February 7, 2016

Drive Down the Coast

Sunday p.m.

Dear ones,

Yesterday was full – we decided to drive down the coast on the west side of the Oslo fjord. Get your maps out? The first touristy thing we encountered was a tunnel to the top of a ridge. It was built in a spiral of six levels – real interesting construction. The view from the top was, of course, spectacular. There is a restaurant on top but we didn’t eat.

We drove on to Horton after wandering through the streets of Holmestrand – stopped at a unique church, from 1674 built in the shape of a Y (it was locked). Horton was formerly the Navy’s headquarters, and still appeared to be an active base. Wouldn’t you know the museum was closed on Saturdays until May. We may drive down there again. Sitting in the ice in the harbor was the three-masted schooner, the Christian Radich. That would be fun to see in full sail. Vince says it is one of few schooners left in the world, and that Norway is the only country that still teaches its sailors to sail.

The church at Horton was interesting – not so old, built in 1854; an resembled First Lutheran some. Just a little ways south was another community, Borre with an old church – from the Middle Ages. Think that is 1500, give or take a hundred years. That church too was locked – think Saturday is a poor day to visit churches.

From there we went on to Tonsberg which is supposed to be the oldest city in Norway, founded in 900’s, no – at end of 9th century, would make it late 800’s. Supposedly there were ruins of 2 old castles there, one 1276 and the other 1503. It took us awhile to find the way to the ruins; we had to park the car and walk and climb. The ruins were on the top of a mountain (a little one) overlooking the town. We saw foundations, some were covered by snow, and even climbed on some of the stones; Jene wanted to find a loose piece but didn’t succeed. The climb was exercise enough to keep us warm.

From there we drove to the end of the world – Verdens ende. We didn’t stay on the main highway and drove to the end of the little road. There were huge rocks on which we could walk aways – and out there on the horizon was the North Sea. We saw a couple ships or tankers steaming on their way out there. All hard to describe – but impressive. By then, the sun was about set so we turned around and came back home. Guess it was almost seven when we got back.

The rest of the week was rather quiet. My cold didn’t get worse and didn’t settle into a cough. I’m fine again. Wednesday I decided to go back to the University Library – the walk from the trikk to the Library wasn’t as bad as the other time – only about 2 blocks were icy this time. The book I thought I would read wasn’t on the shelf so I found a different one. Did find a few names and dates I didn’t have before. Oslo had a fairly big fire on Wednesday – a couple of buildings downtown burned. Took 7 hours to bring under control. Vince could see the smoke from the Univ, which is some distance. Jene had to walk right by it on her way to class. It was cold – the water froze!

We went to church at Osteras this morning – it was communion. I could understand “Dette er Jesus legeme; deter er Jesus blod” so guess that was all we needed. Vince probably understood more. When we got home, we had a phone call from Oddvar – we arranged to meet him close to Krakstad at 4:30. He took us to meet a lady who makes bunads. I may get another one – from that area. This one has a lot of hand embroidery on, so it seems wise to let a native make it. This lady served us coffee, cookies and apple tarts, as close to apple pie as you will get in Norway. It was good but probably not a good substitute for super. We got home before 9; I heated up some homemade soup – such was our dinner.

Tomorrow I order tickets for the World Cup Ski Jumping Competition on Mar. 16 – on Holmenkollen. Watch for us on the Sports show – who knows?

Heard from Mark and Amy last week – they sound busy.

Love, Verla and Vince

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