My trip to Norway started in Oslo where I ate lunch with my cousin Eivind and his wife’s friend at the waterfront. It was a beautiful sunny day and it was the only time I ever felt tempted to jump in Norwegian water.
From Oslo we drove down to Drammen and ate a nice dinner outside with Eivinds’ parents, Bjarne & Kjersti, his wife Kaja and brother Håkon.
The next morning I began the 7 hour drive across the southern part of the country with Bjarne and Håkon. But not before I tried ‘brown cheese’ for the first time. It is a Norwegian staple and ate mostly on bread with jelly. It became a favorite of mine and I made sure to eat it every morning while there. Bjarne even got me a book ‘Brown Cheese Please’ that he gave to me before I left! We departed after breakfast and made a few scenic stops along the way that included 2 waterfalls, fjords, and a glacier.
Our final destination was Bergen, where my cousin Ingvild lives and goes to school. We spent 2 nights there-saw the fish market, the famous small houses, went to the top of Fløyen which gave us a great view of the city/fjords, & experienced some terrible nightlife!
After Bergen my cousin Håkon and I took the bus & a ferry to Stavanger to meet some more cousins. We walked through Old Stavanger, which was one of my favorite places in Norway. It looked a bit like how I picture Greece to be-white houses with lots of flowers and narrow cobble-stoned streets. Håkon and I also found time to hike Pulpit Rock. It took us roughly four hours roundtrip. I was impressed with my endurance and found that my new ‘bike legs’ from Amsterdam were suiting me well. Needless to say the views were stunning and we had great weather.
After staying two nights in Stavanger we took yet another bus/ferry ride to Kristiansand. There we hitched a ride with Bjarne and Kjersti to Fleseid (the family vacation home) where Grandma and Grandpa (Kristin & Torstein) were awaiting our arrival. This was quite special since I don’t have any memory of meeting them when I was 3. They are the sweetest grandparents and their stories were quite riveting. As someone who has just one grandparent still alive in a nursing home in the States, it was a welcoming experience to be in their presence and a bit heartbreaking to think it could be the only time. I cherished it and made sure to take pictures with them. Fleseid seemed like a very quintessential Norwegian seaside village. It reminded me a lot of Maine with all its nooks and crannies. We took a very wet, cold boat ride one afternoon to the place where my cousins have been stopping for ice cream every summer since they were small. It was cute but deserted at this time of year. So no ice cream for us! Not a problem because the grandparents had plenty of apple desserts on hand…Norway must have put 10 pounds on me.
My last two nights were spent back in Drammen. I visited the Norsk Folkemuseum & Vigelandsparken Sculpture Park in Oslo. The park had well over 100 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. If you’re not familiar with his work I’ll tell you it is worth looking up. It depicts human emotion through the circle of life. We had a lot of fun interpreting the scenes around one fountain. And of course ended the visit with an apple dessert in the park’s fancy cafe overlooking a pond. We had endless good meals including a lunch at Glass on the Drammen waterfront. Kjersti and I had huge shrimp salads that were delicious! I had such a wonderful time visiting and meeting my Norwegian family. While it was sad to say goodbye to them I had a lot to look forward to back in Amsterdam…
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