of the countryside, David went for a walk down to the nearby lake, and I decided it was a good time to sit down and write a new blog post before I forgot all that we have done.

Tomorrow shall be another exciting day in Inderøy!

Our Amazing Family in Hammerfest, and the Start of our Hurtigruten Cruise

Tuesday was another easy morning. My parents were leaving on the Hurtigruten (David and I were leaving on Wednesday), and David and I decided to not drive all the way to the North Cape. David and I wandered around town for the morning and bought some groceries to take on board our trip the next day. While waiting at the port we ran into Jonas (pronounced Yonas) (Liv Hanna’s daughter Line’s son) and his friend Lars. We had met Jonas before at dinner, but Lars was a new friend. They were both working at the port, and we visited with them for a spell and had some great conversation. We then met my parents and our cousins at the port and we all went on board for coffee and visiting. (Anyone can go on board when the ship is in port. The stop in Hammerfest was a little over an hour.) When it was time for the ship to sail, we disembarked and waved our goodbyes from the wharf.

Our newly acquainted cousins were not let us become bored! Ernst and Olav took us all over Hammerfest and showed us many of the areas we did not know existed. They also stopped by another cousin’s house, who owns a construction company, where we visited for a few minutes. We also went by one of his construction sites, where yet another cousin was also working. It was great for David and me to see the similarities and differences between our construction practices. This tour that Ernst and Olav took us on was one of the highlights of our time in Hammerfest; a bunch of guys out touring around and shooting the breeze.

After our tour around town we went back to Ernst and Liv Hanna’s for dinner. Liv Hanna and Marta made burgers and pizza (because/for me) for dinner and then we sat out on their back porch visiting over dessert of strawberries and cream. (Liv Hanna said that next time we come, I will eat whatever she makes….no special requests!) Enough cannot be said for the kindness and hospitality that they all showed us. We would have enjoyed our time in Hammerfest, albeit maybe a little bored after the first couple days, but it never would have compared to what it was because of all of our cousins we met and how kind they were to us. Family is great!! We stayed visiting until later in the evening when David and I left to go pack up our room for our Hurtigruten sailing. I wanted to drive out and take pictures of the midnight sun (the weather was beautiful all day), but I was just too tired and we had a busy morning.

The Hurtigruten came into port at 11:15am and was to leave at 12:45pm, on Wednesday. That morning at 9:00am we finished packing all of our luggage and then drove over to Ernst and Liv Hanna’s because Ernst was kind enough to agree to help us drop off our car at the airport and give us a ride back into town. After dropping the car off we went back to their house to visit over coffee and lefse. Their daughter Line came back after an appointment, so we were also able to visit with her once again. We said our goodbyes and begrudgingly had Ernst drive us back to our hotel. Five days is not enough time to do everything we would like to do, especially get to know our extended family!

After Ernst dropped us off at our hotel, we packed up our luggage, checked out of the hotel, and walked the few blocks to the port. While waiting in line to check in to our cabin, Olav and Marta walked in the ship! They wanted to be able to say goodbye again, plus Olav tracked down a couple t-shirts from the company of the cousin we had met. David and I had both wanted one, but we didn’t want to ask him for one, so when Olav brought them onto the ship to give to us we were both very pleased! We walked around the ship for a while and visited with them both before they had to leave. We hugged and said our goodbyes, and then they went off the ship to continue their day. Once again, enough cannot be said for the love, kindness, and hospitality that we were shown by our family here. Like I said before, family is great and I love them!

We had beautiful weather all day, and it continued as we left the harbor. It was a great experience to see what it would have been like for my great-grandparents to leave Hammerfest. Of course we were sailing in much more luxury than they did, but it was still a neat way to leave Hammerfest. After taking many pictures, we went to our cabin and made dinner from the groceries we brought on board. Not too long after we left Hammerfest, we sailed into some thick fog. The fog was making us fall behind schedule a little bit, but I was not to be persuaded to not try and find the church when we arrived in Skjervøy. This church was built in the early 1700s and was where our first Holmgren ancestor to come to Norway was married. (Olaus Holmgren was born in Sweden in 1727 and was married in Skjervøy in 1768.) We pulled into port and they opened the doors at about 7:39pm. We were supposed to be in at 7:15pm and leave at 7:45pm. I heard something about quarter to eight, but I didn’t think they meant we would still sail at that time; they did! And we didn’t sail on time, thanks to yours truly. I ran off the ship and made a beeline for the church to take pictures; the church was very close to the ship. After taking the pictures I went back to the wharf and saw many, many people still standing on the dock. I wandered around to the other side of the wharf to take pictures of the ship when I heard the horn blast. I still saw all the people standing on the dock so I took a few more pictures and went back to the ship. I looked up the gangplank and saw the doors shut, hmm. I walked up and tried the door, but it was closed and locked. I rattled the door a couple times and then it opened from the inside. The woman said that I was late and that when they horn blares we are leaving port. Earlier in Hammerfest, one of our relatives (I don’t remember which one) said that the ship would wait a few minutes and then leave, without turning around to get a straggler. Thankfully they were right, they would wait! I apologized and then sheepishly walked away with my head down, not making eye contact. I was only 5 minutes late, and it must not have been too bad because she didn’t remember me when we got off at the next port. But don’t get me wrong, I contemplated what I would have done if I had been left behind. Later in the evening, in a strange city in the fjords of Norway, not speaking the language, and trying to find my way to Tromsø really fast to catch up with my ship; not a pleasant thought.

