The Carey Family: Italy and Norway girls trip 2013 (part 4)

I think I should begin this part with a little bit of history. My great grandma (my dad's mom's mom) and my great grandpa (dad's mom's dad) met on the boat to the US from Norway and Sweden. My great grandma was Swedish and my great grandpa was Norwegian. So, from this line, I am a 3rd generation American. Pretty cool, huh? Well, because it really hasn't been that long ago that this all took place, we still have relatives that we keep in touch with in Norway. My cousin, Viggo, is my age and we started writing letter around age 13 or 14. Email was not very popular back then. :) So we would write letters and then when email became popular we emailed. His sister, Julia, is just a couple years younger, and she wound up going to college for a bit in Santa Barbara. I was living in San Diego at the time so this gave us a good opportunity to spend time together and get to know one another. Great friendships were formed. Dory also had the opportunity to meet everyone during this time, so it was natural that she must come to Norway with me one day!

In fact, cousins Solvar and Jan Viggo (Viggo and Julia's parents) knew about Adam before my parents did. Solvar loves this. They even came all the way from Norway to attend our wedding!

I had a lot of new years resolutions going into 2013 and one of them was to finally make it to Norway to visit my family, as they were always the ones coming to the states. I emailed back and forth with my cousins and we decided that early April would work for everyone. This was perfect timing for us to start in Italy as Priya had her break from school, and then head up to Norway after that.

So, back to the actual trip!

Dory and I somehow managed to call a cab in Italian to pick us up from Priya's apartment and we made it to the airport to catch our flight to Oslo. We got there 2 hours plus before our flight and we were glad we did! It was PACKED! I think it took us about an hour just to get through security. We had enough time to grab a small bite with the last of our Euros and then get on the plane to Oslo. I slept for most of it, but woke up as we were coming in and I was just in awe at the beauty of the trees, mountains, and snow. I was so excited to land and see my family! Solvar and Jan Viggo picked us up from the airport and took us back to Elverum to their home. It is not too far from Oslo, about an hour and a half car ride. Their home was so beautiful!

(Please forgive that this photo below is so blurry, it is a cell shot of Jan Viggo and Solvar when we saw them at the airport)

They cooked an amazing meal for us of reindeer! Yep, you read that right, and it was so good. We had a really yummy 1st course of a crab type salad with some excellent white wine. With dinner they opened a bottle of Amarone wine and told us the rules for drinking Amarone, and that is to never open more than one bottle in one evening, as it is very strong.

(again, sorry for the blurry shot, but this below of the reindeer is also from my phone)

Following dinner we had TWO amazing desserts that they made.

The next morning we slept in a bit and then had a wonderful breakfast that they made with yummy breads, jams, and cheeses. After breakfast we got packed back up to start making our way back into Oslo. On the way they were gracious enough to stop and show me where my great grandpa was born and another family home. It's so cool to see history like that!

If you look closely, you can see how it says Nybakken on this house above, which is my grandma's maiden name-my great grandpa's last name!

On the way we also stopped at this amazing candle shop where I bought a couple of really cool candles for our bedroom. We then continued onto Oslo.

We got to Viggo and Nora's apartment just after they got home from work. Viggo was in the kitchen working hard with Jan Viggo to cook an amazing rack of lamb, veggies, and a wonderful soup.

Above is the knife they had to use to cut the rack. Wow, huh?

My cousin Julia and her boyfriend Tord also flew in for the weekend, which was awesome!

We sat down to an amazing dinner!

Love this photo above of Viggo and Nora!

Soon after it was time to call it a night.

The next morning Viggo and Nora cooked a great breakfast for us, including fresh squeezed orange juice.

That afternoon, Viggo, Dory and I headed out on a cruise around the fjords. It was very cool to see the sights, I think even for Viggo. However, we all agreed it would be better about 30 minutes shorter than it was. :)

After docking, we wandered around the marina area a bit, and even used the bathroom in the Nobel Peace prize center. :) Then we went to this amazing toy store, where I found some goodies for Sadie, including toy horses, a cute lunch box, and a purple suitcase that would serve a double purpose in getting all the things I bought for her home.

It's not common to go out out to eat in Norway, as it is VERY expensive, but everyone agreed to meet back up at a Chinese restaurant that they all really liked. So the whole group met back up and we had some of the best dim sum I've ever had. Go figure, huh? After that, we walked around and saw the palace and made our way to Oslo's famous "food hall," not to eat at but just to see it.

This photo below is something we saw on our walk. It is one of the building that was affected by the Oslo terrorist attack that you may remember. You can see that they are still fixing it.

We purchased some cheese and then headed back to Viggo and Nora's for our final evening. We had a nice relaxing dinner and then hit the sack to catch our early flight to London to head home.