Happy Anniversary to Us

Yesterday I was too tired to write anything.  I just packed up and ran around all day.  There were only a few highlights – My Pal Vestina met me for coffee at the mall and we talked for a little while about her future, her month in Lithuania and her man.  I love that she loves my opinion on things.  Then last night we were invited over to some friend’s house for dinner.  Knut is a chemistry teacher at the local high school.  He and Kaleb had a little “knowledge challenge” on the subject of chemistry and both knew all the answers the other asked.  Knut was more than impressed with Kaleb’s answers and was sure he knew more about Chemistry than his students learn in a year.  Kaleb just smirked when he said that. 

I learned from Knut’s wife, Turid, that there is such a thing as “skyld folk,” here in Norway.  She described it as a person you are indebted to.  “Skyld” actually means “guilty,” so it’s a funny way of saying it, but basically, she says, it’s a very old Norwegian tradition, from the days when everyone was a farmer, and if someone dropped by the farm that was related to the farmer’s family, that guest was called a “skyld folk” and was owed a meal and a bed for the night, if needed.  It was an obligation, whether the farmer liked it or not.  He could not turn them away.  But the good news was, that the cut off for being related stopped at fourth cousins… so anyone being a third cousin and closer, got that kind of hospitable treatment, but a fourth cousin was owed nothing.  She said that tradition still lingers, so when I told her that Kory and Kaleb are something like seventh and eighth cousins to the Queen of Norway, she said it was too bad they weren’t third cousins because then they would have the right to stop by anytime for coffee with the Queen.  Funny.

It was good to have Kaleb home for bedtime last night, but alas, he’s gone again tonight.  He didn’t last long at home – just enough to change his clothes, take a shower and be gone again all day with Henrik today and now a sleepover with Andre tonight.  We had dinner with Andre’s parents tonight, as they wanted to talk again about their upcoming trip to America to visit us.

Kory set up a little party for me on the coffee table this afternoon and had coffee and pastries set out, along with a gift he spent too much money on.  It’s our 20^th wedding anniversary today.  My gift to him was that trip on Hurtigruten, and I bought him a wooden carved picture of a Norwegian farm.  He bought me something from the exact same jewelry store where I bought our engagement rings over twenty years ago.  It was thoughtful that he did that, but what he bought were silver salt and pepper shakers, each shaped like a ram’s horn.  I’m not sure the significance of the shape of them, but he did say he got them because after all this time together he knows we are completely different.  He compares himself to the salt, and of course, I’m the spicy one, the pepper.  He said we are so different, but we still go together – like salt and pepper.  The sentiment was sweet, for sure.  I can’t justify the price for such small little objects, but they are a good reminder of our relationship, for sure.

Today I didn’t pack or clean a thing as we found out late last night that Tante Ruth has taken a turn for the worst so we had to go spend some time with her before we leave.  She looked dead already when we arrived, but she smiled when she realized who was there for a visit.  Kory got her talking, although she is very weak.  She kept asking about our condo and what we are doing with it and if it’s costing us money.  She feels some kind of responsibility for it, I think.  Kory tried to assure her God is providing and we’re doing just fine.  We kinda stayed too long as she started losing a lot of energy from talking, but we all found it hard to leave, knowing she’s not going to be around much longer.  We’ve been thinking for the last three years that when we said goodbye, it was for the last time, but now it’s for certain.  Kory told her we’ll be back in a year and she said, “I won’t be here.  I’ll be in heaven by then.”  Kory joked with her and told her to please greet his parents from him and to be sure to tell them what a wonderful grandson they have that they have never met.  She said she would do that and she’s looking forward to the trip.  It was hard not to cry when we left. 

Because we spent so much time with Ruth and had so many errands to run today to unregister us at the “people register office,” to unregister the car and quit the insurance, to drop things off here and there, I didn’t get the condo cleaned and ready for our big exit.  We were stressing about the timing of things this morning, but then decided the best thing to do was just forget the airplane tickets we bought for tomorrow to Oslo and stay on one more day here, then take the airport bus to Oslo on Friday.  We’d hoped to spend time with relatives in Oslo before we left, and hopefully we still can, but it will be a short visit now.  We couldn’t see any other way to take care of all we needed to take care of before we left.  It took a lot of stress off to have one more day, so that’s what we are doing.  All of us were pleased with that decision so we know it’s the right one.  It’s a nine-hour drive to the airport on the bus on Friday, but we don’t fly out until Saturday so it won’t be too bad.  I think we need to take the slow road home anyway, since we aren’t nearly as anxious for our trip home as Aunt Ruth is.

