US2NORWAY

I would have to say that this has been the most complete experience of my life. While officially labelled a vacation, our two week journey seemed more like classes in world geography, politics, sociology and history with some language study thrown in for good measure. This was much more than a vacation. You can't go to expedia or travelocity and rent a family oversees to immerse yourself into foreign culture. We were so lucky to have family nearby at every stop of the way throughout Norway.

Our travels encompassed trains, planes, automobiles, boats, hotels, city streets, amusement parks, castles, palaces, uncles, aunts, cousins, and relatives' welcoming homes. Not to mention a whole lot more you don't have time to read. We've been home for 4 full days now, and the memories are still "creme" fresh. The first day home was quite strange in that I instinctively wanted to ask everyone I saw, "do you speak English?" This began to fade on day 2, but then I began waking up in a sweat, wondering why it didn't smell like hot coffee and lox. I averted this problem by spending more time than usual inside local Starbucks. Saturday, we decided that the show must go on without Aunte Betsy to cook for us, and we went to the grocery store and grabbed one of the big, rolling carts. Everything in the store appeared unspectacular, but we came away with enough to chew on for the weekend. We're definitely home.

It's taken Linda 28 years to revisit Softeland, Norway. I assure you we'll be back in less than 3 years this time, if not only to finish thanking everyone. Copenhagen is a great city, but next time we'll likely concentrate all of our time on the relatives in Norway. Perhaps a day or two in "Sveriga" would be nice, time permitting, since our trials in the Goteborg, Sweden Train Station are all we have to claim this time.

My take on Norway is that it enjoys plenty of everything it needs while consuming very little excess. Politically and socially, Norwegians are left with very little to desire while providing plenty of the things most of us argue about on a daily basis. Fuels and energy, military force, food, and health care are all plentiful, yet Norway remains one of a handful of countries worldwide with no national debt. Norway owes nothing to anybody and they contribute the highest percentage of GNP globally to poorer nations. What's not to like?

Time to write our recaps! Also, 2-3 days worth of photos yet to publish. Stay tuned..

LINDA: A quick note to all before my cousin Eva comes to get us; I think we are going to have pizza in Os...... I can't wait!

I've been eating a lot of traditional Norwegian foods, drinking tons of strong coffee and I think I've had dessert every day since arriving at Tante Betsy's. No complaints; they've been very kind to us, have prepared every meal, washed our laundry and taken us sightseeing. Tonight we will have dinner at Tante Anfrid's so Betsy and Lars can have a break from us and eat leftovers from yesterday's party. It was nice to catch up and see all the family and friends in Softeland after so many years. The area we are in now has been in the family for generations and much of the family grew up right here. There are some new homes in the area, but for the most part, it is the same as when I was here 28 years ago.

I'm looking forward to our Sognefjord trip tomorrow and think the scenery will be spectacular, to say the least. The weather has been good; not too hot but some sun everyday. More pictures to follow when we can as we'll be busy the next couple of days.

Talk to you soon.....

Yesterday, Lars & Betsy had a party and many of the relatives from Norway came over for the afternoon. It is very interesting to listen to a roomful of Norwegians who haven't seen each other for awhile. Lots of talking and laughing, and I still don't understand much of anything they are saying. I think I know how our dog feels when we are all sitting around talking - you sort of get the jist of what's going on, even though you have no clue what is being spoken.

One of Linda's cousins, Monica, built a new home nearby recently, and we all took a tour of it. There is a lake in the backyard and everything is state-of-the-art. Heated wood floors, hi-fi electronics... you name it. Monica's husband, Frode, has given me the code to his wireless internet, which I can get if I sit in the far corner of the house (where I am now). So, at last, I am catching up on news, football scores, my websites, etc.

We are going with Linda's cousin Eva to a town called Os in a couple hours. Since we should be taking more photos there, I will hopefully have time to post all the recent pics tonight when we get back.

Soccer buffs: Maradona is touring Scandinavia and everyone is freaking out about him. He is playing a "fotball" game with some other legends in Bergen and it is very exciting for the locals. This Maradona character was in Oslo when we were there too - he keeps stealing our thunder wherever we go.

Tomorrow we leave early in the morning for what is called the "Royal Fjord Tour". We leave downtown Bergen for a 5-hour express boat ride (large catamaran) around the west coast of lower Norway and in through the fjord network to Flam. This should be intense. All the photos of Norway you may have seen are of this area. It is like the Puget Sound on growth hormones. Large slopes explode up and out of the water everywhere you look. This will be the highlight of the trip for me - I've been waiting for this! After we reach Flam, we then take two trains back to Bergen - it is an all day trip and we will have gone in a huge circle through Norway.