The fog continued to be very thick on the sail to Tromsø, so we went back to our cabin and took naps. When we arrived in Tromsø, my parents (who were staying a few nights there) met us at the wharf and we walked around town with them for a half hour or so. It was 11:30pm, so most places were closed, but we were still able to walk around and see the downtown area because it was still so light out. My parents went back to their hotel so David and I just hung out on the wharf for a while. There were so many fish right next to the dock and jumping out of the water that we wished we had fishing poles. We could see a multitude of fish swimming around, so we watched them for a while. (Sometimes we are easily entertained.) We then boarded the ship, way before the departure time, because I wasn’t taking any chances; okay, we just didn’t have anything else to do, but it sounds good. We then hung out for a little while before going to sleep around 2:30am.

Our trip included breakfast, so we didn’t want to miss out on a “free” meal, so we got up a little after 9:00am to be able to eat before breakfast closed down at ten. It was a bit of an odd feeling eating breakfast at a table with a bunch of strangers, especially in the morning when I am not a talkative person, so we ate our breakfast fairly quickly and then left. David got a cup of coffee and we just sat out in the lounge area and “woke up.” The fog finally dissipated sometime around 11:00am or so, and we were then able to enjoy the views of the fjords. Our lack of sleep, and the rhythm of the boat, caught up to us and we both took naps; we were enjoying this relaxing downtime of our trip to recuperate. I woke up and went back up to the deck in time to see that we were traversing a very narrow fjord, a very impressive site! A little while later, we pulled into Svolvær where we had a long port call. We needed a little exercise anyway, so we walked around town for an hour or so. Svolvær is a town at that north end of the Lofoten Islands, and we thought it was a neat town that we could definitely stay a few nights in. Maybe on another trip in the future. We then went through a few shops at the pier and then boarded the ship.

For the rest of the evening we just relaxed in the lounge seating area watching the views out the window, and occasionally going outside and relaxing in the sunshine and taking pictures. Around 10:00pm we were able to see a pretty nice sunset over the Lofoten Islands. We had just missed the midnight sun in this area by a week or so, but the benefit is that the sun “sets” for a long time. If you are a sunset lover, this is the place and time of year for you! I took a break while typing this out and went outside at a little after 1:00am; the sun was still “setting” and looked about the same, three hours later!

The one downside to our journey on the Hurtigruten is that their internet is very weak and intermittent. Such trials, eh? We have become a very spoiled people; our grandparents/great-grandparents were steerage class passengers in much worse conditions, on a much longer journey, in order to better their lives. But this is not to say that we are not to enjoy the blessings that God has given us. Anyway, our internet is very hard to connect to, and we can only get it in a few spots on the ship (not in our cabin), so this post will probably be continued at another time and posted then. It is now almost 2:00am, but I will run up and see if I can get a connection and post it tonight, otherwise it will be in a couple days. Tomorrow we arrive in Brønnøysund and Jan Olav Agle will pick us up and drive us down to Inderøy. The Holmgren heritage part of our trip is over, and now the Kvistad/Questad part shall begin.

 

(Sorry, pictures are just too hard to try and upload with these blog posts. Until I have much more time and energy, the pictures on Facebook will have to suffice.)

 

Church in Alta, and another day in Hammerfest

We got up early Sunday morning to meet May-Liss Holmgren in Kvalsund. She called me on Saturday evening and we agreed that we would meet her at the church Kvalsund and then follow her to Alta for the morning church service. The Elvebakken church was holding their Big Meetings (but they were not nearly as big as the Big Meetings in Sweden and Finland), so the service at the Rafsbotn church was canceled. We drove the half hour drive to the Kvalsund church and a little bit later May-Liss came with her brother Geir-Ove and one of his daughters. After we made our introductions, we headed out for Alta. Before we left Kvalsund, Geir-Ove stopped off at a home that was the location for the Andreas Holmgren homestead. It is a newer house, because the Germans burned everything in the town except the church during their retreat at the end of WWII, but it was still neat to be able to see where the “old” Holmgrens used to live. We then drove the hour and a half to Alta and arrive at the Elvebakken church. The Elvebakken church is the state church, but the Elvebakken congregation affiliated with our church federation does not have their own prayer house, so the use the state church (which they are allowed to use for free).

It was one of the most interesting church service experiences I have ever had. The church has a main sanctuary and then a smaller side sanctuary that connects into the main one at the side; this is where we sat. They had three guest speakers from Finland that were translated into Norwegian.  We had a man sitting directly behind us who leaned forward the whole service and translated it into English for us. It felt very strange because I felt bad for everyone else sitting around us who had to try and ignore the English, and concentrate on the Norwegian translation. Our translator understood Finnish, so he would give us the English translation during the Norwegian translator’s translation. We were able to ignore the Norwegian translation and concentrate on the English, but it was still an odd experience. We had a Swedish man, who lives in Alta, who understands Finnish and can translate it into English, and if there was something he missed in the Finnish, he can understand Norwegian and was able to translate that and then catch back up with the Finnish. Everything worked out well, and the translator did an excellent job; there were three sermons that lasted about two and a half hours.

