More travels than time....

Time has flown by, and we have finally made it into a place where we have wireless again! So I suppose this update shall be quite lengthy, though hopefully we will be updating more often after this.

Since Bergen a lot has happened. On Monday Margunn drove us from Os to Berge to visit my uncle and his family. The drive is about 4 hours, but we had a few stops on the way which was nice. The first was on a ferry, and then we stopped at my dad's cousin, Magne's, house to say hi and eat our lunch since it was his 60th birthday. We continued on to Berge, and stopped at the place my grandparents/a bunch of other relatives are buried. Once we got to Berge, Corey and I walked around a bit, and checked out the farm, and the view of course.
We all sat down to a nice dinner where Corey and I just listened to a bunch of people talking around us, while we shoved our face full of food. After dinner, Per Trugve (my uncle) and Leiv Magne (my cousin) took us up to a place where the cows used to be taken for the summer. Luckily there was a road most the way up as it was a very steep climb, but we still had to trudge up the last little bit. The view from up there was beautiful, and we got lots of nice pictures.
The next day (the 23rd for those keeping track) we hopped on a bus, and rode for 8 hours to Drammen, really about as fun as it sounds. The only good thing was that it didn't seem to take that long. Once we got there, my Aunt Kjellaug Maria and her husband Per Ove picked us up and we went on a little walk before heading back to their house for some dinner. After that we went up a spiral tunnel through the middle of the mountain that took us to the top to see over Drammen.

On the 24th we headed into Oslo, first we stopped at the viking museum to look at some rad boats from about 850 AD. Then we walked down to the water and took a pedestrian ferry into Oslo, where we went up and looked at the Royal Palace. We stood around and watched the changing of the guard, which was quite long. We felt bad for the people in uniforms because it was so hot out for us, and they were wearing many more layers.
After Oslo we went back to Drammen, and then the next day we left for Glasgow. We stopped along our drive to visit my cousin Tor Einar at his work. We hung out for a while, and then watched him blow up some rocks. It was pretty fun, though since it was in the city, the explosion was quite tame.

Our flight to Glasgow was nice, and short, and we arrived at the place we were staying quite easily. The 26th we took a little walk around Glasgow, checking out the buildings, and visiting some of the shops. Then the morning of the 27th just as we were leaving the city, we went on a tour of the Glasgow school of Art. That building was very neat, and very detailed. We both enjoyed it a lot. Sadly we could not take pictures inside, but I promise it was rad.
Finally on the 27th we reached Edinburgh. After getting off the train it seem like a million miles before we reached our hostel. Our hostel was cool though as it was in an old church. We dropped off our bags and rushed to the Scottish Parliment. We sadly made it 15 minutes after the last tour, but were still able to see the chamber. Then we walked around the city for a while, and took a ton of pictures. And now we are nearly caught up. Today, we woke up and went to the Royal Botanical Gardens where they had many very pretty plants and great landscape. We then walked around the city some more and took some pictures of everything, including Dynamic Earth, and the exterior of the Parliment. Then this evening we caught a train to Newcastle where we are couchsurfing for the first time. Our hosts have been great so far, and are very lovely people. Tomorrow is more walking and pictures.... let's just hope my body holds together, as I'm feeling more and more like my feet will fall off soon. That is all for now, hopefully we should have internet until the end of the trip now... If not we will have it tomorrow and then at least get it again on Friday, so keep in touch!!


Heather and Corey

A quick note

Just writing a quick note as we wait to board the plane to Glasgow. We had a great time visiting Norway, and seeing a lot of my family. Soon we will post the pictures and stories from the past three days, though be warned there are a lot of them. We visited Berge, where my family is from, and then took a long bus ride to Drammen to meet an Aunt who took us around Oslo where we met a couple more cousins and another aunt. A very eventful week, but now we begin our journey through the UK, starting in Scotland and working our way down.

Heather and Corey

A Beautiful Day in Bergen

This blog is going to be a bit long but it will be almost a week or maybe a little longer until we are able to write another.

Today, we were showed around Bergen by our great hosts Margunn and Gunnleiv. We were also accompanied by Ingfrid, Gunnleiv's sister.