There should be plenty to say about the fjord tour, so I plan on posting again Wednesday from the airplane. We may be online tomorrow night after the tour but it might be late, and we will have to leave the next morning for the airport, so no guarantees.

Hope everyone enjoys TWO monday night football games tonight (jealous) - what happened to the Seahawks yesterday?; thank god they pulled out a close victory.

This is my first time on a Norwegian keyboard, so it should take awhile to write this...

Today at the Hotel Søfteland (Oncle Lars & Tante Betsy's home), we are the guests of honor and much of Linda's family here will be coming to visit. We spent this morning visiting a couple very old sites, including a Stave Church that had been burned down in 1992 and rebuilt, as well as a Monasterie from the 1100's... pictures will have to wait as our only connection right now is dial-up.

We have been very spoiled here. Tante Betsy has been making us breakfast and dinner every day - some of the things we have now experienced include herring for breakfast, kjøttkake (oxen meatballs), lox (very soft smoked salmon, and lots of it), akevitt (strong liquor served with dinner), skillingsbolle (fresh, sweet dough with cinnamon and sugar) and later today we are eating goat leg along with many other traditional foods. The entire dried goat leg was in the kitchen this morning - you will see pictures of this just as soon as I get my mits on a high-speed connection.

Yesterday we went to Bergen for several hours and visited their version of a Saturday market where vendors sell everything from fish and crab to jewelry and other souvenirs. We took a ride on a tram to Fløyen, which looks out over Bergen and the surrounding area. I think we were about 1000 feet above the city and the views were amazing... again, photos forthcoming. Our "small world" experience of the trip would happen atop this mountain. Would you believe we ran into a couple students from UW Tacoma??? They are studying here at the University of Bergen for a few months.

Some of the relatives have already started to arrive, so we will check back again soon.. rumor has it one of the relatives next door has high-speed, so we hope to get photos up as soon as we can. Thanks again for reading and writing. Talk to everyone soon.

For those of you planning to visit this region, the buses and trains are definitely the way to go. Short bus trips cost around $5 per person and our bus trip from Bergen back to Softeland ran about $10 per person. The ScanRail pass is working great for us - it was about $300 per person - and it allows us 5 days of train travel within a 15 day period. We were able to book the Royal Fjord Tour for much less than it said because part of our train travel is already covered by the ScanRail pass. Since we've had this pass, we haven't had to buy any individual train tickets. We assumed the ScanRail pass would be much cheaper once we got here, but in hind site, I don't think it would have cost any more in the States.

I'm not sure what other information would be helpful, but go ahead and ask any questions you have and I'll find answers while I'm here.

We have had a great time in Larvik. It is a shame that we have to leave already, but the show must go on. We can't thank Heidi, Synnove and Mads enough - we are going to miss them, their home, their town and the wonderful food and coffee. I've never travelled to this extent and each new leg of the trip brings a little anxiety. Just as I get comfortable it's time to move! We only hope that Heidi and the kids will come visit us in the states. A trip to the US for them would be like us going to Mexico or Thailand because everything would be extremely cheap for them. They love coffee and there is no Starbucks in Norway, so that should be enough motivation right there to get them stateside. Only worry is that Starbucks will seem so cheap to them, they'll probably be way over-caffeinated when they visit. Tyler will love Mads after 6 mochas.

It's time to get ready to go. The kids are leaving for school and our train leaves in an hour and a half. Did I mention we wish we were staying longer?

We have had a great time in Larvik. It is a shame that we have to leave already, but the show must go on. We can't thank Heidi, Synnove and Mads enough - we are going to miss them, their home, their town and the wonderful food and coffee. I've never travelled to this extent and each new leg of the trip brings a little anxiety. Just as I get comfortable it's time to move! We only hope that Heidi and the kids will come visit us in the states. A trip to the US for them would be like us going to Mexico or Thailand because everything would be extremely cheap for them. They love coffee and there is no Starbucks in Norway, so that should be enough motivation right there to get them stateside. Only worry is that Starbucks will seem so cheap to them, they'll probably be way over-caffeinated when they visit. Tyler will love Mads after 6 mochas.

It's time to get ready to go. The kids are leaving for school and our train leaves in an hour and a half. Did I mention we wish we were staying longer?

We arrived in Larvik yesterday afternoon and it was raining quite hard. Linda's cousin Heidi picked us up and showed us around the countryside. There is a large park here that reminded me a bit of Point Defiance Park. It is a popular gathering place for families and it is on a hill above the sea. We drove past Klaastad quarry which is a global supplier of a few different colors of granite. It is our understanding that a few colors such as Black Labrador and Emerald Pearl are only produced here. There is also a port in Larvik with one crane and container dock. I'm guessing this is mainly for granite exports.

