Norway 2018

We had an amazing opportunity to spend two weeks in the beautiful country of Norway visiting our Norwegian son/exchange student, Christoffer, and his wonderful family.  They were our most gracious hosts for meals, travels, hikes, and a truly memory-making experience.  We started in their home town of Rakkestad and drove as far north as Rongay on the coast, down through and around the fjords to Bergen, back through Oslo and home again.

Our entourage of nine also spent several days with my third-cousin Tove, her husband Jon, and son Henrick at their cabin.  They took all of us in and treated us like family, which some of us are, albeit exceedingly distantly related (Tove and I share great-great grandparents Fingal and Berte Halvorsen, both born in the early half of the 19th Century).  Tove and I hadn't even seen one another in 45 years. We hope to return the favor and get their family to the US sometime soon!  We were also blessed by cousin Sonja (Tove's sister, who I also had not seen in 45 years) who had all 12 of us over for dinner at her beautiful farmhouse near Stryn!  I don't know if all Norwegians are known for their wonderful hospitality but we were certainly treated to it everywhere we went.

I put together a photo show to sum up this amazing trip to the Land of the Midnight Sun (seriously, the sunset took place around midnight and before the pink could fade from the northwest sky it shifted slightly east and became the sunrise.  Incredible!

My text option gave out early in the process so you kind of have to figure it out yourself.