The North Cape

We all had a big outing today to the North Cape.  Our ship came in to Honningsvaag just before noon where we had a three-hour stop.  It was enough time to hop on a bus and travel the 35 kilometers due north on the only road on the island.  The end of the road is the only reason anyone would want to be here – to see the North Cape.  It’s the farthest north one can go on this entire continent.  It’s 71 degrees north, and it was 53 degrees warm with a strong wind blowing that made it feel below zero.

The visitor’s center at the North Cape is most impressive and we could have spent more time there than we did.  I took the time to write a postcard home to Kaleb and we, of course, took several pictures.  We were told by all the employees just how incredibly lucky we were today to have blue skies, as it’s a rare thing in those parts.  I guess if we had to suffer through so much rain getting up this far north, it was worth it to have this one day be sunny.  Otherwise it’s not really possible to see anything, as the tip of this far north country is usually covered in a thick fog and all they can offer is photographs of sunny days so people know what they are supposed to be seeing.  Today just couldn’t have been any better.  It was so worth the extra cost to go on that excursion.

On the way up we saw lots of reindeer and had a ten-minute stop at a Sami camp to take photos of the locals, see reindeer up close and personal, and buy homemade souvenirs.  They were cheaper than in any stores, so it was a good outing.  I bought a few things made of reindeer hide and later in town I bought some reindeer antlers for just three bucks.  Such a deal.

The landscape this far north is pretty much just rock, although our guide said there are over 200 different plants growing on the island.  Hard to believe.  There wasn’t a tree to be seen anywhere.  All the houses look like Monopoly houses with just four basic walls and a roof.  We found out it was because the Germans had a “scorched ground” policy during WWII so every single city this far north was wiped out.  After the war, they basically just used one floor plan in order to build up the houses again in a hurry.  To make up for the “sameness” everyone has, they actually paint their houses different colors, which is not like the rest of Norway, so some people really enjoy the small villages in the north because they are so colorful.  But how people can live here year round is really a mystery.   Talk about remote! 

The winters this far north aren’t as cold as they are in Alaska because of the Gulf Stream coming up and keeping things fairly warm.  The highs are in the 50s in the summer, but the lows are only in the 20s, so it’s not that much of a range difference, unless a strong wind blows and brings in a chill factor – which we had some of today.

The tour guide told us a few months ago a terrible storm came in while the buses were heading from Hurtigruten (the ferry) up to the North Cape visitor’s center.  She said the road there is always closed in winter, expect to the tourists on the ferry, and the busses must travel together, right behind the snow plow.  She said it’s more like traveling in a tunnel since the snow banks on either side are so high.  But just this winter a huge wind came up and knocked three of the buses over on their sides.  Because everyone had on their seatbelts, no one was hurt, but they had to evacuate all the tourists and get them to the visitor’s center in a hurry.  They were stuck there for eleven hours until the wind died down and the other three busses could get everyone back to the boat.  The storm was so terrible the ferry couldn’t continue on it’s journey to the ends of Norway, so it had to turn around and head back south and give everyone a refund.  Glad our trip isn’t full of those kinds of unexpected events.  So far it’s just been smooth sailing.

Kory started on a new picture today of a fish seller we saw yesterday in Tromsø and I am now nearly done with the photobook of Israel.  Kaleb is at a birthday party this evening for his pal, Daniel.  We called him today from the North Cape – weird that we could even do that – and he was happily anticipating the birthday party tonight so his thoughts were on anything but us.  I so wish he could have transported him somehow to this North Cape today so he could have experienced it with us.  I’m already regretting that he wasn’t along.

The internet signal on the ship and in the towns where we have docked has been horrible, so I haven’t been able to get on the internet all day and am going through withdrawals.  I need to go to sleep early so I don’t start obsessing about it.  Even the TV signal froze in our rooms, which I guess is something we should expect this far north where for most of the year, EVERYTHING is frozen.  Glad we arrived in June.

At Last!

