Sea Kayaking and More

Our second day in Norway was lovely and relaxing.  The weather continued to be sunny where we are staying in the Norwegian countryside.  The day began with another delicious breakfast spread thanks to Mie and Morten.  It included traditional Norwegian fried eggs (pancake style with onions cheese and meat).

Post breakfast we headed down to the “city” center of Eidsvoll, the small town where Mie and Morten live. We wandered around the festival that was taking place and got a small taste of Norwegian politics.  We were lucky enough to run into a friend of Mie and Morten’s who offered to give us a ride in his boat up the river and to his house. We of course accepted. At his house we sat on their dock on the river, ate ice cream, drank a cold beer (Monisha really didn’t like this one, it was hoppy), and had a slice of Norwegian coconut cake with custard.

In the evening, Mie and Morten went out to a surprise birthday party.  We went for a medium-long run through the countryside. We ran through lots of fields, saw four funny llamas (or alpacas? Don’t know the difference), and came away with a new cow count of 3 – 20 in favor of Monisha.  On the way back we grabbed ingredients to cook them breakfast the next day: crepes!

After the run, we had a lovely evening in. We ate hot dogs and pulled beef, drank a couple glasses of wine and watched a movie called Frank. I’m assuming you’ve already seen/heard of it Josh but it reminded me of several of the weirder movies we’ve watched together. 

The next morning, we got up a bit earlier than usual (around 8.00) to make crepes! We put onions, mushrooms, cheese, and meat inside.  It was nice to be able to do something small to say thank you to Mie and Morten after they’ve been taking care of us and showing us around.

After breakfast, we drove into Oslo and picked up Bjorg.  The five of us went up the mountain next to the city where we stopped by a cool old snow lodge, and then saw the famous ski jump: Holmenkollen.  We also had great views of Oslo from up on the hill.

Next up was a visit with Mie and Morten’s daughter Malin, and her daughter Thea!  Mollin lives in an awesome apartment right on the water in Oslo, and owns sea kayaks.  After a quick bite and a few cappuccinos, she took us out sea kayaking in the Oslofjord!  It was sweet getting to see all the sights that we had walked around the previous days (opera house, city hall, barcode), this time from the sea. We also got a great view of the old fortress on the water, and the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern art in Oslo.

Back at the house, we were visited by Mie’s brother Halvdan and his wife Anita.  The two of them had just been camping in Sweden and we all talked about our adventures.  Halvdan has a fishing boat up north and showed us a video of a battle he won recently with a huge salmon.  Monisha really wants to go fishing at some point on our adventure but we’re not sure if we’ll get the chance.  After dinner, we headed back to the kitchen to make sweet crepes for desert. Everyone really enjoyed them. 

This morning we had a slow relaxed start.  We enjoyed a late brunch with Mie, Halvdan, and Anita, and loosely planned our day.  Right now the plan includes Game of Thrones (!), Rick and Morty, a run, and an evening visit with Bjorg.  We also got a surprise visit from Mie and Morten's son, Dan; now their only child we haven't met is Marius!