Stacy and Nate 15th Anniversary Vacation to Iceland and Norway

Starting Out at the Farm

Our amazing journey began in our usual fashion, we hopped in the car on Friday, July 4th with Clara, Henry, and Jasper, and set off for Grandma's house. We started out considerably later than we had originally hoped for because I (Stacy) had a job interview that morning at 9:30! Between preparing for the interview and packing and all the last minute things that need to be set in order before leaving the house unoccupied for well over a week, I was pretty stressed and tired. But it was all good stress and a productive kind of tired.

We arrived at the farm on the Fourth of July just in time to join the family at Uncle Doug and Aunt Jane's house for a festive picnic. The kids were thrilled to find their cousins there to play with, we were happy to see many family members and to chat about our upcoming trip, enjoy the party food and sip some adult beverages. It's so lovely watching the kids play together and enjoy the company of their cousins. It brings back fond memories from when I was little and looked forward to grandma's house and all the adventures my sister and I got ourselves into with our cousin Eddie.

We stayed at the picnic through the evening and the kids chased fireflies until it became dark enough for the neighbors to set off their annual fireworks display. It was quite the display! The older cousins chanted for more fireworks while Lily, the youngest, snuggled up to me after I offered her some reassurance when the loud, and rather nearby, explosions started up. I didn't mind at all carrying her little body over to the picnic table where Grandma and Grandpa were sitting and I reminisced about Jasper's fear of fireworks and how he didn't need me to hold him any more. It was a late night for the little ones, but they were all safely tucked in and asleep quickly.

The next morning we made arrangements to go visit with my mom, dad, Sue and the boys. The kids got right to work playing with Brady and Bryce, borrowing their bikes and enjoying the sunshine. Mom baked cookies and dad grilled burgers, we had a lovely meal together. 

Back to the farm to watch Star Wars with Alex, Joel and Lily. It was their first time watching the film and we had to remind Jasper more than once that talking about what was going to happen could spoil it for them. They all enjoyed watching it together and it was good to have some down time. Lots more fun and visiting went on through Saturday evening and Sunday morning until we headed out for our journey, and Mandy and Eric headed back home with their kids. This left Grandma and Grandpa alone with three energetic grandchildren for 9 days!

Leaving the Country

The drive to Toronto brought back memories of our wedding day fifteen years ago. We wanted to follow the old fashioned wedding tradition of leaving our wedding reception early to go change out of our wedding attire and set off for our honeymoon while the families carried on with their revelry in our absence. We jumped in Nate's car and drove to Niagara Falls. Me only being 20 at the time, it was exciting to go somewhere where it was legal for me to buy a drink or two, and we enjoyed participating in such a traditional honeymoon destination, being cliche made it that much more whimsical and fun.

As we came up to the booth crossing over into Canada, the customs agent began asking us a lot of questions about our trip. I started to get worried that she didn't believe our story or something, but she shared that she was planning a trip to Iceland herself and that she was curious about where we were staying and what we were planning to do. She handed us back our passports and waved us through. We were officially a country apart from our children! It was then that things started to feel "real". We kept asking each other if our upcoming vacation felt real yet, and it didn't until that moment! 

We found our way to the airport and parked the car. We made it through the lines at the ticket counter and security. Things proceeded smoothly and before we knew it we were on board our flight to Iceland! The flight left at 9pm, it took about 5 and a half hours to make it over Canada, Greenland and pieces of the north Atlantic. We tried to get as much sleep as we could, but were far too excited to get proper rest and we were seated in the "exit row" so our seats didn't recline at all. Despite our less than ideal rest, we reached the airport at 6:30a.m. local time happy and excited.

Iceland

Nate had made arrangements with a local family in Iceland to rent the lower floor apartment in their house and their car during our stay in Iceland. Birgir, the owner, even offered to pick us up at the airport at 7 in the morning. We made it through customs and got our luggage easily and Birgir was waiting with a sign with our name on it. He was a terrific host, he showed us around the local town and the turns off to many of the local tourist attractions. He gave us a map and offered us the use of his other little house while they finished cleaning and readying the apartment for us after the previous couple's stay. We thanked him and took him up on the offer. Nate hopped behind the wheel of the little blue 4x4 and we drove over to the little white house by the sea to make up some instant coffee and send off a quick email to let the family know that we had arrived. We sent along a picture of the view from the front door.

View from Birgir's Little House and Our Rental Car

Iceland was a bit like landing on another planet. You can't really tell from this picture, but the terrain on this part of the island is mostly moss covered volcanic rock with steam rising up out of the ground from vents and craggy mountains in the distance. And oh my can you see far out in the distance! It took a while to catch onto why the scenery was so very foreign, but we noticed that there simply were no trees, or even bushes really to be seen. It was disorienting at first, but beautiful in its own way.

Our rather ingenious plan was to rest up and restore at the Blue Lagoon for the morning. So shortly after a cup of coffee and a granola bar, we ventured out to find the natural hot spring. 

Blue Lagoon

The Blue Lagoon was amazing. It heightened the otherworldly feeling when we stared into the opaque, blue white waters. The air temperature was such that we needed long pants and coats, but we braved the chill and waded into a pool of naturally toasty mineral water. There was a bar where you could wade over and order drinks, we tried the ginger mango green smoothie, not wanting to imbibe in any alcohol so early in the morning after not so much sleep. It was very spicy with the fresh ginger, and we felt revived.

The rest of the morning and early afternoon were spent driving around and viewing some of the tourist attractions. We drove out to a natural hot spring/steam vent in the earth called Gunnuhver. We read a short blurb about it before we left and it has a ghost story associated with it, something about a woman's spirit being trapped inside by a priest. When we got there we completely understood why there would be a ghost story about such a place! We could barely see as we walked over the wooden walkway to get to the lookout point since the air was dense with thick mist that smelled strongly of sulfur. The combination of hot steam coming from the earth and chilly wind made it such that we didn't linger long since our clothes were quickly saturated with the sulfur mist. Not to mention the scene was just eerie.