After the service we drove to a nearby school where they were hosting lunch. It was another experience! We were introduced to so many people, many of whom were Holmgren relatives. We had a good laugh to start with, my mom, David, and myself sat down next to a woman and tried to converse with her. Little did we know, she was Finnish and we couldn’t communicate at all. It was a funny/awkward moment, but then she signaled over to her brother who was able to speak English and we were able to talk for a few minutes. We then wandered around a few minutes and chatted with a few people; people where we knew someone in common. One of these was another Holmgren relative, Odd-Arne Thomassen, who, along with May-Liss, drove us around Alta and showed us many nice areas, including the old church and cemetery. We did not have enough time to search through the very large cemetery, but we were able to take pictures of the church and surrounding area. After showing us around for an hour or so, they took us back to our car at the school. They were going back to the church for the second service, and we were heading back to Hammerfest.

It was great to meet May-Liss, Geir-Ove, and Odd-Arne and we regretfully did not have near enough time to visit with them. That is one of the problems with the trip that we are taking: not enough time to visit with everyone we would like to, and not enough time to see all that we would like to. David and I both agree that another trip to Norway would be a great idea and could possibly be in our future! After we left Alta we drove back to our hotel in Hammerfest and decided to go and get something to eat for dinner. As like many small towns in America, not much was open on a Sunday evening. We basically had two choices: pizza or pizza. We chose pizza! Ok, David and I had pizza, my dad had lasagna, and my mom just had some cheese bread. Either way, it filled our bellies and we were full and happy! To walk off our dinner David and I hiked up the Zig Zag trail and went along the ridge for a while. It was cold, windy, and there was a slight rain, so we were cold, numb, and a bit wet. It was still a great walk and tired us out so we went back to our room and relaxed before bed.

We had an easy morning on Monday. We met a multitude of Holmgrens at the museum here in town at 11:30am. Ole-Johan Valle contacted many relatives who wanted to meet us, so they came to the museum for coffee and then tour the museum. Liv Hanna and Ernst, and Marta and Olav were also there, so it was nice to have faces we knew to be able to talk to as well as meeting the new relatives. After meeting everyone, and having coffee and some pastries, most of us toured the museum; some of the relatives had to leave to go about their planned day. After the museum we drove out to the house that Liv Hanna and Marta grew up in. Their brother Odd lives in the house so his wife Verna (Odd was at work) let us in to tour the house. We met Verna on Saturday, so it was great to see another person who we had already met. After visiting there for a short time, we agreed to go to dinner and then we left and went back to our hotel. We had a little over an hour before dinner, so we went out shopping through the stores; we bought a few souvenirs and also some grocery items to bring with us on our Hurtigruten journey that was coming up.

They dropped Ernst off at our hotel so he could show us the way to the restaurant and we drove up to the hill that overlooks all of Hammerfest. It was a very nice restaurant with an incredible view. Liv Hanna had teased me that I could anything I wanted; she told me they have beef and burgers and pizza! I ended up having spare ribs (David had a whale steak) and it was a fantastic meal. After visiting around the table for a while we said our goodbyes. My parents are to leave on the Hurtigruten tomorrow, so they were going to come and send them off. David and I thought about driving up to Nordkapp, but we decided it was too far of a drive to chance bad weather, and we were feeling a little lazy to drive that distance. We will probably just relax in town and pack our things for our Hurtigruten cruise down to Brønnøysund on Wednesday. After dinner the sky began to clear; it was not totally clear, but mostly blue sky. David and I decided to go on a hike. We went up the Zig Zag trail and kept walking along the hillside overlooking Hammerfest. We went all the way to where we looked down at the nearby small town of Rypefjord. It was very rocky, steep terrain, but because the sun was shining I was actually quite warm. We went on a couple miles hike at ten o’clock at night, in the broad daylight; it was quite the experience and very odd feeling. This is a feeling that would take a while to get used to. After the hike we went back to our hotel to relax and get ready for bed. But then I couldn’t resist; we had great weather! A little past 12:30am, I hiked back up to the top of the hill to take more pictures. It was almost a cloudless “night.” Of course the only clouds in the sky were where the sun was, so I couldn’t get any pictures of the actual sun, but it was completely light out. I am still amazed by this! So I took some pictures and then hiked back down to town and I am now going to try and get to bed. This might be a hard undertaking, but I have to try and get some sleep. Goodnight all!

Hammerfest; Land of our Holmgren Forefathers

     We awoke Thursday morning and ate breakfast at the hotel before walking a few blocks to catch the bus to the airport. We flew on a fairly small turbo prop plane up to Tromsø and then changed to an even smaller turbo prop plane to continue on to Hammerfest. The skies were cloudy, but once we broke through the clouds while descending for the landing we were able to get a nice birds-eye view of the Hammerfest harbor. Another must remember moment: Hammerfest is small. It is around 10,000 inhabitants, but there is nothing else around for many miles. We got off the plane at 5:15pm, waited the four to five minutes it took for them to bring in our luggage, and walked over to get our rental car at Budget Rental. The rental company window was all closed up and there was not a living soul around the airport (this airport actually closes at night). We were a little confused! I tried calling the number for Budget, but couldn’t get through their automated system, and the person we finally got to help us at the airport showed us that there were only two rental companies, and Budget was not one of them. We were more confused. Then we noticed that the Budget number was the same as the Avis sign, so I tried calling again and was finally able to get a live person. It turns out we were supposed to pick up our car at 6:00pm and we were just too early. (We figured it would take more than 10 minutes to get off the plane, etc.) The man from Budget/Avis showed up about 25 minutes later and we finally got our car and were able to drive to our hotel.