Two great things happened today. I finally got to spend the whole day with My Pal Vestina, AND I finally found the family connection I was mystified over on my friend Stuart’s family tree. I feel quite satisfied in both arenas.




I had hoped to go for a hike up the nearby “bird mountain” to see all the Puffins nesting there with Vestina, but she was so distracted by the latest drama in her love life that she just needed to spend the day talking. I thought we could talk and walk at the same time, but apparently she doesn’t do that. She also needed to find a model for a big haircut test she has to do for school on Wednesday, so that preoccupied her as well. Fortunately, we are well connected here, so I could at least solve that problem for her. The other one wasn’t so easy.



Vestina and I hung out in town for a few hours then I took her to lunch (an expensive proposition) and ran a few errands. We spent the rest of the day at our place, talking and walking a bit in the neighborhood. It was like having a daughter home from college, talking about all the boys. I used to know a thing or two on that subject so both Kory and I gave her our opinions. Her latest boyfriend just told her last night that he’s being somewhat of a gigolo to some older, divorced woman from Thailand with a lot of money. He swears Vestina is his true love, but he’s making out pretty well with this other woman that likes to buy him things. He cares so much for Vestina, he says, he couldn’t keep it a secret any longer, but he in no way said he would stop this other relationship. She was in a quandary as to what to do because she really likes this guy. Both Kory and I told her to dump him. She just wants him to dump the other woman. Oh, to be young and stupid. I love spending time with her. She makes me laugh, and I always need more of that.



Kory spent the day with Tante Kari and Aslaug going through the last of the boxes belonging to Tante Ruth. Mostly it was photos and personal papers they sorted through, but it was good to be done with that task. Kaleb spent his time after school with Tobias, who is anxiously counting down the days until he comes home with us to America. At the very same time, we are dreading how quickly the time is passing until we return home. Kaleb also attended a late night grill down at a local beach with other boys from church, so I only saw him a few minutes today. Keeping our distance helps sometimes to keep the stress level low in our house.



I finally found the books I needed to help me understand the missing link in this search I’m working on for my friend Stuart. I was giddy with excitement when I figured out the problem, which had to do with a father dying and the mother remarrying another Ole, so there were two batches of kids I was dealing with, some with the same name. Ugh. But now I know the man I met last week on the Sandes farm is Stuart’s (half) third cousin, once removed. It’s amazing they look so much alike with that kind of distance between them, but that gene pool must be pretty strong.



I also saw in one of the books that Stuart’s grandma, Gertie Frøyset, was one of eight kids and only three of those siblings ever married. The other five lived and worked on the family farm (see photo of their house I visited last week). One of the kids that got married, never had kids, and the other one that got married had two daughters and neither of them ever married. Gertie was the only one with descendants from that branch and they all now live in America, so there was no one left to take over the farm after at least ten generations living there. I found ancestors as far back as 1585 on that farm. The church/government (they were the same thing back then) didn’t start keeping meticulous records until the 1600s, so I have nearly all of Stuart’s branches at least that far back (there are now over a thousand names in his database on my computer.) On one of his farms though, it was so well documented, I could go back 18 generations from him (and he has grandkids, so that’s 20 generations back), to the late 1300s. It really is mind boggling to think about. Kory doesn’t understand my fascination with this stuff, but I think it’s cool to know a little about those who came before us. My little office nook in our condo looks rather messy with dozens of farm history books stacked in piles all over the place, but I love it.



Those two girls/women who never married (nieces to Gertie), lived together, and when they died in the early 1980s, so said the book, they left over half a million kroner behind (over $160,000). That was a hefty sum of money back then, especially in Norway. I also read that Gertie’s father became a widow at age 49, and when he was 53, he fathered a child with a 28 year old hired worker on his farm. Seems like there was a little hanky, and a little panky going on back then, and as I found out today from My Pal Vestina, nothing has changed in that department.

Party, Party, Party...