Gunnuhver

From there we traveled on to some cliffs that overlook the ocean and a lighthouse. Nate, who has a very profound respect for gravity and would normally prefer to remain on lower ground, sought to experience new and exciting things on his vacation. We climbed to the top of one of the cliffs and were rewarded with a fantastic view down over the cliff face and of a rocky island where many sea birds were nesting. We also made a stop at the bridge between two continents where the European/Asian tectonic plate and the North American plate are slowly separating from one another. There wasn't much to see here, but we did scoop up a little volcanic sand for a church member who requested some sand for her collection. We hope she is pleased even if it isn't from near the water--I think volcanic sand is pretty cool.

Nate Atop the Cliff by the Ocean

About this time we were getting hungry for some lunch and were ready to check in with Birgir to see if the apartment was ready. We stopped at a local grocery store that Birgir had recommended, it was called Bonus and it had a big pink piggy bank as its logo. We wandered around and picked up some bread and cheese and fruit. The challenge was figuring out what some things were since they did not have ingredients listed in English and we did not study any Icelandic. Fortunately there are some similarities between Norwegian and Icelandic and between that and some other context clues we worked out what we were eating.
 

Birgir's House

The house was all ready for us so we settled in, made ourselves some lunch and hopped on the computer to check in with the kids via Skype. It was nice to get to see the kiddos and know that they were happy and having fun with Grandma and Grandpa. We were then ready to set off for the capitol city of Rekyjavik to hopefully transfer some money into Icelandic Kroner and go on a Puffin tour before dinner. We got a bit lost and didn't end up accomplishing anything other than dinner in the city. But we were fortunate in that a kind stranger offered us help in figuring out the parking meter and we were able to figure out where things were downtown so that we could form a plan for the next morning. The restaurant we visited was called Glo and it offered vegetarian, vegan, and gluten free options including raw vegan desserts. We both had an amazing plate of lasagna with three different salads and were feeling very full and content after the meal. We were also feeling very sleepy! We had to drive 40 minutes to get back to the house, then we got our blackout sleeping masks and headed to bed.

The next morning I woke up at 4:45 in the morning local time, but my body just refused to keep sleeping. We were greeted by chickens outside our window! They were bobbing around and we heard a few rooster crows.

Morning Entertainment

 After breakfasting on some skyr (Icelandic yogurt) and fruit that we had picked up at the Bonus the day before, we were ready for a full day of experiencing Iceland. It was still very early, so we went for a walk along the ocean right on the property where we were staying. We tried out our travel tripod with good results and took this lovely picture of the two of us. We had to dress in multiple layers to be ready for warm sunshine, cool drizzle, and downright chilly winds. I very much appreciated my new waterproof hiking boots and jacket.

Early Morning Walk by the Ocean

 In the morning while we were packing up and getting ready to go, I came to the distressing conclusion that we had lost the cord to our camera. We had been keeping all of the camera paraphernalia together in the camera bag and it must have gotten knocked out when we went to remove the camera on our sightseeing the day before. I'm guessing that the ghost of Gunna now has a Samsung USB cord, not that I think she can use it. We formed a plan that involved finding an electronics store to try to replace the cord, or we were afraid that we would be purchasing a new camera! When we got to Rekyjavik we were able to find a place to exchange our money, 69,000 Kroner! We also mailed our first postcard home, we had bought the postcards and stamps at the tourist office the day before and found out that the stamps have actual volcanic ash painted onto them. We also found the electronics store, but they didn't have a cord that would work. The sales clerk was able to recommend a store in town that might be able to find something for us though, so we decided to check that out after we were finished with our Puffin tour.

I was so excited to go see puffins! They are a really interesting bird and they proved very entertaining. We went out on a guided puffin tour with about 20 people on board. Puffins are smaller than I expected, not nearly as big as the penguins that they sort of resemble. They can fly too, but they aren't very good at it. They have to flap their wings super fast to stay up and they have quite the time taking off from the water. We watched them sort of run on the water with their flipper feet to get up speed. We learned a lot about how they build their nests (the little holes in the side of the island) and what they eat (they dive underwater and catch multiple fish in their mouth before returning to the surface) and even what they do all winter since they only come to land to nest.

Puffins Nesting

 After puffins we walked up the street to the photo shop and found a cord that fit our camera. The shop happened to be right near Glo so we stopped in there again for lunch. I had carrot soup that was simply divine and the spelt bread with hummus that came with it was amazing. Nate had a stuffed zucchini and more salads, I think we could return to Iceland just to visit this restaurant again!

After lunch we drove out to a farm that had Icelandic horses that you could ride on a tour. Icelandic horses are unique in that they have an extra gait, so they are supposed to be the easiest horses to ride. Unfortunately, we hadn't reserved spaces ahead and there weren't two spots on the beginner tour so we weren't able to ride them. We did spend a few minutes saying hi though. They were all very sweet and curious.

Petting the Horse's Nose

 Not doing the horse tour meant that we had time to drive out further into the country to see some of the Golden Circle. We saw the Gullfoss waterfall and got very wet from the mist and chilly winds. But the waterfall was beautiful and we even were treated to a rainbow in the mist.

Gullfoss Waterfall

 On the drive back we stopped at Geysir and watched the geyser erupt a few times. Nate was able to catch it on video, although he had the camera oriented vertically and didn't realize that you couldn't turn a video the way you can a photo. So, in order to watch the magnificence of the geyser from which we get the word geyser, you will have to turn your head...or screen.

Geysir

This country is amazing to look at. There is hot water just bubbling up out of the ground. But the weather, even though it is summer, is so damp and chilly that with my two light sweatshirts and a waterproof jacket I am still uncomfortable. Looking around there are several people wearing winter hats and gloves!

There was a long drive back into town and I was exhausted from a long day. We tried to stop at the grocery store but it was already closed for the evening. Silly Americans accustomed to 24 hour grocery stores! The only thing open that we could find quickly for dinner was Subway. So we had some Subway from Iceland (It's exactly the same as home in case you are wondering). We also had a couple of glasses of wine and got to bed since we had an early flight the next morning.

I loved visiting Iceland and we definitely feel like we could have spent a lot more time here. Hopefully we will have the opportunity to return one day.

