Norway Day 6

From Bergen we took the train for 7 hours across the country to our final destination city, Oslo. Here we toured a Viking museum that had 3 enormous burial ships along with a few artifacts found with them like this old wagon pulled by 2 horse. There have been horse and buggies around for over a thousand years!








Then we toured Thor Heyerdahl's Kon-Tiki museum. Ted and I had both read the book Kon-Tiki and were excited to see the actual ships that Thor and his crew used to sail across the Pacific Ocean to the Polynesian Islands to prove that those islands could have been populated by people from South America. What I took home from the museum was not the amazment over these high adventure men risking thier lives to prove a point. But instead, how fun (and romantic) it must have been for young Thor and his wife to have lived on a tropical island and build thier own hut and live off the land. His wife was never mentioned again in all his adventures. I found out from the museum sales guy that since Thor was not really the setteling down type he and his wife divorced once the children came and Thor had 2 other failed marriages. I guess in my eyes the guy accomplished a lot to be known throughout the world and through out time (at lease our century) but if you don't have good relationships in your life with the people that matter most, how successfull are you really?










After that we checked out the Norwegian folk museum and saw a bunch of 16th century farm homes and traditional clothing and furniture and even a beautiul old "stave" church. We learned they were called "stave" because of the incredibly talls wooden beams (tree trunks) that enabled the ceiling to be so high and gave all wooden churches this particle architectural look. After a full day of museums we had an icecream party back at our hotel before heading home the next day.

Norway Day 4

Bergen is a town on the Atlantic ocean side of Norway, technically the Norwegian Sea on my map. It has a harbor with a few cool looking ships and a town center dating back to before the middle ages. We took the tram to the top of the mountain and enjoyed the view. Kaitlan enjoyed the giant mud puddle at the playground a little too much and got soaked from head to toe. A very nice stranger gave us a change of clothes for her and we were good to go again. Next we headed to a small museum showcasing the towns history, old foundations from the middle ages and what clothing and jewlery was worn then. Their clothing was so much more intricate and detailed than our today (at least the rich people's). After that we headed to McDonald's having had enough foreign experience for one day. Low and behold we didn't have to pay for extra Ketchup, it was just like being in the State's! wink-wink ;) I also learned that the legend of trolls came from Norway as a way to keep their children from wondering around all the woods alone-don't go out alone or the trolls will get you! Also Norway has been the home of some famous classical muscians like Edward Grieg, who among many others also wrote "The March of the Trolls", one of Aubrie's favorites.



This movie is pretty boring but it captured the great view, so mission accomplished I guess.

Norway Day 3

From Flam we took a ship down the Sognefjord. This was the highlight of our trip. Everywhere we looked was beautiful. So many waterfalls and lush green mountain sides and a few little primitive villages that can still to this day only be accessed by boat. A flock of seagulls followed our ferry and the girls loved seeing Ted feed them preztels from his hand as they flew along side of us.

Norway Day 1 and 2

In mid may we took a plane from Bremen to Torp, Norway and began our Scandanavien Norway in nutshell adventure, staying the first night in Drammen. Many of our days were spent traveling and watching Norway through our train window. Even those days were relaxing and filled with beautiful scenery. From Drammen we headed to Flam. That day we climbed to one of the highest points in Norway where the ski resort were still in full swing and winter seemed in full force then back down to sea level passing hundreds of breath taking waterfalls. Our connection train to Flam was fun and stopped so us tourists could take pictures of the falls. Once in Flam Ted and I hiked around the village and up to a giant waterfall and made this movie. We also explored an old church built in the 1600's (?), give or take a century. The sheep were so loud I wondered how the families could stand hearing that all day everyday. It seemed the predominant architecture here always included a gabled roof.