A Long Day's Journey

I only slept three hours last night. Maybe this is how addictions kill. I was sitting in the lobby of the guesthouse writing my blog until the sun began to rise and all the hotel employees were cleaning up after the reception. I’m sure they were wondering what I was doing there all alone clicking away on my keyboard at such an odd hour of the night and I’m pretty sure they were anxious for me to leave so they could clean the room I occupied. But I took my time, because I didn’t want to delay documenting the day and risk forgetting details. Even as some things happen now throughout the day, I’m formulating the sentence I’ll write about it in my head. Turid thinks I’m not fully experiencing the moment because I’m too busy taking pictures and thinking about writing. She quoted some famous photographer that said something along those lines as proof. I can’t say that I disagree with her, but I can’t stop doing either one of them, so my experiences may be a bit shallow, I’m afraid, but at least they’ll be well documented.

We were up early this morning as we had to catch the 10:15 ferry off the island, or wait two hours for the next one. We had a chance to talk with a few cousins we hadn’t seen in a long time at breakfast (aunts to the groom). One of them said she may come visit us in September, so that was exciting. We visited her in Bergen when Kaleb was two years old, so it’s been awhile since we’ve spent time with her. Another cousin is moving to Thailand in September and we told her we will plan to come for a visit this winter. Her husband is a minister and will be taking over the Norwegian Seaman’s Church in Bangkok. There are so many Norwegian men marrying Thai women now that just that one church alone performs over a hundred weddings a year. He will also be the pastor for merchant marines and sailors in port from Norway. So that will be a big thrill for us to go there. Kory has so many relatives here in Norway it’s mind-boggling.

Our destination today was the city of Arendal on the southern coast of Norway – at least a ten hours drive from where we began the day. I was worried about the drive with so little sleep last night, but we traded off and let the other take a short nap when it got too bad. It was so hot the heat didn’t help our sleep deprived state either. We chose to take a slightly longer route through the mountains, rather than along the coastline because we’d just traveled the coastal route during our Easter vacation. We wanted to see what Norway looks like in the middle of the southern tip, and it was quite different than the landscape along the coast. For most of the way, it was as if we were back home in Washington state as there were tall evergreens and rivers all along the road side. Kory thought it was a combination of Western Washington and Yosemite National Park as many places had huge sheer rocks jutting up out of the farmland below. It was beautiful and so different from other areas we’ve seen. The diverse landscape here is something else.

Most of the roads were just one lane with no center dividing line which meant we needed to pull far to the right when another car came toward us. That’s always a white knuckle experience when it’s a bus or big truck. We drove over the speed limit most of the day and looked for chances to pass other cars when we could. We only stopped once along a mountain river to have a picnic lunch and to enjoy the sunshine for a few minutes before we were back in the car. About an hour from our destination we stopped to have dinner at a café in one of the bigger towns we went through, which was tiny by American standards. Most towns on the maps here have nearly everything a person would need located under one roof so often when we drive through them, if it weren’t for a few houses being closer together than they are in other places, we might not even know it was a town. A bigger town might actually have the bank, the grocery store and café in their own building (but not the post office, that’s most often combined with the grocery store). And not every town on the map has a gas station, so planning and being prepared are the keys to a successful road trip.

While we were at dinner, Kory’s cousin Morgan called. We’re staying with him for the next few days. He wasn’t home yet from a weekend trip he took so he wanted to let us know. We slowed down after that and stopped at a few places along the way. One river was fabulous – not even a foot deep and very wide (see photo) so the water was warm and perfect for wading. We’d passed so many gorgeous swimming holes today we only dreamed of stopping for a dip, but we were on a tight schedule. But none of our days now have more than three hours driving in them so we can stop if we want and see what other unexpected blessings might be waiting.