Meeting the Family

One of the most important parts of this trip is having the opportunity to meet some of the far-flung members of our family. We certainly won't meet all of them, but we are making a concerted effort to meet many of them, and we started this week! After our days in Oslo, we took the train down to the dramatic valleys and beautiful waters of southern Norway to stay a week with my distant cousin and his family. Technically, this cousin is actually my father's second cousin, but a few generations back we came from such large families--my Oldefar (great-grandfather) was one of nine brothers, and my Oldemor (great-grandmother) was one of ten siblings--that many those in Dad's generation are about my age, and have young children in my generation. That is the case here, where the daughter in the family--my third cousin--is about eleven. All three members of the family welcomed us warmly and provided a wonderful combination of comfort and adventure during our stay.  I was excited to find out that my cousin's wife shares many of the same interests in art, handicrafts and decor that I do! We spent several happy evenings chatting about them.

We were truly impressed by the scenery in the area! The local Norwegians assured us that we would be less impressed if we had been visiting in the fog and dark of winter, but we had made sure not to try that experience, so we just got to gaze in wonder! Here, for example, is the view our family wakes to in the mornings in the summer:

Maybe its just the geologist in me, but I was wonderstruck! If one takes a bit of a drive (which we did), one can also visit the beautiful Kvås waterfalls:

Apparently this was a low flow volume due to the lack of rain in southern Norway this summer (unlike the rest of the country). If more regular volumes had been passing through, photography would have been impossible without a watertight camera due to the amount of spray!

Our hosts took us on two travelling adventures during our stay: The first was to Setesdal's Mineral Park, and the second was to Dyreparken (a combined zoo and amusement park). Both were fantastic!

At the mineral park, they've done a great job of combining large-scale displays outdoors of different Norwegian rock samples and of sculptures made from said rocks, and small-scale mineral displays indoors which showcase beautiful mineral samples from Norway and around the world.

Remember that the Three Billy Goats Gruff were Norwegian? Here they were again, with the cowering troll (perhaps not looking too scary this time) under the bridge.

 This enormous cluster of calcite was just one of the beautiful mineral samples collected in five indoor galleries that were carved out of the hillside behind the main entrance and mineral shop.

On the way home, the mist was coming in over one of the lakes, so I had to stop for a picture:

At Dyreparken we got a preview of some of the animals we hope to see in Africa, as they had a large enclosure where giraffes, zebra and several antelopes could graze. There were also animals from other parts of the world where we won't be visiting this year--like Siberia to check out the tigers, for example. We especially enjoyed the Norwegian section, though, where we saw lynx, moose, arctic fox (called fjellrev, or mountain fox here), deer, otters, wolverines, and a brief glimpse of grey wolves running off into the distance. The moose was one of the most obliging of the group, however, as this fellow was just hanging out by the fence, waiting to have his picture taken.

The amusement portion of the park was a clever balance of fairytale characters for the little ones, adventuresome pirates for those slightly older, and a carnival complete with stomach-churning rides for those tall (and foolish) enough. Only one of us was brave enough to go on this ride, and it wasn't the one typing this post!

He's up there somewhere!





One of the very clever things they did at the park was to create entire villages in the shapes of buildings, etc. from children's programs, then turn some of those into rooms and small apartments where people can stay overnight. It has contributed impressively to the appeal of the park to people who must travel a long distance with small children to visit it. As such, there is a full pirate village as well as Kardemommeby, a village from a book (later a TV show) about daily life and its childhood lessons.

Most important was the only law in town, roughly translated to be that one must be pleasant to others, not hurt anyone, and otherwise do as one wished.

The tower in the picture is the home of Tobias, the weatherman, who looked out his telescope to determine the weather. As you can see, the bakery was very popular with the visitors to the village.

This time, the impressive views on the way home were not only of the natural variety, but of the architectural, as we took a drive through Kristiansand with its traditional whiteboard houses, stately church, and very non-traditional performing arts center: