Andre Pinsedag

20 May 2013

Today is called the Second Day of Pinse, which is a national holiday so everything was closed.  We had a relaxing day looking at more of Reidunn’s family treasures, old pictures and cool stuff she’s collected here and there.  We drove over to a hilltop nearby that used to be a castle in 871 and some of the remnants of it are still there. 

A tower was built on this castle lot to commemorate the daughter of the king at the time who in 1259 was shipped off to Spain to marry the brother of the king of Spain.  They had an exhibit inside the tower which explained her sad story of leaving Norway at the age of 24, and marrying this guy she didn’t know and four years later dying.  They speculate she died of some kind of ear infection as they believe they found her body in a church that was being renovated in 1959 and it had 3 recipes for healing ear aches.  It was one long story with lots of details but I guess the bottom line was, everyone felt sorry for her so they did this big project in her honor that now towers over the city and keeps her on everyone’s mind, poor thing that she was, being a princess and all.

At the base of the hill today there was a state church service going on (top photo), which is very clever to not hold it in a building where no one would be on such a nice day, but to hold it in a big touristy place so as to get people to actually attend, even if it’s us that happened by and had no idea it was going on.  They sang songs, preached, served communion and praised the Lord.  It was kinda cool, actually.

Reidunn showed us a map of the area and when Kaleb saw there was a place called “Verdens Enden” – meaning, the End of the World, he just had to go there.  So we drove over a few islands and on down the coast so he could say he’d been to the end of the world.

It wasn’t raining when we got there, but as we walked out toward all the small rock islands that actually lead to the end of the end, it started to rain.  There was a lot of rock climbing involved in actually being able to stand on the tip of the end of the world, and with the slippery rocks, we just decided to turn back since both Kaleb and I had on crocs.  I thought it was funny we tried to go to the end of the world, but we couldn’t make it because it just kept going and going (below).

We treated Reidunn to dinner out at a Chinese restaurant on our way back home, which wasn’t cheap but Kory had cheated a bit too much on his diet in the last day or two and he needed to get back on his regular course of veggies and rice. 

Kaleb got a little school work done tonight while Kory showed Reidunn all the benefits of owning an i-pad.  Her sister already owns one so she was thinking about getting one.  Her sister is a birder and there’s a application that has the sounds of all the birds so it’s easier to identify them.  It was funny when her sister was asked by the guy at the store why she was buying an i-pad, she said, “So I can hear the birds sing.” 

We had a relaxing evening in while the rain pelted down and now we’re ready to sleep!