     We checked in to our rooms and there were two plates full of fruit and candies waiting for us from our extended family here in Hammerfest! (They were gifts from Ole-Johan Valle (my dad’s second cousin).) After dropping off our bags in our rooms we went out and walked around town for a few little while and then went and ate at a restaurant. By then it was already 8:30pm so we just went back to our hotel. I played around on my computer and phone for a while and just relaxed, waiting for “dark.” I knew we had missed the summer equinox by a few weeks, but I still thought it would be light out pretty late. Little did I know. (I found out on Friday that the midnight sun lasts until around July 28^th.) At midnight I became restless and decided to go and find a geocache. (Too long to explain here, but it is a type of scavenger hunt using GPS units.) I made it so one of my milestones would be in Norway and I saved it so I could have one in Hammerfest. There was one going up the Zikk Zakk Veien (Zig Zag Trail) built by the citizens of Hammerfest in the 1890s right behind our hotel. The trail winds back and forth up the steep hillside to the top where you have a beautiful view overlooking the harbor. I went up the trail to where the geocache was, found it, and then decided to keep walking the rest of the way. At the top I admired the view and took some pictures with my phone. I was just amazed at how light out it was at midnight! It felt more like our 8-8:30pm, at the most. I then walked back down to our hotel, but could go to bed yet! I am somewhat like a child (no comments here!) that hates going to bed when it is still light out. I would have trouble living here! Around 1:00am I was back outside taking more pictures. The clouds parted a little bit and I was able to see blue sky. Can you believe it, blue sky at 1:00am! It was quite the sight (for those who have never experienced the midnight sun) and I was very impressed and in awe. I went back inside and forced myself to go to bed. I closed the curtains, which blocked out most of the light, but not totally, and lay in bed until 2:00am playing games on my phone and before finally going to sleep. It was quite the first day in Hammerfest, and had only been about 10 hours.

     We slept in on Friday morning and didn’t get going until about ten. We contacted Ole-Johan to see if he would be able to meet and he agreed to meet us at our hotel just after 11:00am. Liv Hanna and her husband Ernst, and Marta and her husband Olav also came and met us at our hotel. Liv Hanna and Marta are sisters and they are also second cousins with my dad. Ole-Johan is through Lorents Jakob Pareli Holmgren, and Liv Hanna and Marta are through Anton Holmgren. We walked around Hammerfest and they showed us a few places. One was the Hammerfest church where we went inside and were able to take pictures. On the back wall they had pictures of some important figures of the church, and one of them was Lars Laestadius. (Laestadius is the father of our church movement.) We also went over to the cemetery where many Holmgrens are buried. We found the headstones to my great-great-grandparents Lorents Jakob Pareli and Marit Holmgren and Anton and Stine Holmgren. There were others that we took pictures of as well. After this we all went down to The Royal and Ancient Polar Bear Society where Liv Hanna and Ernst paid for us to become members. That’s right, I am officially a member! I can come to their annual meeting every January if I would like; an experience I definitely would like to do. We then went back to our hotel, got our cars, and drove out to Liv Hanna and Ernst’s house.

     Liv Hanna and Ernst live just around the harbor from the main wharf and it only took a few minutes to drive to. They live in a nice house that has been added on to over the years. It was originally Liv Hanna and Marta’s grandmother’s house that Liv Hanna and Ernst now live in full time. Their daughter Lina lives upstairs with her husband and their son. Lina was home and came down and visited with us for the couple hours that we were there. They served us coffee (of course), lefse, and some other dessert treats. We had plans to go over to their house for dinner on Saturday evening, so being able to meet them and spend time with them on Friday was a great bonus! We really enjoyed our visit with them and we were really thankful that they could speak English; very well, by the way. The fact that so many people speak English has made travel much easier and being able to visit much more enjoyable.

     After our visit we drove to the top of the hill overlooking the harbor to take pictures and then drove around a few minutes checking out the town. We then went back to our hotel to relax before we went out to find something to eat for dinner. After wandering around a little trying to find a place to eat, we ended up going to Peppe’s Pizza, the same restaurant we went to in Oslo. After we ate we just went back to our hotel for the night.

