Family Adventure Part 1: Oslo + Telemark

On the day that the rest of the family was to arrive in Oslo, Lisa and I decided to have an incredibly chill morning (not that we hadn't been doing this already for the past week) before meeting them at the train station. Their flight ended up being delayed by two hours, so our chill morning became even chiller!
Somehow we missed their train getting in and the accompanying airport style reunion, and instead ended up on a slightly less climactic search for them as they headed towards the T-bane, but I was still really excited to see all of them, as I hadn’t seen my dad or

Kevin for 5 months, and that when I saw them last it was only for a day, and it was almost the same with my mom (except for the 24 hours she spent in Oslo in October). It was a slightly less exciting moment for Lisa, since she had been home a week ago, which created the somewhat comical scene of a family reuniting excitedly with one out of the two daughters present.
We got their luggage up to their hotel at Holmenkollen, and then walked over to the ski jump and actually managed to get a view! I was happy that I got to prove to Lisa that when you can see more than 10 meters in front of your face, there is in fact a great view of Oslo from up there.
The next step on our agenda was a visit to Dag and Siri’s house for “christmas treats” which ended up meaning a delightful spread of Norwegian foods including lefse, homemade pickled herring and “ekte brunost” which is the more special brunost that is actually made from goat milk and has a stronger flavor. This all was followed by a dessert of cloud berries that they had picked last summer (multe) and whipped cream. All very classic from everything I understand. It was also nice to see Dag and Siri again and to see my dad reunite with someone he hadn’t seen for years.
The next morning was the day we were to leave for Telemark. Lisa and I were working on packing and cleaning my room when we got a text from my mom saying “Kevin is barfy. We are awake but moving slowly.” Due to these new circumstances, the new plan became for me to meet my mom at the train station to pick up the rental car, and to then drive to Vestgrensa to collect my stuff and Lisa, and then to pick up my dad and Kevin at Holmenkollen before departing for Telemark. This took longer than the initial plan and we didn’t end up leaving Oslo until almost 2 (our goal had been before noon).
I need to paint a picture of how we ended up driving down. The first issue was that our car was not very large, and that I have been in Norway for 5 months and have a good amount of stuff including skis. The only way we could get all of the things we had to fit was to eliminate the middle back seat for the skis and put duffle bags at the feet of both of the remaining back seat chairs. Since Lisa was going to be the most calm navigator, and it had been decided that it was my fault that we were so cramped, the arrangement was as follows. My dad drove. Lisa sat in the front seat navigating. My mom sat in one of the back seats competing for foot space with a duffle bag. I sat in the other remaining back seat, legs crossed over a duffle bag that filled the entire foot compartment holding Kevin in my lap. Kevin is still the smallest in the family, but he is also no longer small. Also recall that he was really quite sick. Part of my job was to have barf bags ready for him. After we had loaded up the car, he cried “Let me out” and after I fumbled with the door for what felt like forever, he got outside to throw up. This all boded well.
Another (admittedly smaller but still significant when you are about to spend 2.5 hours in a far too small car) issue was that there was no aux cord attachment for our car and the blue tooth was not working, thus eliminating Lisa’s chances of being the DJ that would save us all. Luckily I had the solution for this one! The previous Monday night at strength with the nordic team, the coach, who was always responsible for the music at these sessions and always played either truly bizarre 70s/ 80s electronic-y music (tough for me to describe really) or ABBA gifted me two of his ABBA mix cd’s “for the journey”. I was of course excited to receive them, but now a need had truly developed! Each of the CDs turned out to contain two ABBA albums. Despite the trials that this road trip presented us with, we had some positive mental attitudes, love, and 4 ABBA albums. Further, Kevin managed to not to vomit the entire time! Really could have been worse.
We arrived in Notodden at the home of my mom’s friend’s Cathy Roheim’s parents later than originally planned and weren’t able to tour a near by Stave church or farm (since it was dark), but did really enjoy the traditional 7 (I think actually more?) desserts they had prepared for us, though Kevin spent most of the evening laying on the couch.
We then piled back into the car for the final stretch of our journey to Gvarv. The guest house we arrived at (which is on a vineyard owned by someone we are vaguely related to) was completely lovely, complete with homemade bread, telemark apple juice and all sorts of other delicious Norwegian foods. We were all very happy when we finally got to go to sleep.