Heidi lives in a wonderful home with her 16 year old daughter Synnove, and 14 year old son Mads. They all speak better English than I could have imagined. We went to their Tae Kwon Do training and then home for lasagna dinner - our first home-cooked meal in over a week! It was delicious. We enjoyed conversation at the dinner table until late in the evening. We all went to sleep straight from the dinner table. Having been tired for the past few days, we slept like babies for 12 hours and didn't even hear the others getting ready for school this morning.

When we finally awoke, we hurried to catch the bus into town so that we could look around and get back in time to meet Heidi after work. Now we're all sitting in their comfortable living room, drinking coffee and watching TV. MacGyver has ended and Will & Grace just started. They are very familiar with many of our TV shows and watch them all the time.

After our camera battery finishes charging, we're off to view more countryside. I will wait until this evening to upload the next batch of photos. Their neighbor here appears to have a nice wireless connection, so I assume I will be able to poach bandwidth again later. Hallelujah!

I wanted to drop a quick note to let everyone know that we are checking out of our last hotel, and also leaving our last guaranteed internet connection this morning. We should be able to write in from the train station or an internet cafe at some point in the near future, but picture uploads could be far and few between. Hopefully we've given you enough to chew on for now. See you on the other side, and thank you very much for all the comments. We are having a great time reading them.

LINDA: We started the day at one end of Karl Johans Gate, which is a long street that is home to many restaurants, cafes and shops. Along the way we stopped for iced kaffe to help us through our long trekk. First stop was Oslo's Cathedral (Domkirke) a Lutheran church in which Norway celebrates and mourns its royal marriages and deaths. Past the Parliment building (we stopped to listen to a man play a djidjeridoo) and park was the Grand Cafe which deserved a quick look as it was popular historic meeting place for Oslo's intellectual and creative elite; Henrik Ibsen and Edvard Munch are some you may be familiar with.

Heading back out on Karl Johans Gate we headed towards the Royal Palace one of three homes used by the royal family; they were there since the flag was raised. Off to the harbor to see City Hall (Radhuset) which was built with contributions from Norway's leading artists; not an old building but very cool since it has a lot of creative art. The harbor was filled with many boats and cruise ships. Up the hill to Akershus Fortess Complex which is a parklike complex of sights scattered over Oslo's old center; it's still a military base. We stopped into the Resistance Museum documenting the WWII Nazi occupation of Norway. The exhibit brought chills as we browsed authentic documents, photos and newspaper articles from the days of Hitler.

Back to the hotel to get ready for dinner up at Holmenkollen Ski Jump with the family (Sven, Runa and Lona) where we had a 4 course dinner of native cuisine; burnt olive with meringue, raw halibut and pommegranate salad, deer with potato as the main course and cheesecake with blueberry sauce and sesame wafer - all served with different wines. The views from up there were spectacular! After dinner we went back to Sven and Lona's flat for a cocktail and some good conversation encompassing everything from music and movies to politics. Aaron asked them a million questions and they were very gracious to answer each of them. He enjoyed learning a lot about Norway, it's internal politics and views on the rest of the world. The income tax here is less than 50%, contrary to popular opinion in the states.

All in all it was a fabulous day!

We are up and at 'em in Oslo, Norway. Our last minute hotel served us well, as they provided us with a free breakfast buffet. If we purchased breakfast out somewhere, it would have been pricey, and who knows what we would have found. Breakfast buffet highlights: bacon, bottomless coffee and orange juice, corn flakes, milk, bread and gjetost (norwegian cheese resembling peanut butter, for those of you who don't know). Breakfast buffet lowlights: soft boiled eggs, some sort of clear jello mold full of peas and carrots and unidentifiable meats and cheeses. All in all, the experience was good, and it was the first time we were able to refill our own beverages. Obviously, our super big gulp culture does not exist here. A "grande" latte is the biggest size, and it's not more than 12oz, including foam which takes up half the cup. They also take their drinking water very seriously. It commonly comes in fancy glass bottles, and costs between $3 - $6.

We've yet to make phone contact with the relatives here, so that is our next mission. Hopefully we can pick up some Norwegian Kroner (money) without getting bent over too hard, and we can finally entertain the idea of a domestic phone call - I've heard international calls can cost $25 or so.

Keeping track of miscellaneous items, here and everywhere, is widely known to be my weakness in life. So far, I've only lost a pair of cheap sunglasses. Although frustrating, I should consider myself lucky to this point.

