The First of Many Miracles to Come

We bought a car yesterday in Norway – via the internet! Kory really wanted a mini-van and I really didn’t want to spend more than $5,000 but I relented a bit on the price and found a 1997 Plymouth Voyager, 5 seater with lots of cargo space for 38.000nok (about $8k). We had that much in our account over there so at least we don’t have to send any money to buy it. Our account is now empty, but at least we have a vehicle the day we arrive – Hallelujah!

It seemed like it was meant to be – the van was being sold by a neighbor 2 doors down from Kory’s cousin, Rune. I called Rune and asked him to go look at the van. He thought it was fine. I e-mailed the other cousin, Turid, to tell her to give Rune the money and she knew the seller of the van very well so she trusted that he wouldn’t sell us a bummer of a car. He even wants to fix a few things on it before we arrive so it’s in tip-top shape. Those Norskes do things right. So all our concerns about transportation are over and worst case scenario – we can live in the car. Ha.

We were in Oregon this week doing a lot of tax-free shopping getting clothes and shoes and bedding for Norway. Got lots of bargains and I picked up my new laptop too. It will become my new best friend, I’m sure. Now to just get it all packed… therein lies the next challenge.

I finally heard from a shipping company today and am trying not to freak out about the cost of shipping! Each box that’s 24”x18”x18” is about $125 to ship – which means one palette full of 16 of those boxes will cost $2,000 – just to get to Oslo – then we have to pay to have it brought to Aalesund, which honestly, could cost another $2,000. I wrote to Rolf-Inge (a guy we know with a trucking company in Norway) to get an idea of that expense. But still… to buy any of that stuff is outrageous so I’m just planning to pack the things we can’t really borrow from a cousin or it’s too expensive to buy over there – i.e., a printer I got for $50 here but would be probably $500 there… stuff like that. And I’m pretty sure we can get everything in 12-16 boxes so that won’t be too bad. And most of it won’t come home with us – we’ll leave a lot of things over there.

So, that’s the latest this fine May day. We leave 2 months from tomorrow and much has yet to be done – but the shipping has to be ready by mid-June and sometime between now and the 7th of June I have to work on Kaleb’s birthday party. Yikes.