     We had a leisurely start to Saturday morning. We did not have any plans until dinner at 5:00pm at Liv Hanna and Ernst’s house. They were having another day of their festival here (celebrating Hammerfest’s founding as a town) by having bicycle races. They had the main street through town (right next to our hotel) blocked off for the races. We waited to watch the little kids with their race and then we left for a drive. We drove down to Kvalsund where many, many Holmgrens have lived in years past (there are still many that currently live there) and we went to the Kvalsund church and cemetery. We spent over an hour going through the entire cemetery looking at and taking pictures of all of the Holmgrens buried there. We then went to the store and “shopped” for a little bit before continuing our drive down to Skaidi where Jan Petter Holmgren has his trucking company; Holmgren Transport. Jan Petter was not around, but his son and his family live right next to the company buildings. We parked and got out of the car and saw someone come out of and go around the back of the house. We walked up and saw that the name on the house was a Holmgren, so we walked around the house until we found him and his wife. We talked for a couple minutes explaining who we were, but they didn’t seem to interested in carrying on a conversation (they were busy hanging laundry to dry), so we just went back down to the trucks and took some pictures. We then drove back to Hammerfest. One thing to note about our drive: beware of the reindeer! We were warned about them, but we figured it was like when we tell people to be careful of deer. But they were serious; reindeer everywhere does not even describe it. Hammerfest installed a fence to keep them out of town because they were causing so many problems, but outside it all the way to Kvalsund there were herds of reindeer everywhere. We had to stop many times to let groups cross the road and we also stopped many times to take pictures of them. Plus one funny stop, a large reindeer was walking along the road so David yelled at him, “Why were you so mean to Rudolph!” We had a good chuckle about that one as the reindeer scampered off.

     When we got back to Hammerfest we just relaxed for the hour or so before going over to Liv Hanna and Ernst’s house. The bad part was that the sky began to clear around 4:15pm and we were to be at their house at 5:00pm! We wanted to go up to the top of the hill surrounding Hammerfest to take pictures, but we didn’t have time. The sky totally cleared up when we got to their house and it was beautiful, so we just hoped it would stay clear (which it did not) or be clear again on Monday, like it is supposed to be. Well, we showed up to Liv Hanna and Ernst’s at 5:00pm and their house was packed! I can’t even remember all of their names, but there were 15 people there. We had already met some, but there were many to meet and try to remember their names. I was a little nervous about eating the meal in the first place, but especially with that many people there. We sat at two tables, us “younger” ones at one table and the older “adults” at another. Luckily they did not serve us and I was able to dish up my own amount of food. As stated before, I am not especially fond of fish, but I could tell when we walked in that fish was on the menu. Luckily it was salmon; although I do not care for salmon, it is one fish that I have no problem eating. After dinner we had dessert and kept visiting until about 9:30pm when we left because we knew we had an early morning. It was an incredible evening visiting with so many cousins and new friends and we had a great time. So great in fact, that decided to meet with them and some other relatives that Ole-Johan Valle (another second cousin to my dad) wants us to meet and have meet us on Monday. Monday was our open day to be able to visit or do whatever we wanted, so it will be great to visit with them again. We went back to our hotel to go to bed because we were going to drive to Alta for church Sunday morning.

More Oslo and the Norway in a Nutshell Tour

(Sorry, no time to post pictures yet.)

Because I took a nap on Monday afternoon, and I was busy writing my previous blog, I didn’t get to sleep until 3am. But, thankfully, I was able to sleep until 9am, so I was well rested for the first time on our trip! We got up Tuesday morning and took the train to Vigeland Park. That was an awkward park to go to! We walked up the pathway that had very detailed naked statues on both sides. It led to the main central statue with multiple other statues surrounding it. The park itself was huge and a beautiful surrounding, but it was still an uncomfortable place. This didn’t stop us from being tourists and taking lots of pictures though! Although it was a bit uncomfortable, some of the works were neat if you got past the nakedness and there were others that were more tasteful and did not show much nudity. We stayed there an appropriate amount of time and then headed off to our next destination.

We had purchased the Oslo Pass, only available to non-Norwegians, so we had our free travel on all public transportation; we used it a lot and more than got our money’s worth. We took the train further out of Oslo and went to Holmenkollen, the massive ski jump used in the Olympics. We had to walk a ways up the hill to get there, and then wait in line for about 35 minutes to take the elevator to the top. The weather was completely cloudy, with a sporadic drizzle, but the view was still incredibly beautiful. They have a zip line that goes from the top all the way to the bottom, and some younger boy did it while we were there. To say the least, he was hauling on the way down. Because we were running behind for our appointment with the king, we only stayed up at the top for about 15-20 minutes before getting in the much shorter line for the elevator ride back down. We did a bit of speed walking back down the hill to the train and took it back into downtown Oslo.

We got off the train running! (My mom was literally jogging.) We walked as fast as we could up to the Royal Palace and made our schedule tour with four minutes to spare! We could not take any pictures inside, but it was pretty neat to see. It is not nearly as big as many other European palaces, but it was quite ornate and it was interesting to learn more about the Norwegian monarchy.

We walked back the few blocks to our hotel and gave our feet a wonderful rest! While my parents went back out and toured around a little more, David and I just hung out for most of the evening. We went out and roamed Karl Johan Gate again for the last time and went and had dinner. We decided to start a tradition (because we did it in Guatemala) to eat at McDonald’s in every country we visit that has one. Yep, the Big Mac meal was identical to at home, even down to the cold fries. Ok, maybe not identical, this one cost almost $15.00! After we ate we took our time getting back to the hotel to pack our bags for our early morning scenic train/boat/bus ride to Bergen.

