The day we announced to our family that we were moving to Norway, my Aunt Suzie and Grandma Mary stated that they would buy tickets and come and visit. They did buy the tickets and they did come to visit. Since I have been particularly homesick lately, I was really glad they were coming. We even asked them to bring a few items that we can’t find here in Norway (no - I didn’t have them bring me Diet Mtn. Dew…but I considered it!).NK and I had a nice trip to Oslo’s Gardermoen Airport to pick them up. True to this year’s rainy Norwegian weather, we saw rainbows on our trip to the airport. We emerged from one of the tunnels through the mountains and as drove out into the sunshine, NK saw a big rainbow stretching across the valley. NK said that it was a good luck sign. It was.
My Grandma and Suzie did a great job of staying awake for the trip back to Gjovik. After our dinner of whale steaks, they crashed. I told them that when NK and I arrived in Norway, there was no way I could keep my eyes open during the trip to Gjovik. They were bright eyed during the first full day as well. We took a day trip into the mountains west of Gjovik. We visited petroglyphs and some ancient runic inscriptions. The inscriptions were carved into some rocks near the top of a mountain. In the same area, there are Viking graves in mounds on the side of the mountain. Archeologists have found an ancient Roman sword also buried at the site. It is amazing to me that the ancient travels of commerce of Vikings and the Roman Empire intersected high on a mountain west of Gjovik.
We visited a stave church in the same area. The church was getting some restoration which considering it is an 800-year-old building, restoration is important! My Grandma, Suzie and I enjoyed walking around and looking at the church and the cemetery, which surrounds the church - as, is typical of Norway since cemeteries are a responsibility of the state church.
On the second full day of the visit, it rained all day. We enjoyed a brief outing to a green house where we looked at the flowers and plants. Many (most?) plants are familiar to me and some look like they are related species to plants I recognize from the United States. There are a few green houses close to where we live in Gjovik and I enjoy strolling around looking at the plants. It is pretty therapeutic.
During Grandma and Suzie’s visit to the Gjovik area they experienced some of the day-to-day activities that we do everyday, like shopping, driving NK to school and football (US soccer) and guitar lessons, http://www.turistinnlandet.no/english/english.php. Norway, since there are farms on the sides of mountains, and farms in terraced areas on plateaus. I recently read that only 3% of the land in Norway is farmable due to the terrain/topography. Some of the farms are so high up that they use a pulley system to get supplied to the farms.
We went to the Olympic Park in Lillehammer, http://www.lillehammerturist.no/english/winter/index.htm, where we saw athletes jumping off the ski jumps. They use some sort of rubber on the jump and they use rubber skis – so they can train all year around (without snow). We had a lot of fun shopping at all of the quaint shops in the historic downtown Lillehammer. I remember watching the Olympics in 1994 and seeing the pedestrian mall in Lillehammer jam-packed with tourists and athletes.
In Hamar, we went to see the historic ruins of a church from the Iron Age (age of the Vikings). The stone ruins are on a bluff overlooking the Mjosa Lake. Gjovik is across the lake from Hamar, but is about a 45-minute drive because there is only one bridge in the middle of the lake. There used to be a ferry across and I guess lawmakers have plans for another bridge.
We had a lot of fun buying beads at a craft shop in Hamar. For lunch we had salmon soup and homemade bread with cappuccinos. Such a Norwegian lunch! Bakeries and small cafes that offer Slow Food, organic and homemade foods are cropping-up all over the country. Here is a link to a great Slow Food site based in the US, http://www.slowfoodusa.org/change/index.html. Earlier in a post on this blog I posted a link to a slow living site. You can Google “Slow Living” or “Slow Life” or “Slow Food”. There are new sites popping-up all the time that offer great ideas for living a healthy lifestyle, uncluttered and holistic.We used the beads we bought for a craft night. We made some great necklaces and bracelets. Suzie is much craftier with beads than I am. They even found time to knit a scarf for me and mend some of NK’s clothes! I have been wearing my scarf around Norway –so fashionable!
In the late 1800’s Karl Gustafsson emigrated from Filipstad, Sweden (Sverige) to the Untied States. In the United States, Karl changed his name to Charles Vermie. Charlie Vermie’s son was Simon Vermie. Simon Vermie’s son was Wilmer Vermie. Wilmer’s son was Jack Vermie. Jack’s daughter is me;-) Sounds like the bible huh? And Abraham begat…
Charlie and one of his brothers settled in Iowa, where the bulk of my family still live. Charlie was one of nine children of Gustaf Jansson and Anna Britta Eriksdotter Jansson. Gustaf and Anna Britta lived outside Filipstad. Filipstad is in Sweden’s lake country called Varmland. On a Thursday morning, Suzie, Grandma and I left Gjovik for Sweden.
We stopped in Oslo on our way to Sweden. Each Thursday, there is an English language tour of the Akershus Castle & Fortress, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akershus_Fortress. Although I have been through the castle 3 or 4 times before, I have never taken a guided tour. Suzie, Grandma and I really enjoyed the tour. A lot of history! The castle sits on a hill above the Oslo fjord in downtown Oslo. The fortress was originally built to defend Oslo.
At the end of the tour I took off to go fetch the car. While running through the fortress I was delayed by the changing of the King’s Guard. The entire plaza was blocked by the King’s Guard for the ceremony. I snapped some great photos of the guards. The King’s Guard ride around in a little white bus with the words King’s Guard (in Norwegian) on the side of the bus. For some reason I think this is funny.
During our trip to Sweden we stayed in Karlstad, http://www.karlstad.se/eng/index.shtml. It is a nice university town. Located in the heart of Varmland, Karlstad looks like the quintessential European city with the river running through it and the cobblestone streets and the plazas and statues. We enjoyed walking through the city during a vibrant nightlife. We marveled at the architecture and the streets lined with buckeye trees, http://www.buckeyetree.net/. There were buckeyes everywhere – on streets, on sidewalks, and in our pockets. My grandpa said it was good luck to carry a buckeye. The link I have posted here on buckeyes does mention that it is believed by some people to be good luck to carry a buckeye. FYI – NK now carries a buckeye in his backpack.
For me, our drive to Filipstad was sentimental. I few years ago JH and I constructed our family trees for NK. Since I am Native American, Hispanic and of Northern European heritage (except for the guy from Czechoslovakia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Augustine_Herman). JH’s family has lived in Norway well – since people first came to Norway. We were able to trace our family histories to the late 1400’s – early 1500’s.
Since I was young, I heard my grandfather talk about being a “Swede”. Many times I had thought about visiting Filipstad. Well, the morning we left Karlstad for the one-hour drive to Filipstad we were in my car - in Sweden – driving though the forests.
Filipstad is home to the most photographed statue in Sweden. One of the photos posted here is of me with the statue. My great-great-great grandparents lived outside of town on Palandsvag. We found Palandsvag, but we couldn’t find the area we believed that Gustaf and Anna Britta lived. I pulled my car over to ask some men standing on Palandsvag. We picked the right guys to ask. After making fun of my Norwegian, one of the men told me that his wife’s grandmother was born at a house down the street and that her family had lived here for a few hundred years. After making some phone calls, he knew where the house was.
Although the house no longer exists, there was a mill and mine near the site until teenagers burned the old mill building down not too long ago. We drove another kilometer out of town and found the mining trail where the house was located. I nearly got the car stuck on the trail. But, after a journey and an adventure, we found the “old family neighborhood”. The neighborhood sits in a forest overlooking a lake. Pine and birch trees cover the site.
Full circle, my family left Scandinavia for a better life in the US, and I left the US for a better life in Scandinavia.
