Oslo-Dec 19th - Dec 23rd

We arrived in Oslo at about 11 p.m. and the kids all went to Skoyen stop, where Erik and Gustavo met them. Kari, Jared and Ryan stayed with Erik and Kerstin Kristiansen. Erik is Erik's 2nd cousin. They have 2 young daughters. Andrew, Emily and Bryn went to Bente and Gustavo Montenegro's, who have 2 girls too. Erik and I took the train to the center of Oslo and walked to our hotel, quite a late night, probably 1 a.m. before we got to sleep.

Pappa had arrived at the hotel that afternoon so we met up at breakfast the next morning. Breakfast was amazing. Smørbrød, which is fixins for open faced sandwiches. They had cheese, nutella, jam, tomatoes, cucumber, ham, mackerel, and so much more. They also had cereal and eggs and bacon and juice and fruit. Quite yummy.

After breakfast we headed to Bente and Gustavo's, stopping on the way to buy Pappa a hat. We got a little turned around with our directions after we got off the bus, and the guy at 7-11 sent us the wrong way, but Gustavo came and picked us up in his car! Bente and Gustavo and girls were heading off that day for 4 nights in a cabin in Lillehammer so they let us use their whole house. So very generous, and the kids loved being together like that! Erik brought K, J and R over so we got to see him. Then we hopped on the bus and started exploring Oslo. I had purchased the Oslo pass for us, which gets you in to many attractions for free and includes all the buses and trains in the city. It's typically about $100 for 4 days and I got them for $14, woo hoo! It was such a great deal and very helpful.

The weather was pretty cold, probably about 25 degrees. We went to Frogner parken first. It's a huge park in Oslo with 212 amazing bronze and granite statues all made by Vigeland. The Vigeland Park is the world's largest sculpture park made by a single artist, and is one of Norway's most popular tourist attractions.

The unique sculpture park is Gustav Vigeland's lifework Vigeland was also in charge of the design and architechtural layout of the park. The Vigeland Park was mainly completed between 1939 and 1949.

As you can see from the photos, we had fun re-creating some of the poses.
https://picasaweb.google.com/107525715707559384779/OsloIn3Days

We stopped in a cafe for a snack and were once again shocked at the price of food in Norway. Kari got a small piece of cheese cake and it cost her $10. Yikes. Thankfully we were able to cook several meals at "home" so that helped.

We went to the Oslo City Hall next, which has lots of unique art in it. They had a huge Christmas tree in the main hall and we (minus Bryn) sang "Angels we have Heard on High" - it sounded awesome in there! We went to the Christmas market and enjoyed Pølse, Norwegian hot dogs and Elg burgers (an Elg is like a small American moose.) We also got bollar, yummy rolls. And we had fun looking at the items for sale, but it was pretty chilly so we went into a book store and looked around.

Friday we went to the Viking Ship Museum and saw the Ra II and Kontiki and Fram. Those Norwegians are amazing explorers. The museums were very interesting. (A new movie just came our in Norway, called "Kon tiki", and we watched it with Hilde and Ove)
Then we went to the Norske Folk Museum. We walked among many of the old stabbur, storehouses, and a stave church. The coolest thing is that we found a shed that had been on my family's farm, Jørisdal. So awesome. This link should take you info about it. http://sphotos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/75209_10151347326693972_1957557097_n.jpg

We did some grocery shopping (Kari and I buying Kick, the yummy black licorice!) and the kids cooked dinner for Bestefar and themselves and played pinochle. Erik and I headed to the Oslo Cathedral and heard a free Christmas concert. I liked the boys choir best, and seeing a woman come in to sit down, carrying her cross country skis!

Saturday, Emily stayed back as she wasn't feeling great. I think she enjoyed reading on her new Kindle Fire that Andrew got her for Christmas!! She read 4-6 books during the vacation! Awesome.

We went to Holmenkollen, the huge ski jump and museum. We ate a very yummy lunch at the cafe there. We also went on the ski jump simulator, which was interesting, but made us a little motion sick. Then we took the train on up the mountain and rented toboggans. We went down the Korketrekkeren, a trail called the Corkscrew in the Oslo Community forest. It was about 2 miles long and was next to the Bobsleigh track for the Olympics in the 50's. It was SUPER fun. You'd get to going pretty fast, but could slow yourself by dragging your hands, which I did several times! Then you'd get to the bottom and hop on the train again, with your sled and it'd take you right to the top. Such fun! I'm so glad they had enough snow so we could do it.

Saturday evening we went to have Cake and Coffee with Erik and Kerstin and Sophie and Anna Maria. By cake they mean, 3 kinds of cake and some cookies and ice cream. Wow, yummy. We practiced our song that we were to sing for church the next day: "Angels..."
It was a very nice evening.

Sunday we packed up our things and put them in the hotel storage and headed to a community room in Erik's apartment complex. There were 4 others there, the church in Oslo is small. Kerstin couldn't come as one of the girls had got the stomach flu in the night. (unfortunately, Ryan caught it and was sick for Christmas) We had a very nice church service. Tore and Erik both talked. Then we had smørbrød for lunch. Erik gave Pappa and Erik a ride to our rental car location and they picked up the bags and met us at Bente's. We cleaned up their place and headed out to Porsgrunn. The rental cars were super nice, an Audi and a Nissan. Thankfully Erik asked for an upgrade and they gave it to us for free. We barely fit all 9 of us and our bags in the 2 cars.

The drive to Porsgrunn took several hours, there was some snow on the road, but not dangerous. We were so happy to see Tante Gerd, Onkel Ragnar, Ove and Hilde!!! It kept snowing all night and Erik and I took a walk in the 8 inches of powder. Gorgeous.