Filadelfia Church had a big party day today for all the children. The sermon was a childish drama to emphasis we are all disciples of Christ. Children lead the worship songs and the whole service took half the normal time – talk about kid-friendly. Afterwards there was a big carnival set up in the parking lot complete with bouncy house slide, cotton candy machines, game booths and food stand. Kory said, “Hey, it looks like one of Kaleb’s birthday parties here,” and it sure did. Kaleb was pretty pleased with the whole event since one of his buddies from school was there also and they could run around together. And then tragedy struck. Kaleb was a little hyped up by the whole thing and as usual, wasn’t being as cautious as he should have been. On the last slide down the big inflatable slide, all the kids decided to go down together. Someone stepped on Kaleb’s sock so he wasn’t able to go freely, rather he fell forward and was then pinned under all the kids that ended up piling on top of him on the way down. He was face first and got the skin rubbed raw off his forehead and according to him, he nearly suffocated as he couldn’t breathe all the way down. Oh was he ever devastated, and hurt, by the whole thing. He got what was the equivalent of a rug burn above his eyebrow but he acted like his whole face got ripped off. He’s such a drama king sometimes. So we had to leave church as all the fun was ruined for him. But luckily for us, Tone, Sabina’s mom, sent us a text message that Agape Church was also having a party in a park this afternoon so we decided to go to that because I had so much food left over from yesterday’s Confirmation, I was looking for a way to share it before it went bad.

Tone and Sabina rode with us to the park as it was at a place we had never been to – and it was quite a beautiful beach very close to the city. I love finding out about all the nooks and crannies around here. The sun even peeked out every so often so that made it nice. But most of the time there we were saying our good-byes to people and answering the ever present question of why we can’t stay longer and what will Kaleb do when we get back home. Kaleb was busy trying to learn how to ride a unicycle, climbing on the rocks by the beach and/or playing keep away with the pastor and assistant pastor of the church. At one point Kaleb tried to wrestle the ball away from the pastor and the pastor fell on him, which brought back all the trauma of his earlier experience today so he just lost it and ran off into the woods to cry and console himself. He was gone a long time but I’m glad he worked through whatever he was feeling without being in my face while doing it. There is no consoling that kid when he gets worked up, so he has begun the journey into the “cave” to sort out his problems. He’s soon on his way to becoming a man.

Our neighbor girl, Sabina, really wanted to come over to our house after the beach party to play Golf (a card game) and eat Kettle Corn (popcorn with sugar). Her mom, Tone (pronounced Tone-ah), and Tone’s friend, Tor-Arild, also came over so we spent the entire evening playing cards and snacking. It was, in my estimation, the best way to spend an evening. If I had one night of that per week, I’d feel complete. I love having friends over for just a casual get-together without a lot of preparation or expectation. We all love that card game as it’s easy to learn and it provides enough time to chat as we play, so it makes for a fun evening. Kaleb and Sabina had to take wrestle breaks every now and then because they were all sugared up on the candy Tone brought with her. A few years from now it won’t be quite so entertaining to watch them wrestling on the couch together, but tonight, it was pretty funny. They are a matched set with the same energy and strength level and Sabina is one tough little cookie. And it was fun to have Tone and Tor-Arild here together because I’m sure something is brewing between the two of them (see photo). If something does develop, we can take the credit for it since we arranged their meeting, in a way. We invited Tone to church with us, and then to our Connect Group, and it was there she met Tor-Arild. It’s an interesting match because she’s a Fashion Queen and he’s a Harley Biker dude (you can’t see his long ponytail in the photo) and never in a million years would I have thought they would hit it off, but they sure have. Go figure. Both Tone and Sabina have been a big part of the memories we have made here so we will miss them.

Today we got our “shipment” from the U.S.A. Kory’s second cousin Bjørn was in America last week with our shopping list in hand. We now have good ‘ol American coffee to enjoy again our last few weeks in Norway! Bjørn also brought us some L-Carnitine that Kory takes as part of his heart healthy concoction of vitamins and herbs. For some reason it’s not allowed in Norway, even by prescription, so we had to have it smuggled in. So much for obeying the law of the land. But then, Starburst candies are illegal in Norway too because the #2 yellow die used in them is considered a carcinogenic. Go figure.