Lastly, we returned from breakfast to learn about the passing of Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter. This is one of those things where I'll always remember where I was and when it happened. We liked him very much and hope the stingray responsible becomes lunch for an Australian Great White sooner rather than later.

We had a brilliant plan to take the night train from Copenhagen to Oslo, Norway - this was also recommended to us by our trusty travel manual. Wouldn't you know, they cancelled this route every day except Fridays very recently and we had to come up with a quick ad-lib itinerary. We were able to find a great last-minute deal on a room from Expedia and here we are 24 hours later.

We left Copenhagen around noon and headed over the Oresund bridge (10 mile link between Denmark and Sweden), and up the coast to Goteborg, Sweden. After the first 4 hour leg, we had to transfer trains and this proved to be a little sketchy. Linda went to use the bathroom and found that it cost 5 Kroner. She didn't have any Kroner at the time, and a nice local woman paid for her (the attendant was not going to let her in without paying.) We followed a sign to "information" out of the train station and into a shopping mall.. upon arriving, the lady pointed us back to the train station in a less than pleasant tone. We found our train "platform" with about 10 minutes to spare, and were told by a Danish woman that we probably had to have reserved seats if we didn't want to stand for 4 hours. This freaked us out, but without enough time to get reserved seats, we decided to board anyway - this was the last train to Oslo. Fortunately, we had no problem finding seats. Our blood pressure went back to normal as the train pulled out of Gotesborg.

We saw our first Neo-from-the-Matrix, Columbine, Trench coat, black hair and Kiss boots-wearing idiots in Gotesborg. I am dismayed by the continuing trend of washed up, 80's buttrock fashion and music here. This points to the imminent trends heading our way. Anyone ready for a Whitesnake revival? All the young girls in Scandinavia seem to be. Super tight jeans with zippers and white ballet slippers seem to be the hit.

It is no longer a mystery why bicycles are so popular in Denmark (aside from being convenient in crowded cities) - there is a 180% TAX on automobile purchases. For example, a $20,000 car would run you $56,000. We wonder what everyone does once the snow begins to fall, considering the bicycles are typically Wicked Witch of the West-style 3-speeds.

Tomorrow we begin our assault on Oslo and are scheduled to have dinner with Linda's cousins Sven & Runa. It will be nice to experience the locals - we mainly kept to ourselves in Copenhagen since we were in a bit of a hurry to see as much as possible in 2 days. I haven't walked this much.... ever.

That's it for now - new pics are up - see ya later.

LINDA: In the past two days I found myself walking the streets with sensory overload, there is so much to see and it is so different than home. The fact that it has such history, people speaking different languages and the architecture are just a few things that make Copenhagen such a great place. It's very cool and the Danes are very nice and speak English, a plus when trying to find your way around town.

Today we did a lot of walking around the city and saw some of the popular sights, the old Copenhagen University, Kastellet (castle with moat), Amalienborg Palace (guards included), The Little Mermaid, Stroget (the largest pedestrian shopping district); I didn't buy a thing, really! In all this touring we have not seen a Starbucks, yet.

Our hotel is near Nyhavn which is on the canal and is awesome! I don't think we could have picked a better location. There are many restaurants and bars/pubs with outside seating so you can dine outside and watch passersbys as we did today. I'm still a bit shy of the food and have had pizza and a burger already...... Herring is very popular here and is on every menu along with open face sandwiches with some type of cold cuts I'm not familiar with. I figure I have plenty of time to ease myself into the local food. I can say that Danish pilsner and pastries are excellent!

The weather has been good - we did get some rain late this afternoon but the tempature was still fairly mild which is good. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Talk to you soon and thanks to all who have written!

We've moved right past the culture shock and onto culture infatuation. So they wear funny shoes - that's their prerogative. They also drink good beer, spend a lot of time on bicycles and keep up their buildings nicely. Our hotel happens to be next door to the Queen's winter residence. We haven't made it over there yet (opposite direction of everything else) but we're gonna visit in a couple hours. We'd still be out and about, but our camera battery died due to the vast array of photos and video I acquired this morning.

We strolled most of downtown Copenhagen today, including a visit to the University of Copenhagen and the surrounding U-District. Thanks to my mastery of Danish names, we strayed off course one time, about 6 blocks worth, even though we referenced our map(s) about 3,756,382,947 times. You think this is easy? Come try it for yourself.

My Metallica...And Justice for All t-shirt has gotten a couple interesting glances, and I'm certain most people believe me to be Danish. It's the best disguise ever. I recommend a vintage 80's metal shirt of some kind if you want to blend in here.

One more thing, before I forget... MacGyver was on TV here yesterday. We watched it.