Norway in a Nutshell: Oslo-Myrdal-Flam-Gudvangen

Those Norwegians, they are clever, I tell ya. They know that most of us normal folk can not afford their country, so they created this travel plan that lines up various legs of public transit options and they sell it as a "tour" of Norway. You can actually do the entire Nutshell in one day (if you leave Oslo at 6:25 am and return to it at 11 pm and spend no more than 20 minutes in any one location.) Our plan was to go as far as Gudvangen in one day and then spend a few nights resting there before doing the return leg. So we left our apartment at 5 am and rode the bus to the main train station in Oslo where we boarded that 6:25 train for the 5 hour ride to Myrdal.

 

When I bought our tickets, I noticed something called a family car, so I chose seats there.... Score!!  The family room has a playroom type lounge with cartoons, picture books, and a little climbing area.  The kids spent most of the ride there (playing with a little boy from State College, PA!), which meant that Rob and I enjoyed a surprisingly peaceful ride.

 

The highest altitude point of this train ride is in Finse.  The train stopped for 15 minutes so we could all pile out and take some photos at 1,222 meters above sea level.  See the itty bitty cross country skiers?

 

Lovely day for shorts, isn't it? 

 (The kids opted to stay in the playroom.)

 

 

Sometimes we made them take a break and look at scenery out the window or eat a snack.  Amelie was the only one to take any sort of nap at all.

 

At Myrdal we switched trains to the Flamsbana railway which would take us us back down to sea level in about an hour.  The train stopped at this beautiful waterfall, where again we all piled out to take some photos (kids included this time.)

 

Pictures like this are priceless. Do I really need to say that it was wet and windy right there?

 

To add a layer of surrealness, some tourist board thought that what was needed here was a person spinning and dancing in the mist while they blared folk music at us.  Very strange, but oddly amusing.

 

All the way down we just snapped pictures of the incredible views out the windows.

 

Until we finally reached Flam. 

 

Here we arrived at the famous fjords!  

Formed by glaciers, the fjords can be as deep as the surrounding peaks are high and actually get more shallow as they approach the ocean (as the glaciers melted and were less thick and heavy.)  

 

We boarded the next ferry headed to Gudvangen. This took us up one side and down the other side of a V shaped route (the Sognefjord and Naereyfjord).

 

Not long after we got on the ferry it began to drizzle, but we were still smiling.

 

We bought the starving children some sausages wrapped in bacon and cheese and juice boxes.

 

When the rain really started to come down the kids took shelter in the dining area and colored their free coloring books they received on the Flamsbana train.

 

Rob and I kept our eye on the goal which was to SEE the fjords, so we took turns venturing out to gaze at misty mountains and waterfalls... and to take photos.

 

We found a fellow BYU grad to take one for us as well. (Don't worry, we could see the kids at all times through the big glass windows of the dining room.)

 

At the end of our 2 hour ferry ride, we arrived in the teeny tiny town of Gudvangen, population 120. From here we had to walk about 2 km to the Gudvangen campground where we had booked 2 nights in a family cabin so that we could explore the area a bit more on foot.  The first leg of our Nutshell tour was complete!

There's Nor way we can a-fjord this place!

I hope you like terrible puns! Anyway, Rob first brought up the idea of going to Norway to visit the fjords about eight years ago. I started to plan a trip, and got sticker shock and put it on the back burner.  From time to time I have begun planning this trip again, and gotten sticker shock and run away again. Norway is so expensive. We have a travel budget, and it was hard to commit so much money to such a short trip, but we finally took the plunge and flew to Oslo to start our Norway in a Nutshell tour.

 

We arrived on Friday afternoon and dropped our bags at our airbnb apartment before heading to Frogner Park.(That sounds like it was easy to do, but it wasn't! It involved a $60 bus ride from the airport, followed by a long walk to a subway station, where we paid about $50 for a 24 hour transit pass, followed by another long walk. Thankfully the days are long in Norway at the end of May.)

Frogner Park is filled with sculptures made by Gustav Vigeland.  He made a deal with the government in the 1920s that if they would give him a posh studio and place to live, he would spend his career beautifying this public space. He generally sculpted out of clay and then cast in bronze, or utilized a group of stone carvers to create the finished products.  The fountain pictured above shows men metaphorically bearing the burden that holds the source of life- water. All around the fountain are trees teeming with life- like this one brimming with babies. Others show people in various stages of life until there are just bones fertilizing the tree of life at the end of your circuit around the fountain. (My interpretations anyway.)

 

Up the hill from the fountain is the Monolith.

 

This is the view across the bridge toward downtown from near the Monolith.

