Fjord and Farm

On Friday June 26th we got up, had breakfast at the hotel, then called a cab. We had debated walking to the ferry terminal, which was only 4 blocks from the hotel in Frederikshavn, and had even gone there the night before to get our bearings (so we thought). It was a good thing we called a cab, because we would have ended up in the wrong place on the pier if we had walked. So, needless to say, we got on the ferry without trouble and were soon on our way to Oslo.

We both had been a bit worried about this crossing because it is the route that my dad got so sick on a number of years ago. However, our trip was very smooth, and the boat very big, so we hardly felt the movement of the waves at all. Our ferry seemed to be over-run with children, there were kids everywhere. Probably families heading off on summer vacation. One of the most bizarre sights involving kids on the ferry was watching adults playing the slot machines with their children or grandchildren. One time a little girl was pulling the arm on the slot machine with her dad (I assumed) feeding it coins. Wouldn’t you know they hit a jackpot, and lots of coins came out. I thought “Way to go dad, now you’ve shown your kid that gambling can pay off, perhaps establishing an addictive behaviour for life."

As with most of our trip, the weather that day was beautiful. Sailing down the Oslo fjord we noticed lots of little boats enjoying the perfect boating weather. There were many motorboats, often coming alongside the ferry for a bit to wave at the people on board. There were some sailboats, both large and small, and even a racing boat that went by us at an incredible speed (I think I managed to snag a shot but won’t know until I process my slide film). A few of the boats got too close to the ferry and as a result got a blast from the ferry’s fog horn. Apparently the ferry captains hate all the small boats clogging up their sailing lanes, that certainly was the case that day.

Once we disembarked we found my mom’s cousin Sissel waiting for us at the Ferry Terminal. We loaded our stuff in their van, and then she toured us around Oslo a bit, showing us many of the main sights in central Oslo. After a little of this we headed out to the farm she lives on with her husband Terje. Their farm is near a village called Lø ken (about an hours drive north-east of Oslo). Many years ago (in 1980) I stayed at this farm for a few days after being in Europe on a choir tour. The farm looked as lovely as ever, and now Sissel and Terje’s younger son lives in the house where Terje’s parents used to live. (Actually this is not technically correct because it is a new house. They story is that they were going to renovate the house, but the timber and beams were in rough shape so it was better to tear it down and build from scratch, which is what they did except they built an exact replica of the original house - only a little bit larger, and with radiant heating in the floors and other modern construction techniques. However the old house continues to exist in a form - Sissel and Terje saved many items from the old house, such as windows, and built a little summer house - like a gazebo but in the shape of a little house - and they placed old furniture and such items from the old house in it - see the picture).

Terje had been away at a funeral in the south part of Norway that day, but when he returned home we had a lovely supper with shrimp, eggs and peas in a cream sauce on some pastry shells (Terje’s favourite). It was very pleasant visiting and catching up on all the family news. Here the sun is still up in the sky quite late (Oslo is at the 60th parallel, the same as the northern border of Saskatchewan and Alberta - thus while not quite the land of the midnight sun, it was certainly light late into the evening and early in the morning. This was something that would take a bit getting used to.