On Christmas Eve, we took a tour of Gvarv with our relative Oddvar and his son Egil, making rounds to sites from our family’s history. It was a beautiful day and the view over the lake from the church was spectacular. At the end of this tour we met up with Kjell Ivar to look at the viking ship replica he told me about the last time I was in Gvarv. It turns out that it is a replica of the Øseberg ship that is housed in the viking ship museum on Bygdøy (with a few modifications since the first time they tried to replicate it waves just rolled in and it didn’t work well, namely, they expanded the bow and stern slightly to break the waves better). We got to walk around inside, and Kjell Ivar pointed out several cool aspects. For example, the decorations on the inside are faces, while the outside is decorated with serpents, with the purpose being to protect the sailors and to scare those outside. Also, the ribs are attached to the planking by rope made from whales instead of iron at all points except the very edges so that the whole boat can flex and move with the waves. He also told us about the trips he's taken on that boat, including going all the way to Spain! Since the boat is so shallow, you either have to sleep on deck or on shore. Also, apparently “modern vikings” are somewhat less tough than the originals, and can't row for too long, so they also have a small rubber boat with a motor on board that can be used to push when the sailing isn’t good.
After the tour, our hosts at our guest house invited us for some rice porridge before the Christmas Eve service. The tradition is to have one skinned almond in the porridge, with a small gift for the person who finds the almond in their bowl. Guess who got the almond? Yours truly! It feels good to be able to say that I won Christmas! I got a marzipan pig! (Which is apparently also traditional? Maybe someday I’ll find out why…)
We then made our way to service at the church in Gvarv. People had lit candles at many of the graves for christmas, which was beautiful on a clear night. The inside of the church was also very interesting, with the walls covered in old paintings and other beautiful old touches. The service was of course in Norwegian, and I actually understood the vast majority of it! It helps of course that much of a lutheran church service doesn’t vary a lot based on where you are in the world. The lord’s prayer, apostles creed and kyrie are exactly the same, as are many of the songs. It also helped that when the pastor delivered the sermon, she spoke slowly and clearly (which is what one would expect).
For the first time in my parents’ marriage, we went with my Dad’s family’s (and Norway’s) tradition of opening presents on Christmas Eve. We had a pretty small Christmas, and my mother selected gifts to cart across the Atlantic well. We all got lovely wool socks, and some albums from my high school math teacher’s band (a great addition to ABBA for the ride home) and photo albums filled with pictures of all of the siblings together since Kevin was born, which we spent a lot of time leafing through with massive smiles on our faces.
On Christmas Day, on of my Dad’s college friends Sveinung invited us to his home in Notodden for christmas cookies and coffee. He has a replica of a Stave church on his property and his home is filled with lots of traditional Norwegian wood crafts. When we left his house, we headed to Kjell Ivar’s home, where we were met with more cookies and more coffee! We thoroughly enjoyed the conversations, coffee and cookies we had and felt so so welcomed, but it turns out that sipping coffee for 7 hours straight is not the most conducive to sleep, and all of us were awake for a lot of the night, but I got some good reading in!
On the 26th, we had a fairly relaxed morning and I got to go on a nice run before we packed up and headed to Ingeborg’s mother’s home. Her mother was unfortunately in the hospital, but we had a nice time anyway, enjoying a meal of pinekjøtt with both of our complete families. It was so nice to see all of them one more time before leaving Norway, as they have been so welcoming for my entire time here.
Our drive back to Oslo was not as uneventful as we had hoped for. We were squished in the same way we had been on the way down, and the tire pressure in one of the tires started decreasing fast halfway between Gvarv and Oslo, leading to a tense search for air at gas stations and wondering if we should do anything more substantial to fix that problem. When we got to Oslo, finding a place to park near our hotel became a big struggle, as driving in downtown Oslo is not the easiest and our hotel was literally in the central station, and did not in fact have a a parking location closer than the car rental lot. I eventually got so frustrated with driving around in circles with Kevin sitting on my lap, being able to see enough to know where we were but not enough to actually be helpful that I got out and walked to the hotel and relayed the information that they should just drive to the rental lot back.
Once we were situated in our hotel, we went to try to purchase train tickets to Bergen for the next morning, only to find out that they were sold out for everything but the night train! My mom solved this problem quickly by purchasing plane tickets for the next afternoon.
This turned out to be a nice change of plans, because on the day we flew to Bergen, the weather in Oslo was absolutely beautiful! In the morning, Lisa and I went up to Nordmarka one more time and enjoyed a walk and a run respectively while the rest of our family saw Vigeland Sculpture park and the palace.