Norway Adventures

Looking out the window you notice the beauty of winter. Norway has perfected winter. The mountainsides are beautifully covered with white snow. The rocks on the sides of the mountains have icecles that give the appearance of frozen waterfalls. The forests are full of a wide variety of trees including birch and pine. They are also sprinkled with a fresh layer of frost and snow. There is a frozen lake that peaks through on either side of the road periodicaly. And then scattered against a backdrop of white is the bright red cabins . These rustic retreats are literally miles apart.

While traveling down these roads Robert Frost’s, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, comes to mind. I have included it below, not by memory of course:

Whose woods these are I think I know,
His house is in the village though.
He will not see me stopping here,
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

-Robert Frost

We literally lived that poem today, a memory we will not soon forget.

The day was overall very relaxing. Not much to post about.

And the Coke. Strange thing about Norway is that they do not use one of their most abundant natural resources. Ice. Ice is so good in Coke, and other fine beverages. Please start using ice.

We arrived in Kristiansand about 1:30pm. We spent some time at Ann Ki and Terje’s home. About 3pm we left to go to an evening church service. Service starts today at 4:00pm and goes until a little after 6. I don’t think this is a normal time for the service but due to the holiday that is the time they had the service. We then went to Jon Henry’s home for some legendary Peppes Pizza. A note on Norwegians and Pizza. Norwegians claim that they are the largest consumer of frozen pizza and I believe it. It is not uncommon to have frozen pizza multiple times a week. Anyhow, Peppes Pizza is the favorite pizza of Norwegians. The price on these pies is about $35 each. They are very good pizzas.

Did some driving, ate some food, did some Bible and hit the hay. Like me and Dre, I’d have to say it was a good day.

Aimee’s friend Ann Ki is going to be picking us up tonight and taking us to the farm for our New Years Eve party. Ann Ki and her husband Terje (pronounced Tadia) pick us up and we head over to the farm. Now I don’t know about you but when I think farm I think Old McDonald, tractors, cows, hay, etc. Our drive to the farm is only about 15 minutes. We pull off the main road and on to a one lane dirt road that is covered in snow. We pass a couple of beautiful snow covered homes. And then we start going up a hill. There a small logs on the side of the road that are burning, lighting the way to the farm. As we pull up the final drive there are beautiful Norwegian people outside laughing and sleding. Little kids are running around and playing in the snow. The farm does not look like a farm but a comfy bed and breakfast. The only way that I could describe the way it looks and feels is that of a beer commercial. The farm was built around 1650, you know 100 years before we were a country. We were directed to our room. The feeling walking through a building that is as old as it is is amazing. And we get to sleep here tonight! I went outside to join the fun. They were serving a drink called “Glog”. It is a warm drink with raisins and almonds. It was pretty good.

This was a formal affair, so the ladies were in dresses and the men were in suits. The meal itself was setup like a buffet with different kinds of meats, breads, and cheeses. We eat for a couple of hours and get to know a few people. At midnight we go outside for the firework show. In Norway just about every firework is legal. So my collection of snakes and snap n caps were not that impressive. It was like a war zone out there. For about 45 minutes the entire sky, no matter which direction you looked, was completely covered with explosions. It was incredible. And snowy. And cold.

We stayed up until about 2:30 and went to bed. We are going to head to Kristiansand tomorrow at 9:00. Till then.

On a good note, it is about 1:00am on December 31st and we are beginning to feel better. However, on the note of medication, you can’t buy jack over the counter. Pain killers are basically illegal without a prescription. I’m not talking Vicatin or other meds I am doing Tylenol, etc. NyQuil? Good luck. They had a couple of herbal things here but I ain’t much of a risk taker. Good thing Aimee packed up some pain killers.

I know, there are no pictures getting posted. I am working on that. You wouldn’t want pictures from today, trust me. I hope all is well with you and will holla at you later.

We then got ready and headed out.  I was convinced that the jacket I had was not going to be sufficient, so Kettle let me borrow one of his (pictured above).  We headed out to the World Famous Ski Jump.  They have hosted a couple of Olympic events here and have world ski jump challenges annually.

The picture above is Marta and Aimee and our tour guide Grogg.  Trolls are very common here in Norway.  It is the figurehead of a lot of children’s stories.  They used to sacrifice animals to the Trolls in exchange for a prosperous year.  They stopped doing that in the late 90’s.  The other picture is me riding on the Kings poodle.  The statue is of the last King who was very popular with the Norwegians.  I don’t know how popular I was for riding his poodle, but it was fun, and uh cold.