Tromso

The next morning we woke up and quickly packed our bags to leave for the airport at 7:05. Anna, Birgir's wife, knocked on the door and let us know that she was ready to drive us. We chatted with her a bit during the car ride about life in Iceland and travel to Norway. Anna said that she hadn't been to Norway, though many people from Iceland go there and some even work there, because it is too expensive a country to visit. We thanked her many times for waking up early to drive us and for the wonderful accommodations at their house. If you find yourself in Iceland, we highly recommend staying there! http://www.oceanfronticeland.is/apartment-for-rent-iceland 

The airport was all automated. We had to find the right set of kiosks that looked like ATM's and scan what Nate had printed out at home to get our boarding passes. The kiosk even printed out the luggage tags that we had to stick onto our bags. Next we had to scan in our own luggage and put it onto the conveyor belt. After we navigated the check in and security, we got ourselves settled at the coffee shop where I was pleasantly surprised with the best tasting cappuccino I have ever had. We had some time to shop around in the airport because upon reading the flight information, we discovered that our flight had been delayed. When Nate had made up the itinerary and chose our flights, he found that booking separate flights from Iceland to Oslo, and then Oslo to Tromso would be significantly less expensive than booking Iceland to Tromso as a connected flight. So if we arrived in Oslo too late and missed our next flight, we would be out of luck. Fortunately, when we talked with a travel agent she advised that we leave a big time cushion. So Nate had a choice between booking a 2:00 or 6:00pm flight from Oslo and we had opted for the bigger layover. Now that our flight was delayed until 10 we were happy to not have the anxiety about missing our next flight!

We finally did get settled at our gate to await the flight, and a fellow passenger who was from Denver struck up conversation about this and that--boy was he a talker. Nate had mistakenly forgone coffee thinking that he would grab a snooze on the plane, but now that we were delayed until after 10am local time, he was suffering from lack of caffeine and a bit too much socializing. We did eventually board the plane and successfully got our luggage, checked in, and then checked our luggage again in Oslo where we would wait for our next flight to Tromso. Phew. Our gate at the airport had a big purple plane for kids to climb on. This, of course, brought up thoughts of our little darlings and I just kept thinking how much Clara would love to climb up onto the roof of that sucker. Speaking of the kids, it was really nice to get a chance to miss them.

Purple Play Plane at Oslo Airport

 In order to stay connected with the kiddos, I had been emailing back and forth with each of them individually on Grandma and Grandpa's email account. Jasper had asked if we had seen any ice in Iceland and I had to tell him that there really wasn't ice where we were staying. When we did our day of driving further into the country we did see some snow on the tops of the mountains, but not much. So when we were flying over Norway, nearly into Tromso, I snapped a picture out the plane window of some beautiful mountains with lots of snow and ice on their caps!

View from the Plane Window

Our plane landed pretty late in the evening, but we were still wide awake and ready to go. We found our luggage and asked at the counter about getting a bus to our hotel. There was a small bus that made rounds about several of the local hotels to the airport on a schedule and we got some tickets and climbed aboard. We were soon at our hotel, the Viking Hotell, and when we went to check in were informed that we had been upgraded to an apartment, sweet! After asking for some suggestions as to where to go and where some local restaurants were, (the guy at the front desk seemed a little perplexed by Nate's dietary preferences, I think the idea of someone not eating fish offended his sensibilities or something!) we walked out on the town after 10pm to seek out some food and entertainment. We settled on the Thai restaurant, which had some very tasty curry, and then we got a beer at one of the local pubs where the World Cup semi final between the Netherlands and Argentina was showing. The pub was packed, we had to find standing room by the door, and since the game was going into extra time we ended up walking back to our apartment to finish watching on the television there. Argentina won after the game went to penalty kicks. It was after midnight before we turned in for the night, but the sun was still up.

View Out the Hotel Window at 12:30 in the Morning

We needed to wear our sleep masks and earplugs, thanks to the fact that the seagulls never sleep! The next morning I woke up a little after 7am, but Nate kept on sleeping. At around 9:00 I went down to scope out breakfast and get some coffee, when I saw the food I realized how hungry I was so I stayed and ate, then went back to wake Nate up and get him to come down for some food. After breakfast we were ready to explore Tromso. Remarkably we had to dress very light since the temperature was a near record breaking 29.7C and we were surprised to be wearing shorts above the arctic circle.

One of our first stops was the Polaria Aquarium because they have seals, and I love seals! The building is rather unique in that it was designed to look like ice floes on the shore. It's a relatively small aquarium and only has a few exhibits.

Polaris Aquarium Side View

We watched a presentation about the northern lights and what causes them. We spent most of our time there watching the seals swim around and then the feeding and training. They have a total of four seals housed in the aquarium, two harbor seals and two of the arctic bearded seals which are much larger.

Bearded Seal - she's so cute!

 The trainer explained that they had to exercise the seals with training to challenge them because they are very intelligent and they would get very bored in such a small enclosure without any sort of stimulation. I kept thinking that Clara would really enjoy watching the seals and their trainers, especially when the seals had to locate the correct bucket by touching it with their nose if it matched the symbol that the trainer displayed. They also did some jumping tricks and rolled over and retrieved balls, etc. It was fun to watch, but they were all doing different things at the same time which made it difficult to see everything because it was all so interesting.

After the aquarium we walked over to the local grocery store to pick up some things to take back to our apartment for lunch. While at the salad bar I had my first opportunity to speak Norwegian with someone and completely clammed up. He was asking me to pass the salad dressing and I stared at him with my mouth somewhat hanging open and nodding while I desperately searched my brain for the phrase "I don't understand Norwegian", he caught on pretty quickly and switched to English.

We spent a little time walking around the shops downtown. Then we went back to the hotel at around 5:30 to get a late afternoon snack of waffles! The hotel has a waffle maker that they set out each afternoon and Nate tried his hand at making some of the tasty treats. Soon he brought them back to the room smothered in jam and cream for us to enjoy.

