May – National Day!

This spring our friends Erin and Mark from Yellowknife came to visit us with their 2 kids Elliot and Felix. They were here for National Day. National Day celebrates the separation of Norway as a free country from Denmark (Denmark and Norway were one country until they split). It’s a big deal here. On National Day all Norwegians dress up and wear very expensive costumes (dresses and suites) called bunads. There is a huge parade, which I get to march with my school. In the parade, there are tons of marching bands and floats. It seems like every Norwegian activity group and organization is marching in the parade. Here’s a short video below.

After National Day, we took the ferry from Bergen through the Sognefjord (the second longest fjord in the world) and arrived in a small town called Aurland, the home of the original penny loafer (the shoe with a penny in it). Our cabin (hytta in Norwegian) had a big balcony and great view of the fjord. It was a neat old cabin with lots secret room and hiding places. We dug around and found old soap and coo-coo clocks and lots of old stuff. There were trap doors everywhere, but we weren’t;t allowed to go down them.

 

For Erin’s birthday, we had cheese fondue and made her a chocolate cake for Dessert. The next morning we went down to the dock to go fishing. Dad and Mark went kayaking and when it got hot, we went swimming in the ice-cold water of the fjord. My Dad and I have an ongoing challenge: He promises me a batch of chocolate chip cookies if I will swim out in ice-cold water. I swam out ten meters and went completely under water. It was definitely ice cold ❄️.

We visited the orchard/goat farm and got to hang out with the goats and saw them up close with their puppy 🐶 (herding dog), which was pretty cute. That night we made a fire and cooked at the dock, and did some fishing. I didn’t catch anything though, but that’s because the area was overfished and still is☹️.

We drank fresh apple juice made from the Sjkerdal orchard and tried two types of handmade goat cheese and they were the best things I have ever tasted! It super fun!

On our last day, we took a ride up to Stegastein viewpoint to get a good look at the Fjord.

Then heading back to Bergen, we took the famous Flamsbana (Flam Railway). We had taken the train once before, but this time it was even more pretty because it was summer and made the fjord and valley look incredible.

June Adventures

My auntie Kristin came for a visit to Bergen for two weeks in June and we had a great time. We explored old Bergen and the parks and did lots of hiking! We hiked two mountains in Bergen. Below are photos of our hike up Lovstakken, one of Bergen’s seven mountains.

 

We took a ferry south to a town called Stavanger so that we could hike the famous pulpit rock (see photos below) which was very beautiful and stunning.

We got to explore the city and stay at a neat little b&b in old Stavanger, where all of the houses are on narrow cobble-stone streets. We saw the famous rainbow road, which was really pretty. The thing is, is that in old Stavanger, they can only paint there houses white, but the rainbow road is special because a guy asked the government if he could paint a road with different colors, and they let him. In Norwegian, it’s called fargegata (the color road). We got back to Bergen by boat, and we spent Canada day in the park playing a Norwegian game named kubb.

Hiking Camp

I started my week-long hiking camp on July 2nd. As part of a gang of 11-12-year-old kids, we traveled for 1.5 hours by bus to the Voss county with huge backpacks. When we arrived our first priority was swimming!! We packed our day packs and went down to the lake and went swimming and kayaking. Then we set up the tents and we made chicken wok (I did most of the cooking) and that was good. The next day we did a 4-hour hike up to a cabin called Vending, another great place to swam. We played lots of card games and had spegetti from a can. When we hiked back the next day we went to the Alexander Grieg cabin (no he is a relative to Edward Grieg) and spent two days there. I learned a bunch of new card tricks and games. there we went for a nice long hike and came back and had fish burgers and hotdogs.

These past few weeks we have been hiking Stoltzeklieven (the mountain with stone steps). It had become our new favorite. It takes 3 hours, but it’s very intense. It’s flat most of the way into you reach the steps, then it’s straight up 722 steps! 3/4 of the way up you see a sign that says: Melksyren, which mean lactic acid!

Here’s me at the top!!

Stay tuned for more adventures this summer! I’ll be heading to the cabin in Wisconsin for 3 weeks starting July 30th.

Until next time, the International Moose!