The first ski jump was built here in the late 1800’s and has been reconstructed four times over the past 120 years.  We walked through the museum which had some history about Norwegians and their skiing history.  Norwegians are the first people to reach the South Pole.  They are the first people to cross Greenland.  The first woman to walk alone to the South Pole.  And the inventor of the paper clip.  No joke.

We were able to take an elevator and several flights of stairs to the top of the ski jump.  What a view!  Freakin’ Cold but a great view.

After we went through the museum, saw what there was to see from the ski jump, we started our walk back to the car.  We were maybe a 1/2 mile from our car.  Can I tell you how fast Norwegians walk?  I am not kidding you.  They have to be one of the fastest walking peoples of all time.  Anyhow, some of the strange sights on the way to the car was first, snow making machines.  They had 2 snow making machines cranking out massive amounts of snow.  I wondered if these two snow makers were responsible for covering the whole country.  If I unplugged them would I end this vicious winter?  And the other thing I saw was cross country skiers.  This looks like one of the cooler sports around.  You may say to yourself, "that doesn’t sound like the James I know" however, these cross country skiers were like none I had ever seen.  These guys wore a full, skin tight, spandex outfit.  And carried a gun.  I wondered if the gun was added after the uniforms were picked out.  Anyhow, these guys ski, stop and shoot.  Ski stop and shoot.  Pretty cool.

We then drove up the hill a little more and came up to a house that was built in 1891.  It was built out of logs and had some great dragon carvings.  We stopped and had some apple crisp that was probably the best I have ever had, and a cup of coffee.  Very relaxing time.

It was getting dark, 3:15pm you know, and so we decided to head back to the house.  They were having company over tonight so they need to get a few things ready.

Did I mention that it is almost always dark here?  I kid you not.  Sunrise today was 9:16am and it sat at 3:16pm.  Nuts, huh?

Anyhow, company arrived at 7:00pm.  Camila had set up the living rooms coffee table with eight place settings of a coffee mug, plate, fork, and spoon, lots of little candies, coffee, soda, tea, different cakes and breads, my kind of party.  We sat down and relaxed with them until about 11:30pm.  It was a very nice time of talking and enjoying each others stories.

We had a great day sight seeing and a wonderful time with friends.

11:24am: Brock, Esther, and Reagan Sheets drove us to LAX in the Trooper, aka Blooper.

12:48pm: We arrive at LAX say our goodbyes and head to the ticket check in.

12:50pm: We get to the ticketing counter and enter our info and get our tickets. Then I have a thought, why don’t we request an emergency exit seat? So I say “Do you have any emergency exit seating available?” And Aimee looks at me with a smile as the ticket master “happily” complys with our request and reprints our tickets.

12:59pm: We checked 2 of our bags and continued through security.

1:07pm: We begin our wait. Our flight is to leave at 3:35pm the monitor with the flight times said that our flight was not delayed, not ontime, but early. I had never seen “early” before but I am familiar with the meaning of the word, and who am I to second guess.

1:24pm: This isn’t so bad. Me, my wife, a vacation ahead of us. I look at Aimee and smile.

1:32pm: A woman sits across from us. She is wearing some hippiesh clothes. I smile, she smiles, and we have that understanding. You know the, I don’t really want to know your story kind of smile.

1:34pm: The hippie woman opens her bag and pulls out a book. The books title is “The Hidden Messages in Water”. I open the lid of my Aquafina bottle and didn’t hear or see a thing…wierd.

1:58pm: Right butt cheek falls asleep.

2:11pm: Left butt cheek falls asleep.

2:59pm: Hippie lady asks if I can watch her bags for her while she uses the restroom and makes a phone call. “Sure” I respond with a smile.

3:01pm: Over the loud speaker “Please do not leave your baggage unattended.” Idiot I thought.

3:14pm: How long does it take to make a freaking phone call? I mean really, I’m not your baggage babysitter!

3:17pm: Hippie lady comes back and says “thanks for watching my bag.” I reply, “No problem”.

3:35pm: Guy on loud speaker with a funny voice annonces that our flight is delayed, (thanks for the update Watson) and they will be cleaning the plane and will be ready for boarding shortly.

4:02pm: We begin pre-boarding.

4:08pm: Aimee and I board the plane and with smiles find our seats. We stow our bags and stretch out our legs.

4:24pm: We begin to taxi. The captain apologizes for the delay but says that “We will make it up in the air.” Anyone else find that weird?

6:56pm: We had dinner about 30 minutes ago and we notice there are quite a few people gathering near our seats and infinging on our emergency exit space. You see, the emergency exit seats we got were right next to the 4 lavoratories. Needless to say, airplane food, line at the bathroom. You do the math.

8:14pm: Aimee and I are not sleeping. We decide to try out some of these sleep aids.