One of the things on my list to do in Norway was to eat some seafood. Later in the evening we made our way down to an oceanfront restaurant that came highly recommended for fish. Alas, they were all booked up so we decided to find something else for the night and make sure to make reservations for the following evening. We walked around and looked over a few menus before landing in a tapas bar. They didn't have an English menu, but we told the waitress that we thought we could navigate our way through the Norwegian well enough. She was very helpful and came to our aid in trying to find suitable vegetarian choices for Nate. We decided to stay and ordered a variety of tasty treats. I had some spicy shrimp and was surprised to find small boiled potatoes served with butter and salt--salt potatoes! For some reason finding something so representative of home so far away brought me great joy, so of course I ordered some.

After dinner we went back to the hotel to Skype with the kids. They had been visiting with their cousins and Aunt Susie and were full of energy and excitement. They were obviously not suffering from missing their parents and were having a blast on vacation! We were happy to see and hear them and we showed them the view out the window and carried the laptop around the apartment to show them our space.

Our big night time plans were to walk over the big bridge connecting Tromso to the mainland where there is a cable car that you can ride up the side of the mountain for a view of the city and midnight sun. Of course, all day the sun had been shining, but now that the evening brought a chilly wind over the mountains a big mist was rolling in all over. We went from shorts to several layers of warm clothes to make the trek. Nate snapped a picture of the sun  close to midnight before it became hidden by the clouds and fog.

The Midnight Sun from the Bridge

View of the Cathedral from the Bridge

 The bridge swayed in a disconcerting way with the wind, but Nate stayed brave and we made it all the way across. When we made it to the other side we decided to try going to the cathedral for their midnight sun chamber music concert instead of going to the cable car since the fog was so thick we didn't think we would be able to see very much. The cathedral didn't take American credit cards though, and we didn't have enough Norwegian Kroner bills to pay for entrance, so we continued onto our original destination to at least check it out. When we got there we saw that the cable cars had disappeared up into the mist.

Nate in Front of the Cable Cars

When we got inside and talked to the operator, he said that it wouldn't be worth it for us to go up in the fog, that we wouldn't be able to see more than 2 meters in front of our faces. We appreciated his honesty and said we would try to return the following day when he thought that it would be clearer. On our walk back to the bridge a family approached us and asked about the buses. We had tried to figure out the bus schedule earlier with our hotel staff, but found it confusing and had decided to walk. We told them that we thought the bus would stop closer to where the bridge was and they agreed to walk with us in that direction. It turned out that they were from Cambridge, MA and we chatted with them about our respective vacation plans. They were going to stop in Iceland on their way back to the states so we were offering ideas of what they could do with their kids there. Their older daughter who was 7 had fallen asleep so they laid her in the stroller with her little brother. We watched the bus drive by as we got close to the bridge, so they decided to walk over with us rather than wait and hope for the bus. It was lovely talking with them; it made the walk back over to Tromso went faster and didn't feel as chilly since there was nice conversation to distract us. We wished them well on the rest of their journey and went back to our hotel for the night.

The next morning I had decided that I was going to try fish for breakfast. The previous morning I opted for toast with chocolate hazelnut spread and yogurt with berries, but I was people watching the whole time to figure out what you were supposed to do with all the fish and various spreads and such that were laid out. Most people were eating fish and vegetables for breakfast, which of course seemed strange to me. Breakfast was definitely different from back home. There wasn't any cereal other than granola to go with the yogurt, no pancakes or bagels, bacon or sausage, but at least there were hard boiled eggs. So this morning I got myself a warm roll and spread some mayo on it got some fish and a hard boiled egg and made myself a fish sandwich for breakfast. It was delicious! Although I can't really see myself making fish for breakfast at home, it will have to be a special vacation thing.

After breakfast we walked out to the botanical gardens. It is the northernmost botanical garden in the world and there were some beautiful flowers from all over the world.

Tromso Botanical Gardens

Tibetan Blue Poppy from the Himalayas

After walking through the gardens we went back to the grocery store to pick up some lunch and then went back to the hotel to do a load of laundry. There was a bit of confusion as to how to go about using the washing machine, but with the help of one of the housekeepers we got it up and running. We sat in the lobby and read some books for some enjoyable down time between the washing and drying of our clothes. But while the laundry was in the dryer we decided to walk down to the Mack Brewery, the northernmost brewery in the world, where Nate bought a couple of beer glasses as a souvenir and we went to the brew pub to taste some of their beer. I tried their wheat beer which was very tasty and Nate had the 1877. And we couldn't resist snapping a picture with their famous polar bear. It's more than a little bit creepy that they have a stuffed polar bear in their entrance, but here it is.

Mack Brewery Polar Bear

Back to the hotel to check on our laundry and to make some late afternoon waffles (I secretly pocketed a tube of chocolate hazelnut spread from breakfast with waffles in mind--it made for a heavenly treat!). We folded laundry, caught up on email and reading the news online, and generally had some chill time in our room while we waited for our 20:00 reservation time at the seafood restaurant Scarven. It was at this time that I started perusing their online menu again to decide what I was in the mood for when I realized just how pricey this restaurant was going to be! When I first looked at it I was still mentally converting Icelandic and now that I was firmly switched over to Norwegian conversion I did a bit of a double take at the prices. Nate reassured me that all was well and that everything in Norway was expensive which helped to quell my anxiety about wanting to eat at the fancy fish place. 

We arrived at the restaurant and thanks to our online reservation, were seated promptly. Being seated was the only thing that happened promptly. That was another thing we noticed about Norwegian (perhaps European?) dining, the pace is much slower and people seem to linger for hours at the restaurant. We ordered a bottle of wine, after perusing the wine list we settled on a German Riesling. We laughed when we realized that one of our favorite red wines from California was on the menu, the Ravenswood Zinfandel that I typically have a couple of bottles of in the wine cabinet. Here I buy them for around $10 a bottle, sometimes I get a deal with a rebate or case discount even, but at Skarven it would have been an $80 bottle of wine--apparently I have expensive taste! Nate ordered the vegetarian pasta dish and I ordered the halibut filet with Parmesan sauce, vegetables, and some more of those salt potatoes. The fish was absolutely divine, just perfectly cooked. Our waiter checked on us when we were finished with dinner and asked if we'd like to see the dessert menu. We declined because I had a piece of chocolate cake that I had bought at the grocery store waiting for me back in the fridge, so he commented that we would just have wine for dessert, which was fine by us.

