The Road to Oslo (Via Telemark)

What a day. When things shut down for the holidays here, they really shut down. There wasn’t even a newspaper printed today and the TV channels this morning just had a test pattern on them – no local news as the Easter holiday has official began. The word they use to describe this “Maundy Thursday” (as Lutherans refer to it), translates as “Cutting Thursday,” so I’m not quite sure what it means and why it’s such a special holy day, but it sure is here in Norway. We were the only ones in the hotel last night, except for an airplane crew from SAS. It was pretty funny, as usually there is a HUGE spread of food every morning for the free buffet breakfast, but this morning there were just a few plates of things sitting out. They knew the headcount, and we were pretty much it. As we were driving away a little after eight this morning, most of the traffic lights in town were shut off and there wasn’t a soul in sight. It was as if rapture had happened and we were left behind. Not a single business was open, no cars were on the streets. And Kristiansand is the fifth largest city in all of Norway, so it was a very clear to me as to just how serious these Norwegians are about their Easter holiday. It made for nice driving however, as we had the road to ourselves. If it weren’t for the traffic cameras every few miles keeping our speed limit in control, we could have made good time to our destinations.

One of our targeted stops for this entire road trip was in Telemark, at the farm where Kory’s dad grew up (see photo of Kaleb throwing a snowball in front of the “old house” where Kory’s dad was born). We visited the Slaatthaugen farm near Lunde, in the year 2000, but Kaleb was only two then and didn’t remember it, so we wanted him to visit the farm and meet the cousins living there now. We would have liked to have stayed longer, but they had company coming for a holiday dinner (we were invited but couldn’t stay), and we needed to get to Oslo to meet my girlfriend Paula Meredith, who flew in today from the States. The day went by too fast, but at least the weather cooperated and we had a few nice relaxing hours visiting the relatives sitting outside in the sun at Slaatthaugen. Halvard, Kaleb’s second cousin that currently owns the farm, has a huge Leonberger dog that kept him entertained while we chatted. There was still snow on the ground so Kaleb and I had a long lasting snowball fight and I enjoyed playing catch with the dog as he ate every snowball I threw to him. It was quite warm out today so it was fun to play in the snow when no coats were required.

The Slaatthaug side of the family is quite different from Kory’s cousins on his mother’s side in Aalesund. Kory’s dad’s side is a bit more serious about things and they are all incredibly crafty and talented. When we first visited the Slaatthaug farm in 1990, Kory’s cousin Gunnar still lived there with most of his ten children. As we sat around the table eating a meal together, I noticed that both the parents and most of the kids were missing fingers, parts of fingers, half a hand, you name it, many had some part of something missing. The mom got her hand caught in a loom, and lost a finger, the dad lost two fingers in farm machinery, one of the girls cut off half a finger with a power saw, another son lost his finger on a dare as his sister chopped it off with an ax (I guess he didn’t believe she was serious). It was so odd to see them all together, having suffered such similar fates. Then I nearly lost my lunch laughing (although it wasn’t meant to be funny), when the father, Gunnar, was bragging about his kids and how talented they are (and they really are), and then he said, “Us Slaatthaugs have never been really good with our brains, but we’ve always been good with our hands.” And I saw, from the evidence before me, that maybe the two should go together. Kory and I still laugh about that one as I often tease him that he IS a Slaatthaug and therefore, better with his hands than his brain, although he’s proud of the fact he still has all ten fingers intact.

I was thinking about that tonight as we drove to Oslo to meet Paula, and we drove around Oslo for TWO hours trying to find the hotel. Kory wouldn’t stop to ask for directions, and we didn’t have a map. All we had were step by step directions, which were only good if we would have been able to see the name of the streets we were supposed to turn on, but most of the streets in town were missing street signs, so we got completely and utterly lost. I had a total melt down as Paula had flown in from Colorado and was waiting to eat dinner with us, and I told her we’d be there in five minutes, just as we entered the city. Two hours later she had just finished dinner when we finally found the hotel. I was so frustrated with everything by then I just wanted to cry. But we made it, and Paula is here, and now I’m happy again.