The report on the coffee bar: very expensive! In fact, everything on the ferry was for sale, and everything was expensive! There we tax-free Legos, but even without tax, they were still extremely spendy. Back in our tiny "economy cabin" we marvelled over the priceless artwork adorning the wall, which we both agreed belonged aside The Night Watch in the Rijksmuseum (oh, yeah, we forgot to mention that we went there in Amsterdam to see some Rembrandt!). I've attached a picture of this painting below... just imagine how this work of art would help you if you were, by chance, seasick. We missed the chance to watch our arrival in Norway from the deck, because we were sound alseep in our cabin, and the ship-wide wakeup call was a bit late. Oops! We will surely see much of Norway and will be able to pass on a better impression of it throughout the coming month, but if the area surrounding Oslo is any indication, we are in for a lot of trees, hills and water. It's very green, sunny, and beautiful here.
But I digress. Our first task when we pedalled off the ship was to find a telephone and call Meghan's friend John Krahn. John is a Canadian who had visited Plow Creek many years ago (14 to be exact, when Meghan was 10 years old!) and then moved to Norway, where he lives now with his wife Hilde, and their three (beautiful and charming) daughters: Katinka, Tiril, and Frieda. We reached John on a payphone at the ferry terminal where he gave us directions to their home, in a close suburb to Oslo. The bicycle routes in Norway are not as organized as those in Holland and Belgium, but they exist nonetheless. Once we figured out the route, we had only to ride to their house, and we were immediately made to feel like part of the family.
Shortly after arriving, we accompanied John, Tiril and Frieda on a trip to the grocery store, and learned first hand that Norway is a very expensive place to live (especially if you subsist on maple syrup, which was sold in a smallish bottle for roughly 15 US dollars.) For lunch we were introduced to a typical (and delicious) Nowegian meal/snack. I would call it shrimp on toast, except the bread was just buttered, not toasted. The shrimp were cooked slightly before we bought them at the store- scalded, I think- and then frozen. We just let them unthaw, and then we learned to dismantle them to get at the meat inside. It was the first time Meghan had eaten shrimp with a head on, but we learned the technique quickly, even though we moved quite a bit slower than John. Anyway, the process was quite simple- shell enough shrimp to cover a small slice of baguette or bread. Then spread butter on the bread, place the shrimp on top, squeeze a small dab of mayonnaise on the shrimp, and a drizzle of lemon juice on top, and eat it! Meghan adds: I must confess that the eyes of the shrimp were a bit disconcerting, but it tasted delicious! Lunch time reminded me very much of lunch with Grandpa Tore and Grandma Kay, with open faced sandwiches topped with butter, mayo, thin meat and goat cheese. The goat cheese here is the real deal... the dark, sweet kind! Among the small cultural differences we have been delighted by during this trip, we found out that because the Norwegians take open faced sandwiches in their lunch, an important kitchen item is a small square of wax paper that is used to separate the top of one sandwich from the bottom of another when stacked. John told us a hilarious story about his first sighting of these papers, when his burgeoning Norwegian language skills caused him to misread the label on the box, making them appear to be some sort of "beetween the leg papers". Land of the vikings indeed, he thought!
In addition to eating, which it seems we have done a lot of the last two days, we played with the family's rabbits, jumped on the trampoline (practicing my front-flips), got tickled many times, played tic-tac-toe, and picked cherries. LOTS of cherries. The Krahns have a neighbor with a very productive cherry tree. The neighbors went on vacation just when all the cherries became ripe, so we went out with a ladder and the Norwegian equivalent of ice cream buckets- they're more like ice cream boxes- and picked cherries. They are so tasty and delicious! Today has been more of the same- playing all kinds of games, learning some Norwegian from Tiril, picking more cherries, and scouring the road maps for an acceptable bike routes for the road ahead. The capstone of the evening was watching Mr. Bean's Holiday with Norwegian subtitles. If you have ever seen a Mr. Bean movie, you know why it is a highlight. If you have never seen a Mr. Bean movie, you should watch one immediately!
Basically, we have done a lot of playing and relaxing in the last two days, and it has been wonderful! Actually, all the playing has been interspersed with really interesting conversations with John & Hilde. John has all kinds of insights about the differences between America (meaning the US and Canada combined) and Norway, and we were enthusiastic listeners. While everyone here at the Krahn's speaks english, they don't generally speak it amonst themselves, so we have had a great time listening in. Just as Thijs in Amsterdam corrected our pronunciation of Brugge ( It's pronounced "broo-hugh", with a gutteral gh at the end, not "brooj"), the girls corrected our understanding of Copenhagen (which we say "co-pen-hay-gen") to reflect the spelling and pronunciation they use, which is København (pronounced "sho-bn-ha-vn"). Meghan adds: Word of the PAPA Festival people (including the Psalters) has spread here, and John is looking forward to seeing Shane Claiborne speak at a festival here in Norway later this summer! I've also left my copy of Shane's new book for John to read then perhaps pass on.
The Krahns are leaving on vacation tomorrow morning, and we will leave also. We will go southwest to Drammen, where Uncle Cato lives, and from there to our WWOOF farm in Hauggrend.
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