We sipped our wine and talked about what we remembered from our trip to Ireland ten years ago. And we chatted about our plans to try to cross the bridge again and go up the cable car, but every time we looked out the window to see if the fog was clearing up, it was stubbornly staying put. The weather forecast had called for it to clear by 10pm, but it was not looking promising. We finished up our wine and were sitting waiting for the waiter to return so that we could ask for the check, but he wasn't stopping by. It became awkward. The other diners were on their dessert and coffee courses, or were ordering more drinks, but we had said that we weren't going to order anything else so our waiter was busying himself with other customers. We played the "who can get the waiter's attention by making eye contact" game for quite some time, then took turns going out to the restroom, but we got the sense that we were missing something. Finally Nate managed to catch his eye and nodded in our direction, the waiter appeared and asked what he could do for us and Nate asked for the check. It was a bit strange, it felt like we were putting him out or something, or that we were obviously not in the know as far as how this whole fine dining thing was supposed to go. But, we wanted to move onto other things, so we paid the bill and walked back for one more night at our apartment.

Despite knowing that we would have to wake extremely early the next morning for our flight, we weren't ready for sleep and we wanted to have one more stroll outside in the unending sunlight. We walked down by the ocean after midnight and Nate filled a little bottle with ocean water to take back with us for the water ceremony at church in the fall. We couldn't use our earplugs for fear of missing our watch alarms, so we didn't get very much sleep thanks to the ceaseless squawking of the sea birds outside our windows. We woke very, very early to check out of the hotel, catch the airport bus at 4:55 and make it to the airport for our flight to Oslo.

When we arrived at the airport there was trouble with the credit card machine to pay for our transportation, after quite a bit of fussing about it and the driver asking for cash (we had enough, but it was all the Kroner we had--and it wasn't our fault that the credit card machine was down) Nate tried asking if someone inside the building could help us pay with credit, but the driver eventually just told us to go and have a nice day. We felt bad, but it was what it was. After checking in I had to quickly scarf my yogurt that I had brought because of the whole no liquids or gels through security thing, even though I wasn't quite hungry that early in the morning.

Once again security and boarding all went very well and we were soon on our plane headed for Oslo. Nate and I both took a bit of a nap, but airplane sleeping is never very restful and we were still pretty wiped out when we landed.

Oslo

When we arrived at the Oslo airport we quickly got our luggage and walked out to the glorious sight of Starbucks. I promptly ordered a venti whatever the darkest roast you've got is, while Nate checked out the deal with taking the train into downtown. We took the train from the airport into Oslo and soon were emerging into a glorious sunny morning in the city. It was only a few blocks to walk to get to our hotel, so we rolled our bags through the streets and on the sidewalks until we arrived at the Thon Astoria. We were too early to check into our room  just yet, but they had a locked room where we could store our suitcases. Soon we were out walking in the heart of the city.

View of the Royal Palace in Oslo

 We had a seat at a park bench near the parliament building to orient ourselves and to eat the fruit that we had stored away in Nate's pack from breakfast the day before.

Parliament Building

  After sitting for a while, we went for a walk down by the dock to see what the fjord boats were about and looked at the many beautiful buildings and lovely landscaping. We walked past the Peace Museum and decided that we would stop there later after we picked up our Oslo Pass. Then we found a vegetarian cafe for some lunch. After lunch we made our way to the tourist office to buy 72 hour passes that would get us entry into the many museums in Oslo as well as transportation on the fjord boat and the subway trains. Then we headed back to the Nobel Peace Center. 

It was a beautiful museum with a lot of very interesting current topics on display. There was a lot of attention given to social media and how that mode of instant communication has influenced political and social change. There was also an exhibit where people could use the freedom of expression to contribute to the exhibit by creating a message using pipe cleaners. Pipe cleaners brought up memories of May Memorial because there are pipe cleaners available in the back of the sanctuary for children (or grown-ups) who would like a quiet distraction during the service. We thought it would be appropriate to leave a message with the kids' initials in the midst of all the pipe cleaners.

Nate Working on Our Pipe Cleaner Message

Can You Spot the C H J with a Peace Sign and a Heart -- It's Just Over My Head

 The whole museum was filled with terrific information, including these really cool screens with pictures of the Nobel Prize recipients. When you stood in front of a screen it would cycle through pages of information about who they were and when and why they were selected, and a famous quote.

Nobel Peace Recipients

We were getting quite tired at this point and it was past the time we were told to come back to the hotel for check in, so we went back to get into our room and take a nap. When we arrived at the room we were a bit surprised by the size, compared to our spacious apartment in Tromso it was teeny tiny. It was one long room with a small desk on the right and a step up to a teensy bathroom on the left. The bathroom was a small rectangle with a sink and mirror directly across from the door, the toilet on the left and the shower curtain on the right. The shower wasn't separate from the rest of the bathroom, there was just a drain right in the floor. The rest of the room was filled with the bed with just enough room to walk around it. But we were just happy to have a place to lay down, so we opened up the window for some fresh air and lay down for a little snooze.

We didn't sleep long, we were back up and ready for more sight seeing in the late afternoon. Based on when things were closing, we decided to go to the ski jump. This involved catching a T train out of the city which we managed easily enough, although we were a bit confused as to what we were supposed to do for tickets. We decided to just follow along with what everyone else was doing and hold onto our Oslo Pass in case someone asked for it. There was a bit of an uphill hike to get to the ski jump, but we were rewarded for our efforts with a cute little skiing museum with various exhibits about skiing including skis designed for a 9 month old baby and various adaptations for people with physical disabilities. Then there was an elevator up, up, up to the top. Nate was a little shaky, but he made it up to the tip top and looked out over the edge. What an amazing view! But I honestly cannot imagine myself getting to the top of that thing and then actually pushing off and skiing down it, not to mention that whole giant leap where you lay practically flat with your skis!