 

And here is the Monolith itself. It took 3 stone carvers 14 years to complete, working 6 days a week. It is about 46 feet high, carved into a single piece of granite and shows 121 individual people.

 

On the stairs all around the monolith are simplified human sculptures in various poses showing human relationships.  My favorite, which I didn't get a picture of, is of a woman down on all fours. Her braid is being used as a bridle by two toddlers riding on her back. I know the feeling.

 

The bridge is lined by 58 bronze sculptures further illustrating the human condition.  The most famous is this angry boy. The story is that Vigeland gave the model some chocolate, and then took it away to get this reaction. I know this feeling too.  (Apparently people rub his one hand for luck?)

 

After we had our fill of outdoor art, we found an outdoor cafe in the park and ordered some pizzas and enjoyed the fresh air.  It was about 8 or 9 pm by this point and beginning to drizzle.  And we had a long trek back to our apartment yet.

 

But there is always time to stop at the playground, right?

 

Riding the tram back to the apartment waaaay past bedtime.  Little did we realize this super long day would not be the only one of its kind on this trip!

Burg Eltz

One of the best things about living in Germany has got to be waking up on a Saturday morning and thinking, "We have nothing to do today... let's go see a castle." So yesterday that is what we did. I had been wanting to visit Burg Eltz for a while, but it is closed to visitors for half the year, and we had just never made it there. It is about an hour and a half drive from our house, and Rick Steve's has named it his favorite castle interior in Europe, so I knew we had to go there eventually.

 

The 20 minute walk from the car park to the castle is part of the fun. (There is also a shuttle option.) You walk all downhill through the forest until you come into sight of the castle. It is very Hansel and Gretel feeling. The kids picked flowers, caught bugs, and we were even treated to a view of a snake on our (all uphill) way back to the car.

 

First view of the castle.  

This image used to be on the back of the 500 Deutsche Mark bill.

 

Burg Eltz is one of only a few castles in Germany that has never been destroyed.  Even more amazingly, it has remained in the ownership of the Eltz family since the 12th century (over 33 generations!)

 

We bought our tickets and waited for the next English tour to begin in this courtyard. It is so pretty.  I love the stonework, half-timbered portions, lanterns, turrets.  Seriously adorable.

 

Sadly, no photos are allowed inside.  I stole the two above from the official Burg Eltz website. The tour takes you through a bedroom, children's room (with crazy old fashioned toys,) kitchen (with crazy cookware,) bathroom (with a toilet flushable with rainwater collected on the roof,) ladies room, dining room, chapel, hunting room (somebody really liked to hunt bears and elk,) and a few others that I am not remembering names for. 

Our tickets also included a visit to the treasury, which holds antiques, dishes, and the armory. And notice the fresh flowers on the table? Apparently, the "Lady of the house" makes sure that there are always fresh arrangements throughout the castle for her visitors (aka all of us tourists.) Isn't that just lovely?

 

"Have fun storming the castle!" 

After our tour we enjoyed some bratwurst, soft pretzels, and pommes frites. The food was tasty and surprisingly affordable for a tourist destination.

 

Burg Eltz is definitely going on my top ten castles list. 

(I have never actually written a top 10 castles list, but maybe I will!) Come visit us, and I'll take you to see it. (Also, when did Charlotte and Toby get so tall?)

making allowances

I don't want to come across on this blog as bragging or trying to look like I have it all together, when clearly I do not.  This has always been (for nearly 10 years now, holy smokes!) a place where I store the things that I want to remember, where I share our experiences, travels, and small victories with our families and friends, and where I can tell myself that I am not doing absolutely everything wrong.  With that in mind, I'd like to share our latest scheme for teaching the kiddos about money.

Over the years, we have tried several different things: just handling the money for them (after all they are pretty little yet,) paying them for doing certain jobs, paying them a general allowance based on a short list of jobs, buying them a thing that they want and having them "work it off" to pay for it afterwards.  But none of these has felt like it was really helping them to develop a sense of earning and saving money in the real world. We also have tried (sometimes) to have them pay 10% tithing on their earnings and this has involved a lot of fiddling with pennies and been dreadfully tedious to keep track of.  But we think it is terribly important that we teach them how to handle money, and so we keep trying to find a better way.

Then in January I read this blog post by a Mennonite blogger that I follow.  It seemed like a workable concept for us, with just a little bit of tweaking. (I made my own simplified account books for each child, we give a 1:1 exchange rate on every currency, and I am the "banker.") The best part of this system is that it involves little to NO CASH.  Just like in the real world.  Ha!

On the first of each month, I write in their allowance as a deposit into their account. They receive the number of dollars that their current age is. We have not implemented her "waiting period" as our kids are rarely in stores and for souvenirs on trips that just isn't practicable. We also have the flexibility of having them pay their tithing when we have cash on us for them to do so (whether that be once every two months or whatever) as we can easily see when they last paid their tithing and help them to calculate what they owe.

