Apr 3: It’s a jolly holiday with Karen (& Erin & Anya)

This morning I drove Karen (my Trinity coworker who teaches in the Business Department) to the airport, sending her back to the USA. As we had a rental car for our trip to Bergen, we extended it a day for the airport drop off and mid-day travels (next paragraph). With each taxi trip to/from the airport being $50, we can put that into a car rental with more opportunities.

With the car, we took off south for some Hanson family heritage. My mother-in-law did some genealogy work a few years ago. I highlighted all the town names I could and searched for them in Google Earth, marking pins for the 2 sides of the Eric’s family.

I also scanned her book, so I had a copy here on my laptop. Some dates go back to the 1500s!

We arrived in Ivesdal, just at the end of their Good Friday service. (We did look online to see if we could find a service time, but this little church didn’t have a website that we found.) We walked up an found gracious help to connect us with relatives!

Our gracious helper and translator on the left is viewing the scanned family history to help translate to the 4th or 5th cousin twice removed (by my rough estimates!) on the right. His grandfather had two brothers who went to North Dakota. I have visited the relatives there (Edmore area), but even more amazing is that the little Odalen church in Edinburgh was one I visited several times as part of the camp staff at Park River Bible Camp. This is where Anya’s maternal great-grandmother is buried. The pastor (center) came to share in the stories. He attended MHS as well, and Knut was his Old Testament teacher. Small world!

Then I showed them the painting that hangs on my in-law’s guest bedroom on my iPhone. This was meaningful, because he said that his grandfather helped build the church and he worked there as caretaker for 50 years.

I didn’t quite get the right angle, but here is is today.

Ivesdal is a stunningly beautiful area with steep mountain cliffs which descend to a large, crystalline lake, nestled into green meadows with an occasional colorful farm house and barn. Here’s the Google map link.

So, prior to today, we didn’t know any of our relatives in Norway. Being 4th and 5th generation Norwegian-American means those who have had personal connections have died. How cool to meet him!

We returned home at about 2, and I was ready for a nap. I awoke and figured out plans to get the rental car back to the airport and learned that city buses aren’t running from airport–at least this afternoon–because of Good Friday. Yup, I drove myself there and walked back, which takes just under 2 hours. It was a beautiful day, and I figure I just paid myself $25 an hour to walk a couple hours (instead of paying $50 for a taxi). As it was probably holiday taxi rates, I also would have earned holiday rates! Yes, I’m guessing that it would be $32 a hour! Whoo hoo!

I’ll have to give you highlights from our past few days with Karen. She really did bring things to life and make it a jolly holiday. She also had a Mary Poppins-like purse that seemed to hold everything! So, come back for reflections and pictures of beautiful Bergen and more!

With blessings,

Beth