Off the Side of the Ski Jump

We made our way back into the city and took the stop past our hotel stop to make it into the part of the city with restaurants from many different cultures. We were tired and hungry, and we settled on some heavenly smelling Indian food. But I was very anxious about ordering because it wasn't a traditional sit down restaurant with a menu and waiter, you had to go up to the counter to order and I was worried about the language barrier. I should have known that it would be fine, someone spoke English and helped us through our order. The food was delicious and very filling. We finished up and walked back to the hotel to get to bed early.

Sunday morning we woke up at 8:30 finally well rested and made our way down to the hotel breakfast. Once again there were breakfast foods that were out of our normal, but they had lots of different hearty breads and scrambled eggs which looked good to Nate. Nate also picked up a couple of things that he thought were potato in origin, but fortunately in my exploration of our options I had noticed that they were indeed fish cakes. I saved him from eating fish. I tried them myself and they were a bit strange, they tasted like sausages but with a fishy aftertaste.

Back in the room we checked email to see what the kids were up to and discovered that Grandma and Grandpa had taken them on a pirate ship! It looked as though they were having a blast.

Nate and I went for a walk out past the Oslo Opera House to catch the ferry across the fjord. The opera house is positively gorgeous to look at and I very much wish that we had been able to see a performance there as I'm sure the inside is just as fabulous as the outside. There were large pictures displayed outside depicting various scenes from shows that had been performed there, and you can walk up onto the roof for a view out onto the fjord. We didn't go up onto the roof just yet because we didn't have time. There was also some confusion over where the boat was going to pick up passengers and we ended up going for a lovely little jog to get to the right side of the water, but it actually was nice to run for a bit since I hadn't been for a run in so long. We boarded the boat and had our Oslo Passes scanned. Then we found a nice place to sit and enjoy the view and breeze as we crossed the fjord to the peninsula.

Oslo Opera House

Nate and Stacy on the Ferry

There were a few different museums to go to after we got off the ferry. We were interested in the Fram Museum and the Viking Ship Museum. The Fram was located right near the dock so we started there. It was a giant triangular building that housed the actual ship that was built for the north pole expedition. We walked around reading lots of interesting facts about how the ship was designed to withstand the pressure of the ice in the arctic, the explorers and their discoveries. We also went aboard the ship itself and looked around. I thought often about Henry and his love of maps, especially since one of the goals of the expedition was to fill in the blank areas of the world map that most mapmakers filled with pictures of sea monsters since no explorer had been able to reach the pole and chart the territory.

Music Room on the Fram

 From the Fram Museum we walked up the hill to the Viking Ship Museum. I was excited to go and see real viking artifacts, mostly because of the kids' interest in vikings thanks to the "How to Train Your Dragon" series of books, shows and movies. Jasper had specifically asked for pictures of what "real" vikings would look like since we had recently talked about how the horns on viking helmets were an artist's addition, and that they weren't very practical for real vikings. It's pretty amazing standing in the presence of artifacts that have been on the earth for so long. Knowing that humans had built and used these ships and tools so very long ago and that we were able to see them even though their builders have long been dead is awe inspiring. To get the Norwegian I'm copying from Wikipedia: The Viking Ship Museum (Norwegian: Vikingskipshuset på Bygdøy) is located at Bygdøy in Oslo, Norway. It is part of the Museum of Cultural History of the University of Oslo, and houses archaeological finds from Tune, Gokstad (Sandefjord), Oseberg (Tønsberg) and the Borre mound cemetery.

Oseberg Ship

Viking Carving

I think the most fascinating thing that we learned, and the thing that really moved me the most, is the efforts that are underway to try to preserve the artifacts. At the time that they were discovered the archaeologists used alum, the best preservative they had available to them, to keep the wood from deteriorating. The problem is that over time the alum is breaking down into sulfuric acid and turning the wood to mush inside the artifacts. Modern scientists are working to come up with a new preservation method, but they don't know what the long term effects of treating the wood will be. There is a good possibility that we will be the last generation that will be able to see theses artifacts in person.

Nate and I spent a good bit of time shopping in the gift shop and bought some viking key chains (little viking guys with swords and real hair), a viking sticker book for Jasper and some pencils decorated with the viking carving patterns. We then walked back down the hill and went back in the Fram Museum to pick up a few souvenirs for Henry, a compass and a book about polar exploration. Then we went back to the water to wait for our ferry.

When we made it back to the city we walked over to the vegetarian cafe where we had had lunch the day before, but there were slim pickings as it was well past the lunch rush. We decided to walk around and see if we could find another place to eat a light lunch. We found another cafe that had some sandwiches that looked good. I had a smoked salmon wrap that was very tasty, and Nate had a sandwich of brie and olives. We also had some ice coffee to perk us up a bit since we had plans to stay up late in the evening. We were thinking about going to an Irish pub for dinner and then staying to watch the World Cup Final since it would be more fun to watch with a group of people, especially Europeans since they take their football very seriously, and a European team (Germany) was in the final. After lunch we went to the pub to see if we needed to make reservations for dinner and they said that we shouldn't need to, and then we did a little shopping in the various tourist shops along the way.

When we were walking around we noticed a very large area downtown that was sectioned off and that had the sounds of sporting events being announced from inside. Upon further inspection we discovered that it was an area specifically for watching the World Cup games, though they were broadcasting the Tour de France at the moment. We made a note to ourselves to go check out their website when we got back to our room. (fotbalfesten.no)

For the afternoon we tried going out to the mall, but it was a Sunday and the shops closed early. We did stop at a cafe that offered the Norwegian national dessert, Verdens Beste, and ordered one piece to go. We took it back to the hotel and shared. It wasn't like any cake I've ever had before, and it was delicious. It has a crunchy meringue on top with almonds for more crunch, the cake itself is very moist and almost chewy and vanilla in flavor, but then there is this delightfully rich cream in the middle. So you get chewy, creamy, and crunchy all together. I'll share a link to a review of and recipe for the World's Best Cake, maybe someday I'll even try to make it!  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/02/worlds-best-cake_n_5071680.html

It was about 5:00 at this point and was just starting to rain, so we decided to stay in and spend some time relaxing. We did a little reading and I did a little yoga (legs up the wall) to try to alleviate some of the foot pain and swelling that I was experiencing from much more walking than my poor feet are used to!