We got up early Wednesday morning to meet the porter to take our luggage to our hotel in Bergen while we went on our tour. The tour consisted of a total of three train rides, a boat ride, and a bus ride. So the porter was well worth the money. Lugging it around that whole time would have been miserable; it sure looked that way with all the people who were packing all their bags with them from one transportation ride to the next. Anyway, after that we went and ate breakfast and walked down to the train station. The first leg of our journey was a 4-1/2 hour train ride on a normal commuter train. It went through some beautiful landscape and was a very comfortable ride, but it was just a way to get to where the scenic part of the trip was to start, Myrdal. The first leg was assigned seating; it ended there and havoc reigned after that!

When we got off the train in Myrdal we immediately went to the edge of the track for that line and waited. There was no guarantee where the doors to the train would be when it arrived, that was the gamble. We ended up fairly close to a door and I pretty much muscled a bunch of little old ladies out of the way to get on. Ok, not exactly, but I did muscle my way on and staked out a good set of four seats for us where the window opened so we could take pictures without looking through glass. It might seem mean to get our seats like that (which we read earlier was necessary), but wow was it worth it. Not only did we get nice seats, but we got seats period! There weren’t even enough seats for everyone on the train so some people had to stand the whole time. The trip was a ride on the Flåm Railway down into the fjord from way up in the mountains. It went from Myrdal to Flåm in a little over an hour. It went through some beautiful scenery with lots of waterfalls, lakes, and tall fjord cliff walls. When we got to the bottom, in the town of Flåm, we only had about a half hour before we were to board the boat. We made another mad dash!

This time we knew where the line we going to be to board the boat; we were at the front of it! When they lifted the gate across the opening, scurrying took place once again. We got to the upper floor (it was actually a small car ferry; no cars loaded in Flåm) and staked out the back corner of the boat. We were able to take some pretty good pictures, but the weather was bad. It sprinkled most of the time, but we made the best of it. The boat ride was almost 2-1/2 hours, stopping to pick up a few cars and dropping off one, before delivering us to Gudvangen. During that time we abandoned our seats and roamed around the boat to take other pictures and to get out of the rain when it picked up again. All in all, it was pretty neat to go down one of the most famous fjords in a boat. As we were pulling up to Gudvangen, everyone lined up for the mad rush to the waiting buses.

We hurried toward the back buses while people were trying to cram into the first one. We got onto the second one easily, and thankfully. There were not even close to enough seats. We actually had to wait until a fourth bus showed up before anyone could leave. We then started the 1-1/4 hour bus ride to Voss by driving quite a ways down an 18 percent grade road! There were many, many switchbacks with great views and it was quite the first part of the trip. The rest of the way to Voss was fairly mundane and uneventful. We pulled in with about 30 minutes until our final train ride.

Ten minutes before the train was to arrive, everyone lined the track. No one really even knew where the train was coming from, or which direction we were even going. It was totally overcast and we took so many turns it was impossible to know which way was west. Most people were stacked near the small train terminal, so we went further down the track where there were less people. Thankfully. When the train pulled in it stopped further down the track from the station than even we were. Everyone raced down the track and we were able to get four seats across from each other. Once again, thankfully! There were quite a few people (most were kids from a Scottish group that looked similar to our Boy Scouts) that did not have seats. A few people got off in some small towns along the way so some of the kids standing in other cars were able to find seats. This train ride was just another commuter train to bring us to Bergen and was quiet and uneventful as well.

The train pulled in to Bergen and we walked the half mile or so to our hotel (thankful once again for the porter), walking through some pretty neat city courtyards and past some nice stores. Our hotel was down at the end of the famous wharf, so of course we walked past it on the way to our hotel and that was great. We checked in, picked up our bags that the porter had left at the front desk, put them in our rooms, and headed out for some dinner; except for a few snacks, we hadn’t eaten since breakfast at 7:00am and it was now 10:00pm! We walked back down the wharf to a little sidewalk fish and chips tent and ate our dinner. We were eating fish and chips, on a wharf, in Bergen, Norway, at 10:30pm in the broad daylight; doesn’t get much better than that! (Except maybe some sunshine! Hopefully we will have some when we come back a couple of weeks from now to stay a few nights.) We then went back to our hotel to go to bed; Hammerfest, here we come!

Visiting Relatives and Touring Oslo

          It is time for another update; this may seem a little long-winded, but remember this is for a journal of my trip for myself first. On Sunday morning we walked down to the train station to go to Sandefjord to meet and visit with my dad’s second cousin Angen (Hofseth) and her husband Torleiv Svinterud. (Angen’s grandmother Lovise was Chris Holmgren’s sister.) Because of construction on the tracks, we had to board a bus to take us about 45 minutes down the way, and then we boarded the actual train to complete the journey. The bus was great (with free wifi) and the train was excellent. Norway has some great public transportation systems in place. We arrived in Sandefjord without even knowing what Angen looked like; we had only emailed back and forth a few times before we left for Norway. She picked us out of the small crowd that got off the train and we recognized her when we saw her “know” us.



