Our Genealogy Tour - Destination Norway! (Part One)

This one is going to be a hard post because we spent three days in Norway and visited so many places. It was gorgeous! The people were so friendly and helpful and the food was fantastic. What I'll do is split it up into three parts... Gjovik, Ness, and The Borstad Farm.

I was so busy taking a picture of this bridge that I missed the Norway sign! But this is the border between Sweden and Norway.

Again there were a lot of bikes, and a lot of farms, but there were a LOT more hills and tunnels. You could see immediately how travel in the winter would be difficult. 

We stayed at a hostel but since there were four of us we were able to get one of the cabins. It was much more private even though it was small. There were two bunk beds, a small kitchen and a small living room with a couch and a bathroom. I took pictures but I promised my family I wouldn't post them. Here is a view of the outside.

This is what they called the "pool" but it was really more of a lake!

This is inside the common rooms of the hostel.

They served a pretty normal European breakfast here in the mornings, except that they had caviar in tubes. I'm guessing caviar isn't so expensive there due to all the fishing? And since it was in a tube it was probably discount caviar LOL!

The first thing we did was meet up with a distant cousin of my husband's who still lives in Gjovik, Norway. She came and picked us up and took us on a tour of the town. She showed us the harbor, the lefse factory, the glass factory and the church and cemetery (which used to be Vardal).

It rained off and on a lot while we were visiting. It was almost like Baumholder. One minute the sun was shining and the next it was foggy or raining and then back to sun again. I didn't mind though. It was gorgeous there even in the rain.

We were informed that they have weddings on this ship!

There were boats everywhere in Norway. I fell in love!

The Vardal Church/Cemetery

Hehehe! This sign cracked me up. It was at the mall.

At Aud's house; she has grand daughters so she had lots of dolls for Hailey to play with and dress up. She was in heaven. 

She invited us to coffee later at her home which turned out to be a feast of traditional Norweigen foods. The only think I didn't try was the beer because in Norway there is zero tolerance for driving and drinking. You can't have anything to drink if you are driving. I even tried horse meat! It was actually good. Just don't tell anyone ;)

The spread they put out for us! I am so grateful for all they did for us. They were unbelievable nice. I intend to send them a thank you gift eventually.

Cousins from another Country!

We stocked up on the lefse and meat at the grocery store the next day.

This was the horse meat along with other types of meat.