Standing on the Roof of Oslo Opera House

A couple of hours later we set out for dinner at The Dubliner but we stopped back at the opera house first to walk around on the roof. At dinner I had traditional fish and chips and Nate had a veggie burger. I had a pint of cider to go with my meal, and Nate tried a super yummy Founders porter. (After we got home we found that it was from Grand Rapids, Michigan). Happily fed, we walked over to the FotbalFesten and got in line. Luckily we went early, or what we thought was early, as Nate thought that the match was supposed to start at 10, but it turned out that is was actually 9. When we got in we were amazed by the people everywhere! It was packed. We got in line for some beer, they had really cool beer carriers where the beers would hang down through a row of cup openings and then the sides of the cardboard folded up and formed a handle on top. We bought 3 beers to get us through so that we wouldn't have to go back and wait in line again.

World Cup on the Big Screen with Lots of Fellow Spectators!

 We couldn't find a place to sit, so we wandered about looking for a space where we could stand and see. It was pretty wild being there with so many people! Most people were very nice and were making sure that everyone around them could see the screen. There was one rowdy group seated at one of the picnic tables next to us who were having a roaring good time. One of their favorite antics was to start singing "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" when an Argentinian player would do a dive. This was pretty funny the first couple of times, but got a bit old after a while, and was rather unpleasant when they were on their third (or fourth perhaps?) round of beers. My Broadway nerd self particularly enjoyed the joke one of the young men made early in the night after the song where he said "Next let's do 'Starlight Express'"--I was not expecting an obscure Andrew Lloyd Weber joke!

At the half we noticed a camera crew working their way into the crowd pretty close to where we were standing, the local Norwegian 1 channel was broadcasting from the FotbalFesten!

Our Brush with Norwegian Fame

 During the break a few of the spectators standing near us tried to strike up a conversation. My anxiety about not understanding the language kicked in and the poor fellow who asked me in English (although in my defense with an Indian accent) who I was supporting received a somewhat blank stare from me and my only response was, "English?" When he repeated himself I did catch on that he was speaking English and though I was embarrassed by my goof we got to talking soccer (football!) which seems like another foreign language to me. Fortunately Nate was near and picked up the conversation when it turned to specific players and games that I had no clue about. Another nearby person did start talking to us in Norwegian and Nate finally got to use his "Jeg er amerikansk" (the kids would be so proud!). This fan found the fact that we were American pretty funny, but he kindly switched to fluent English and chatted with us for a while. Our entire vacation we only ran into one person in Iceland who we suspect didn't speak English, everyone else we met switched languages easily and most spoke more languages besides.

The second half brought a sense of tension with it. There were lots of fans for both countries, and as time went on the anxiety level waiting for someone to score was growing. The second half ended with a score of 0 to 0, which meant extra time. We were hoping for an exciting game, and Germany and Argentina were providing! By this time though, both Nate and I were suffering with some pretty sore feet. I kept rocking onto the outer edges of my shoes hoping for relief, but it wasn't happening. But then again there was no way we were going to leave now! Finally, in the second period of extra time Germany scored. It was a young player who had just come into the game a short while ago who made the goal!

Excited Germany Fans After the Goal

After the game wrapped up we started making our way to the exit. Considering how many people were in such a small space, we easily navigated the crowd and made our way out into the streets. It was a beautiful, if a little chilly, night and we were soon back to our hotel with our feet propped up. We turned on the TV to see if we could see any of the footage from the fest on the news, but they had moved onto other coverage from around the world. Since we were still buzzing a bit from the evening's adventures, we flipped through the channels and found the movie "Contact" playing on the movie channel. It was playing in English but had Norwegian subtitles. It was fun to watch and read at the same time to make connections between the two languages, but I was starting to droop so I popped on my sleep mask and quickly fell asleep. Nate, however, found the experience so interesting that he managed to stay up and watch the whole movie!

 The next morning, after another filling breakfast at the hotel--minus the fish cakes--we mailed our last postcard to the kids on the way to the T station. We mailed four in total, two from Iceland that we sent to the farm, and one each from Tromso and Oslo which we mailed to Cicero figuring that they wouldn't make it overseas in time. We were looking forward to seeing them and sharing them with the kids. Then we took the T out to Vigeland Park, the largest sculpture park by a single artist. Mostly we wanted to see "angry baby"! Vigeland's work is all human sculptures in some very interesting poses. Many of these poses look a bit absurd as in you couldn't actually accomplish them, nor would you want to. But it was nice to walk around the park in the fresh air and enjoy some of the street performers. There was a rather talented trio performing songs by The Beatles and The Monkeys. We were entertained by the unique instrumentation, drums, guitar and clarinet. "Hey Jude" may never be the same again. We also thoroughly enjoyed watching people imitating the poses and facial expressions next to the various statues to have their pictures taken. Angry baby was especially fun when two kids were prompted by their mom to stand in front and make their best angry baby faces!

Fountain Made of Human Figures at Vigeland Park

Baby Statues at Vigeland Park

Angry Baby!

When we were making plans to visit different sights and museums, we failed to take into consideration that many things were closed on Mondays. We're not sure why so many things are closed on Mondays, and it didn't really occur to us to check, but the Vigeland Museum was not open so we just walked through the park and then headed back into the city. Our next stop was to go to the National Museum because they have Edvard Munch's "The Scream" on display, Edvard Munch being a famous Norwegian artist. When we arrived at the museum, however, we discovered that it too was closed on Mondays. Mondays? We were a little disheartened and were thinking that we could possibly race over to the museum first thing the next morning to squeak in before our 72 hour pass was up, and to still be able to make the train out of Oslo to make our flight.

Fortunately, we decided to go to the Edvard Munch Museum which was not closed on Mondays. We thought that the Munch Museum housed many of his other works and that the National Museum had "The Scream" which of course was what we wanted to see! But, as it turns out there are four copies of that painting, the National Museum has one, the Munch Museum has two of them, although only one is on display, and there is a private collector somewhere who has the fourth. We were not allowed to take photographs of "The Scream", I'm not sure why, but we were allowed to photograph the other pieces on display as long as we kept the flash off.

Fertility II

After the museum we wanted to get a little light lunch. I stopped and got some frozen yogurt at the mall while Nate looked for a Norway soccer jersey in the sports store, no luck there. Nate stopped and got a falafel sandwich (which was suprisingly delicious!) and we took them up to the hotel room to eat and to sit and chill for a while. We were both pretty tired from all the walking that we had been doing on the trip and it was nice to sit and not have somewhere to race off to.

Later in the evening we decided to take the T back out near where Vigeland was to try another vegetarian cafe, Krishna Cafe. It wasn't really what I was expecting, I was hoping for more of a sit down restaurant kind of experience instead of cafeteria style, but the food was excellent.

We went back to the hotel to grab our rain jackets before heading back out to do a little bar hopping to round out the vacation. First we stopped at the Bacchus Bar where we ordered dessert, I had the super creamy Kahlua cake with a glass of Sangiovese wine, Nate had the berry cake with a pint of beer. The beer he ordered was a Norwegian beer called Aass, and the best thing was that it was labeled as Fat øl. øl we knew was beer in Norwegian, it turns out fat translates as barrel, so basically it was draft beer. But we were being silly about it being Fat Aass beer. We talked about how lucky we were to be able to take this trip at this time in our lives and marriage and that we should offer to watch Mandy and Eric's kids to let them have a trip on their own some day when their kids are a bit older. 

We tried taking a page out of the Norwegians book and slowly nibbled at our desserts and sipped our respective beverages. We did a good job because the waiter approached us this time for last round and asked if we wanted another drink or coffee and we said we would just take the check. Bacchus Bar was very nice, but it lacked a good view so we walked on to find another place to sit and watch the sun set (very late at night indeed).

We did find another bar and ordered drinks and sat outside. It had heated canopies and even though we weren't particularly close to the canopies, they managed to keep the chill to a minimum. We were overlooking a beautiful stone courtyard down close to the ocean with a cool fountain. It looked like a park to me, so I was surprised when cars would drive around the fountain, but it was indeed a street for driving upon. I have a picture of the fountain from earlier, not that night, we didn't have the camera with us as we wanted to just sit and experience the night without distraction.

The Finger Fountain by Day

When we got back to the room Nate took one last picture of the view out of our window.

The View Out Our Window at 12:26AM

 

 Going Home

Tuesday morning came all too quickly. We had one last big breakfast at the hotel then went out to do a little souvenir shopping in Oslo before we had to check out and take the train to the airport. We found souvenir shopping to be much more challenging on this trip than we had in Ireland 10 years ago since there are so many Irish things that people love and recognize as Irish. The only Norwegian thing that most people can think of would be sweaters and we didn't think many of our family members would really like big wool sweaters. So, we ended up buying some Christmas ornaments as Norway is very close to the North Pole and they take Christmas rather seriously there. And decided that wool blankets from Iceland would be the big gift that we would get for Nate's parents, our friends Doug and Pilar who are getting married next month, and for ourselves, But that would mean making it to the duty free shop in the Iceland airport before our connecting flight to Toronto. At the Oslo airport we finally decided on a necklace for Clara as her souvenir and Nate bought himself a four pack of Aass (he just can't get enough Aass!) and then we got ourselves settled to wait for our flight.

Our flight was delayed a bit so when we finally made it through customs into Iceland we had to race to the duty free and quickly grab three blankets before rushing over to the terminal. I stopped for a quick sandwich and met up with Nate in the very, very crowded hallway where three flight loads of people were milling about. There were three flights all scheduled to leave at the same time heading to Boston, New York and Toronto and we were all standing together in a tight space. When we at last made our way up to the counter for boarding Nate was informed that they had moved his seat. I got a little panicky because there had been a couple of flights where we weren't next to each other, although thankfully we were able to get one of those switched so there was only one flight where we were separated. But, I didn't want to be sitting with two strangers for 5 1/2 hours on the last flight of our journey. But she told us that I had been moved too and that we would be happy since these were much better seats. Yay! We got bumped up and were comfortably seated in "Comfort Class". Instead of three seats in the row, there were only two and they were big and cushy. We shared my headphones and watched "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" taking breaks to look out the window at the unbelievably beautiful scenery of Greenland.

View of Greenland from the Airplane

We figured that there was no way that we were going to be able to really sleep since it was the middle of the day to us, so we just kept ordering coffee whenever the flight attendant came by. We and our luggage made it safely to Toronto, we got through customs and made it to the car--Nate was happy to see his car again. We started out and called home to check in with Grandma and Grandpa who generously offered to drive the kids back to Syracuse to save us from having to drive back to North East to pick them up. It was already very late but we were determined to make it home and sleep in our own bed for the night, so we stopped at a Tim Horton's and got a snack and some more coffee and hit the road for home. There was no trouble getting across the border into the US but it was getting dark and we were starting to fade. We had to stop at a rest stop for coffee (the only option was Arby's coffee, but it was surprisingly drinkable) and we did jumping jacks out in the parking lot to wake ourselves up. I was determined to stay awake to keep Nate awake, so we had to keep coming up with different topics to talk about. We made it home and went straight to bed at around 1 in the morning after our 30 hour day!

Wednesday morning, despite being so completely exhausted the night before, I woke up early because my body was thoroughly confused as to what was going on with the time. I was also excited to see the kids, to give them their souvenirs (including candy that we got in Iceland and Norway) and show them our pictures, but especially to get some big giant hugs from them! We thanked Nate's parents over and over again, they were the ones who made our trip possible and they gave Clara, Henry and Jasper the best summer vacation ever! The kids were thrilled to spend so much time with them and they came up with many activities to keep them busy and content. We are eternally grateful for all that they do for us and for our kids. Grandma and Grandpa did seem ready to get back to their normal routine and their calmer and quieter house though. We gave them the blanket that we had picked out for them and after hugs and kisses they were headed off for home and we were ready to get back to our routine as well.