View looking out over Sandefjord

          As with meeting a new person, things were a little awkward, but it was not nearly as bad as I feared. Angen was a great hostess and had our day planned out for us. Angen took us to a fairly new to the public estate of an old whaling business man. The man’s estate was turned into a park, art display area, walking trails through the woods, and a restaurant in part of the house (which was huge). It also had a beautiful view of the town of Sandefjord and of course the fjord of its namesake. After walking around a little and seeing some of the artwork, she drove us through town and showed us where her daughter had a flower shop and a few other “important” areas of the town. (Her two children and their families were on holiday down in England, so we were not able to meet them.)

Angen and Torleiv

          We then went to her house where we met her husband Torleiv. I think he was a little, I don’t know, put off in a way; not really wanting company? I think they lead a pretty “quiet” life and we were a bit of an intrusion. I had been in contact with Angen because she wrote a family history book on the Holmgrens, and genealogy is not something Torleiv is interested in. (Angen is very involved in genealogy, but it has never interested Torleiv.) But once he saw that we were just “normal” people (no comments here!), we got along great. We were able to talk about everything from cars to taxes. Later in the day, when Angen brought out some of her genealogy information, Torleiv just sat by and added a little, but just kept in the background for most of the hour or so we talked about it.

          When we first got there we visited for a while about their lives and they showed us their house. Torleiv was a teacher and Angen was a librarian. They are both quite active and Torleiv bicycles often. Their house has a beautiful view of the fjord from their back porch. They have lived in their house for 37 years, and in that time the area has really grown. When they first moved there only a few houses existed. Now there are houses all over the place. Even with the new houses, their view is still pretty impressive. The hillside that it is one is basically one huge rock. The rock consumes much of the backyard, and their foundation is poured with the rock protruding into it. The house is quite large as it contains a separate apartment that Torleiv’s mother lived in while she was alive.



David at the end of the peninsula

          After visiting for a while, we had lunch. As many of you know, I do not like fish; unless it is deep fried in batter and served with French fries. On top of that, I do not really care for too many soups. For lunch Angen made a fish soup with salmon and shrimp. You can only imagine my delight when I saw her bring it out. Not only that, but they had already served it into bowls for us, so I couldn’t even take “just a little.” I was a big boy, though. I did not eat the shrimp, but I was able to eat the rest of the soup and just leave the few shrimp in the bottom of the bowl. (I felt quite ill on the train ride home. I think it probably had more to do with the lack of sleep than the fish, but I had to quit thinking about what I ate and try to nap to get past it!) When my mom got up to use the restroom after they took our bowls when we were done, Angen said, “We aren’t done yet!” My stomach, which I didn’t think was possible, fell to my toes. Then, to my relief, it wasn’t another course of food, it was dessert! She brought out strawberries, cream, and powder sugar. Much better J

Part of the view from Angen and Torleiv's back porch (Notice the rock?)

          After we ate we looked at the family history books that Angen wrote about her family, and we looked at my book that I brought along with me.  After we looked at them for a time, and talked about our family’s history, we went for a walk. Down at the end of their road was the fjord; they live on a peninsula that sticks out into the fjord. We went down to the tip of the peninsula (which has a campground) and enjoyed the view from down at the water’s edge. It was quite busy as the campground was full of trailers of people who stay there for the entire summer. According to Torleiv, these campers have a culture all of their own. They bring in their travel trailers and connect (very impressive) porch shelters to them. I guess if you are going to live there for multiple months, it would be a good idea to have these. After we walked back to the house we visited for the rest of the time we had. Angen then drove us back to the train station and saw us off. Angen and Torleiv were incredible hosts and I couldn’t be happier that we made contact with each other before our trip and that it worked out that we were able to meet!

          We got back to Oslo around 8-8:30 and went back to the hotel to drop off our backpacks and relax for a couple minutes. We then went out and walked around a bit and went to the Hard Rock Café for dinner. (David and I have tried to make it to a Hard Rock Café in every city we have been to that has one.) We ended up eating close to 10:00pm, but it was still so light out you wouldn’t think anything of it. The streets were still full of people and all of the outdoor seating areas for the other restaurants were full. It would be/is hard to get used to it looking like our 7-8:00 when it is really going on 11:00. (I am anxious to see what it is light up until in Hammerfest. I know we missed the midnight sun, but it will still be light out for most of the night.) It is also odd feeling to see it so light out at 3-3:30 in the morning. But it is odd to be up at that time regardless! My sleep is still off, even for me. I didn’t get to sleep until 11:30 and was up again by 4:00. (At least this evening I was able to take a nap for an hour.)

          Once again we had a great breakfast at the hotel. We are trying to stuff ourselves with our “free” breakfast so we can eat less during the day because of the cost. We purchased the Oslo Pass that gives us free/cheap entrance to many museums, free public transportation, and discounts to multiple stores and restaurants. We went to the Nasjonalmuseet for Kunst (National  Museum of Art) where they are celebrating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Edvard Munch. He is the artist famous for his painting “The Scream.” Cameras were not allowed in the museum, even our bags had to get locked in lockers, so we do not have any pictures to show. (I really wanted to take some pictures, but I didn’t want to test out their security and find out what happens to foreigners who don’t follow their rules.) There were many great paintings, and many that were “different,” but I really loved being able to see the original “The Scream” painting; it was a pretty neat experience. We toured around the museum for an hour or so, looking at some of the other artists’ works in the normal area of the museum, before walking up to the Royal Palace to see about getting in on their tour.