11:54pm: Wake up to turbulance and a wicked sleep aid hang over. I decide falling back to sleep is better then the reality that was there.

12:37am: Wake up again. Not feeling to bad. I look at the tv monitor and it shows our flight path with a little plane on it. The little plane is somewhere between Iceland and England. Then it flashes to a screen with some stats. Altitude 36,000 feet. Looks good. Temperature -67 degrees farenheight. Yup that is cold.

11:24am (Norway Time): We land, who knew the pilot could seriously make up that time. Cool. It is snowing and freaking cold.

11:34am: We exit the plane and head over to the trusty monitors with the flight information. We are at gate C10 and our flight is ontime scheduled to leave about 2:20pm. We begin our trek over that way.

11:44am: Enter customs. We show our passports, get a nifty stamp, and then are pointed into a security checkpoint. Now I don’t know about you but I get buzzed everytime I go through that thing. So I pull the laptop out of the bag and put it in a tray. I then remove my shoes, watch, belt, wallet, keys, coat and jacket. I begin to walk through, knowing that it will buzz and I will be asked to hold my arms out to the side and they will waive a metal detecting wand over my body we will exchange smiles and I will be on my merry way. So I set the thing off. Immediatly I am directed over to a security checking guy and the first thing I notice is that he doesn’t have a wand. Good thing I wore underwear, I thought. He asked if he could check me or frisk me or something like that, I blocked most of it out.

11:49am: I am united with my wife again. I don’t know what that security thing was all about but I think I have a date with that guy on my return flight. I regain my composure and begin to put my belt, watch, shoes, etc. back in order. Then Aimee gestures for me to look to the security checkpoint on my right. I look over and guess who? I will give you a hint…”Heres a little story all about how my life got flipped turned upside down and I’d like to take a minute if you sit right there and I’ll tell you how I became…” You guessed it! I couldn’t believe it! It was Carlton! Check snopes if you don’t believe me. So he starts walking and Aimee and I are about 10 paces behind him. You know acting cool like its no big deal. I start singing the Fresh Prince song softly and Aimee jabs me in the ribs a couple of times. Whats with these women and ribs? < --- See Genesis 2:21-22 for explanation.

12:01pm: We finish stalking Carlton, I mean heading to Gate C10, and take a seat as he sits at a bar with 2 friends, groupies. Aimee wouldn't let me go bug him so we tried to snap some photos from across the room. Don't think we had much success.

2:20pm: Our plane begins its boarding. A pretty full flight. I look around and listen to what people are saying. I can't understand a word they are saying and I feel like I am at a line in Disneyland. And then it hits me. You're a freakin' tourist.

2:25pm: Captain comes on the speaker and notifies us of a delay. Apparantely our plane needs to be de-iced? De-iced I think...So we taxi around the runway so much I begin to wonder if the pilot gave up on flying and decided to drive to Norway.

2:55pm: Plane is de-iced and we are on our way. The flight was pleasant.

4:24pm: We land in Oslo. The airport is exactly the same as LAX...except for the size...and the ice...and the fact that it looks like IKEA.

4:55pm: We grab our luggage and head over to a place to get some Kroner. That is the currency here in Norway. Makes you look like you have a lot of money because the exchange rate is 6.7 to 1 US. Then you buy a bottle of water for 22 Kroner and that rich feeling fleets away.

5:24pm: We purchase train tickets that will take us to our destination city of Asker. The next train is at 5:36pm. Perfect timing. We walk down the stairs to exit the airport and enter the train station. There are glass walls and doors at the bottom of the stairs. Through the doors is the train station that is outside. There are about 15 people waiting in there and Aimee and I decide to pass them bye and wait outside. It is only about 10 minutes I thought. We open the doors and it hits you. The cold. I am not talking about opening up the fridge in your pajamas cold, or crawling into your bed that has cold sheets cold. I am talking in your face, biting like piranas cold. Freezing, eye watering, cold. -8 degress celcius cold.

5:36: Train arrives right on time and we are on our way. The train ride is about 40 minutes to Asker with only a couple of stops.

6:17pm: We arrive in Asker and exit the train. We are greeted with warm hugs by Kettle (pronounced Shettle) and Camila. They bring smiles to our faces.

Summary: Freaking cold. Let me not let you walk away thinking, that is not that cold. To get an idea of the cold, take a nice hot shower. Not warm, but hot. Sit in there about 20 minutes. Then have your loved one take a nice large bucket of ice water and dump it on your head. That is how cold it is. We managed to stay awake until 10:00pm chit chatting with Kettle (the dad), Camila (the mom), Marta (14 year old daughter), Per Kristian (13 year old son). The family is so warm and nice to us. They all speak great English and help us to feel right at home. All and all it has been wonderful!