Preparing For Our Adventure!

First off, I am not a writer and I am not a blogger. I am going to attempt to write in this blog for a "diary" of sorts for our trip to Europe. There will be no deep thoughts posted here, just a diary of our trip that I will hopefully add pictures to along the way.

I have been very involved with our family's genealogy over the past many years and have written a family history book. While doing the research for it I have been in contact with Jan Olav Agle, a friend (and distant relative), who helped me out incredibly. His brother still owns the Kvistad family farm in Inderøy (near Trondheim) that the Questads came from. After emailing back and forth for so many years, and learning about Norway during my research, I decided that I really wanted to go there. I wanted to meet Jan Olav in person especially, but I also wanted to see the area that I learned about. So, David and I are embarking on another adventure, this time to the "Motherland."

After learning that David and I were going to go to Norway, my parents decided that they would love to go too. Three of my dad's four grandparents were born in Hammerfest, so he thought it would be great if he could visit there. My dad even more so, but I have heard about Hammerfest my whole life from my grandmother (and aunts and uncles) and have always wanted to visit there. We have been in contact with a few relatives who are more than willing to meet us. It might be a little difficult for a bunch of Questads to be outgoing, but we are going to try! (Luckily we have my mother along who is more outgoing.) Some of the relatives are as close as second-cousins to my dad.

David and I will be traveling to Norway for almost four weeks, with approximately the first three weeks of the trip (almost entirely) alongside my parents. We then stay for a few days in each Ireland and Rome before visiting our cousin Melissa in Germany for another two weeks. While there we will travel around a bit to see a few different countries and then possibly end our stay with some camping in France over Labor Day weekend. We then stop off for a few days in Iceland before heading home. We enjoyed our vacation to Iceland in February 2011 so we decided to stop off there again and see it in the summer.

We leave in just a few days, on Friday, July 12th. I have been learning a lot about packing light, but we will see how I handle it. I usually travel with multiple suitcases and try to bring everything and anything I might possibly need. I still need to take two bags, but they are both small and one is only a small tote bag carry-on. On future trips I will probably take less, this is a learning experience!

Well, I just wanted to start my "diary" off with a preview of our trip. Although this won't be a profound, deep blog, I will want it for a chronicle of our trip for myself. If anyone else looks at it and enjoys it, that is a bonus! I don't know how dutiful I will be at writing in it, but I will try. I just wanted to at least start the blog before I left. I am also hopeful that David will add in a post every now and again as well.

Kevin