I still have a "Jobs for Hire" board that they can access to earn additional funds if they desire as well. And don't think I'm a totally heartless Mommy; we pay for all of their needs- clothing, food, school supplies, etc and do purchase them each one small souvenir when we travel, and ice cream cones, and sports and dance fees, and have lots of fun family experiences. But beyond that, if they want something, they have to pay for it themselves.  (If we keep it up, as they get older and their allowance becomes larger, we may have them begin to pay for some of these items themselves.) With this system I can just pay for it and deduct it from their account.  So easy.

It has been gratifying, especially in the last month, to have some experiences with the kids that show me that they are thinking about money and starting to develop an understanding of what things really cost.  From Jake asking me the price of every toy he sees, and then deciding to NOT spend his allowance because we are going on a trip in a few weeks and he wants to save it for then.  To Charlotte asking me to order her Harry Potter Book 5 on Amazon, because it is cheaper than the price in the store. To Toby, my sweet, mellow, quiet Toby, HAGGLING with a vendor in Slovenia and getting a price lowered from 5 Euros down to 3 Euros.

So, this is working for us, and I thought I would share our little success in case it might help someone else.

baseball and ballet

This Spring Toby is playing coach pitch baseball. He has the same coach as last year and is improving his swing and his fielding skills.

 

He plays on the Seattle Mariners team of 7-8 year olds. Their games are one hour long, which means they only play 1-2 innings.  Which is fantastic in my opinion. I don't look forward to four hour games someday, but I do love seeing my little Buddy all suited up as a little leaguer.

 

Charlotte has also made a return to ballet this Spring.  She had her recital last weekend and danced beautifully.

 

I took these pictures at the dress rehearsal. Charlotte really does have a natural grace to her that I envy.

 

I love seeing my little ballerina dance!

 

And Jake is back for more t-ball this Spring.  Last year, when Jake was just 3, Toby's coach snuck him on to Toby's team of 5-6 year olds and he blended right in, but clearly our 4 year old was not going to be able to keep up with the 7-8 year olds. So he has had to make do with developmental t-ball for the 3-4 year old crowd. It is really just a once a week skills thing, and he is super bored by it.  But he is still happy to have a team shirt to wear. This southpaw is ready for the big leagues, or at least actual t-ball, next year.

FHE gone awry

So, our church recommends that families carve out some time to spend together on Monday evenings, and that is referred to as Family Home Evening. We have only ever been sporadic about doing this, until this year, and I am proud to say that we have had FHE every Monday (that we have been home) so far this year!  That might not excite you, but it is a serious accomplishment in my book.  So our usual agenda goes like this:

Announcements and family meeting: This is when we look at the calendar for the week and determine who is driving where when and if the kids have any school projects or the grown-ups have anything they want blocked out on the calendar.  We also answer any questions the kids have about plans on the calendar. (For example, they would really like me to make a beach trip happen this Summer.) We rotate who is in charge each week (including Amelie getting a turn) and this helps them learn how to be in charge of a meeting and make assignments.

Opening song and opening prayer:  Yes, we actually sing with Rob playing the piano. The children are also learning how to lead music. I LOVE this and look forward to when Charlotte will be able to play the piano for us someday.

Lesson: The kids take turns preparing this as well.  We keep it short and simple- a story from the Bible or Book of Mormon and what we can learn from it.  Maybe a coloring page.

Treat: The kids look forward to this and I try to make something special, whether it be Smores, ice cream, hot cocoa, or carrot cake.

Activity: We do something fun together. This year we have gone for walks, played board games, played outside games like Petanque, and red light/ green light, sung songs, written a family constitution, done yard work, etc.

So that is Family Home Evening.

 

One lovely Monday night recently we decided to walk to the duck pond near our house and feed the ducks for our activity.  I brought the camera because I wanted a picture of the Fasanerie all filled with these white wildflowers.

 

The weather was cool, but Springy and sunny.

 

The duck pond looked very picturesque.

 

And we were even lucky enough to see a family of ducks with all of these cute little ducklings.

 

And then this happened.  

Immediately after I took the duck picture above, Amelie went head over heels into the pond... which was surprisingly deep at the edge.  This picture apparently happened in my rush to get to her.

 

Rob jumped in and pulled her out unharmed, though somewhat freaked out and a whole lot wet and smelling like a duck pond.

 

 

I had on a t-shirt and had a sweatshirt with me, so I took off the t-shirt and made a temporary dry dress for Amelie to walk home in. Just another memorable FHE!