To start off the day we were treated to a proper Norwegian breakfast which consists of various bread and/or crackers with many different toppings: sliced meats, jams, cheeses, etc. served open on the bread. Juice, and tea were offered drinks too. To top it off there was the most delicious mayonnaise that comes in a container like a tube of toothpaste here, yum!

We all headed to the Edvard Grieg Museum where we saw his home in it's original form (perfectly maintained of course) and his grave site as well (which instead of being dug down was cut into a 15 meter cliff side). There was also an amazing small concert hall we were able to go into. This nicely designed building included green roofs and what seemed at eye's glace to be a great acoustical space.

From the Museum, we drove then walked up to fantoft stavkyrkjen, an authentic Norwegian church. The church was originally build in 1150 but burned down in 1992. By 1997 the church was replicated in its original footprint to as-close-to exact originality. It was a beautiful church that really gave me an insight to historic Norwegian architecture.

Next stop, we picked up Ingfrid. From her apartment we could see all of Bergen from above. It was a magnificent view.

After the pick up, we began our tour of the Bergen central. We first took a lightrail up a steep mountain to a famous lookout where we could see all of Bergen from an aerial view. Almost 180 degrees of clear line of site was possible. Lunch next: RudolfSuppe (Reindeer Soup) for me and a chicken soup for Heather. We shot a few pictures of Johanneskerken (a gothic like church in town). We passed the fish market and looked at a new ship docked in Bergen worth a grand total of $300 million (currently the 6th most expensive yatch in the world). A gorgeous three masted yatch caught my attention as well. A stroll by Bryggen took us way back to year 1770 when we saw the leaning houses lining the street. Next to these is a fortress (Rosenkrantz and Håkenshallen) with several old buildings in it. The wall was very cool, it still had the old cannon openings that have a small hole for the barrels of the cannon. Apparently there is still a building in Bergen that has a cannonball in one of its walls from during the war.

That concluded our day tour of Bergen. Once we got back to Gunnliev's home, Margunn gave a very cute cake for our getting married. It was adorable and very tasty with a white cake and fruit cream filling in between.

We Made it to Norway!!!

So our journey through Europe has begun...

At 6am on Friday we left Moscow, as my parents drove us to the Seattle Airport. We arrived at the airport at about 11:30 and quickly made it through all the security and onto the plane. The first flight went from Seattle to Paris, and surprisingly it was a lot nicer than I had expected. The flight attendants were quite nice, and the food was not terrible, also the chairs were kinda comfortable. Much better than the past few times I've traveled abroad. I fortunately slept a lot of the way, but Corey didn't, so he was a bit tired. We arrived at the Paris airport and followed the directions to our next gate.... only to find ourselves in a sea of people trying to get their passports checked. I had never ever seen so many people in line, there had to be at least 300 in a very confined space, and probably more that I couldn't see. Since the lines were so long I was waiting for Corey to go through the line, as I would have been done hours before him. Fortunately, they opened the European Lines to the overflow of Americans, and we were able to get through in a little over a half an hour. We had about two hours to wait for our next flight, however we were lucky that the airport was really cool architecturally, so we had pretty things to look at and draw.

We then flew to Amsterdam, and finally onto Bergen, both uneventful and quite boring. When we reached Bergen my Aunt and Cousin, Margunn and Gunnleiv, picked us up from the airport. They drove us to Os where Gunnleiv lives, and we enjoyed some dinner Margunn had made us, while we were fighting off the urge to go to bed. In order to stay awake we decided to go on a walk around the area. Gunnliev took us down to the water where the big ferry comes in, and then showed us a great view of Bear Fjord.

Well that's all that has really happened, and we are about to head to bed, though we are going to try to continually update, we aren't really sure when we will have internet, until we make it to the UK on the 25th. Until then, enjoy!!

Heather and Corey

Beginning the Journey

Since Corey and I just got married :) and we are about to head out on a European adventure, we decided to start a blog for everyone to enjoy. We will try to keep as updated as possible, though we might miss a few things, in order to keep everyone informed of what we are doing and where we are going. When we get back to the US we are going to try to keep it going so people know what's going on with us, and where we might be going. Enjoy!

Heather and Corey