One of the Viking ships in the museum

The balsa wood raft used to cross the Pacific Ocean in 1947

          The tours were sold out, but we were told how to try and get tickets for the next day’s tours. We then walked down to the wharf to take the passenger ferry boat across part of the fjord to the peninsula of Bygdøy. We got off and walked up the hill to the Viking Museum. We spent some time there looking at the old Viking vessels that were discovered, uncovered, and restored. They were quite impressive to see right up close; real Viking ships! Proud Norwegian moment…. After this museum we walked to the Kon Tiki museum. (A lot farther than we thought it would be!) The Kon Tiki museum shows the expedition of Thor Heyerdahl in 1947 when he crossed the Pacific Ocean in a balsa wood raft. It would take too long to explain the history of the expedition, but suffice it to say, it was a really neat exhibition of the raft and other artifacts.

Our ferry back to Oslo wharf

          Because it was such a long walk, and because it was free, we took the bus to our next destination: Norsk Folkemuseum (Norwegian Folk Museum). (Museum pictures are placed at the end of this blog.) I read about this place and used pictures from there in my genealogy book. They have many, many old buildings that they have transported from around Norway and set up in a very large outdoor museum. It was great to see so many different types of housing from so far back in Norway’s history. They also have an old Stave church. We were able to go inside (although it was quite dark) and look around at the old art carvings in the altar area. We spent an hour and a half to two hours touring around part of the museum, but because we were so tired we did not even go through it in its entirety. But we did stop off at the gift shop for a bit to look around and my mom did by a thing or two. We then walked back to the wharf and took the passenger ferry back to the main Oslo wharf. We all walked back to our hotel from the wharf and promptly took naps. That felt great! Of course, now I won’t be able to fall asleep tonight, and the cycle continues! Oh well, I am on vacation, right?

          My parents woke up and wandered around town and ate a quick dinner, and David and I got up later and went out to find dinner. We were quite hungry as we hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and it was 10:00! David and I walked down to try out one of Norway’s fast food restaurants: Max Hamburgers. It was quite good and we thought it was pretty cool to spend $19.00 at a fast food restaurant for a normal combo meal. But to be honest, this was not McDonalds. The burger was as thick as any you would make at home and comparable to more of a Five Guys type of burger. We laughed to ourselves that we were out here eating dinner at 10:00 at night with it completely light out. We then walked down to the train station to pick up our tickets for Wednesday morning when we take the Norway in a Nutshell train/boat tour to Bergen. The weather has been great here in Oslo, but the forecasts for Bergen and later in our trip is not looking the greatest. Hopefully it will clear up and stop raining, but time will tell. We then walked back to our hotel and I decided I better write an update before I forget everything that we did (of course I may have to amend/edit this when I realize something I missed).

 

     Until next time……

 

  

(The picture formatting ability in this blog is a bit to be desired. I have given up and am just putting some pictures here at the end of the post.)

 

 



A neat setting of old houses.



A couple different houses at the museum



They put on a dancing exhibition to music



Another picture of the dancing



Inside one of the houses



Lefse making demonstration



Two girls in traditional outfits at the Stave church



The Stave church

 

The Adventure Has Begun

Well, our trip is underway! The flight from Seattle to Keflavik wasn't too bad. We were so far north and also so high in elevation that it was daylight all night long and too hard to sleep. (Multiple screaming babies didn't help either!) It was raining pretty good in Keflavik, which you wouldn't think is a big deal on a layover, but to board our plane to Oslo we had go out on the Tarmac and walk up the stairs.....in the rain. Thankfully I am from Seattle and it didn't faze me!

The one problem that the rain made, which we found out later, is that all of our luggage became a little damp; this must have happened when they were transferring our luggage. Not a huge deal, but we had to take a lot of our clothes out right away to dry them when we got to our hotel in Oslo.

We had a little delay getting off the plane in Oslo. The front door we used to board was having problems, so we had to wait for them to find a stairway and bring it to the back door. The delay did not hurt us too much as we were sitting in the back of the plane and were able to deplane pretty quickly. We were a bit confused with the whole customs procedure though. Maybe we are getting too used to the post 9/11 U.S. They didn't ask us a single question in Iceland, they just stamped our passports, and then we grabbed our luggage in Oslo when we got there and just walked right out of the airport. Not complaining, just thought it was a little odd.

We took the train into downtown Oslo to walk to our hotel. Note to self: Little maps make distances look shorter than they actually are! The "three" blocks were pretty long blocks. In all actuality it was not that far, but carrying/rolling our bags down Karl Johan Gate, their really busy main area, made it seem quite far.

After checking in to our hotel we wandered down the street and ate some dinner and went through some shops. Our whole goal was to stay up "late" enough to try and get our bodies on Norwegian time. At 6:00pm we have had enough; it is now 9:00 in the morning for our bodies! I am trying to stay up later to help out my sleep schedule, so I decided to post an update. I don't know how often I will post updates, but this is a good start!

(I am posting this using an app on my iPhone after well over 24 tiring hours without sleep. So please forgive any typos or rambling!)