Miss Hadleigh Claire Goes to Norway

We are now really in the final countdown of our European tour. Since we had yet to hit any Scandinavian countries we decided to give Norway a try, and we were very pleased. A few months ago I purchased Ryan Air tickets from Frankfurt Hahn to Oslo Torp and paid $.04 total for our tickets. Of course by the time you add taxes it added up to about $100 but still. We arrived at Oslo Torp, which is 2 hours outside of Oslo. I don’t know why they don’t just call it Torp, but whatever. So we arrived and caught a bus into Oslo, quickly found our hotel and decided to try to find a minibank (ATM) and a restaurant for lunch. We had a lot of trouble finding an ATM that worked, apparently they were all out of money. At the beginning of our quest we had decided to pull out 600 kroners which is about $100 and figured would give us a good start to the vaca. Dave walked out of the 7-11 (where he finally found a minibank that worked) with a confused look on his face. “I think I pulled out to much” he said. “Too much?” I asked. Yea, too much, like 4,000 kr…or about $650. Hmmm… Apparently he got a little confused and forgot about the exchange rate and couldn’t remember how much we had determined to get out, so, at that point we had a wad of cash burning a whole in our pockets. I found it amusing (which is a little unusual since I take care of the finances at home), but since I knew we had randomly enough in our account to handle the withdrawal I was OK. We quickly found a place to eat and realized it might actually be a good thing he took out that much money because Norway is WAY expensive. For lunch I had a tuna salad sandwich, which consisted of one piece of bread, some tuna, lettuce and a couple of tomatoes, Dave had a salad with little pieces of ham and a beer. The cost of our lunch was $50. Dave’s beer was $10! Unbelievable! After that we quickly decided to hit the market and make packed lunches from that point forward.

After lunch we wandered around Oslo, checking out the old churches and just getting a feel for the city. We saw a couple of cops on bikes stop a guy and begin going through his pockets. It was pretty funny. After dinner we headed back to the hotel for a good night’s sleep. After asking 4 times at the front desk for a crib for Hadleigh (and them telling us they were checking on it) it finally arrived and we were able to put her down to bed. We watched some Wimbledon tennis and beach volleyball.

The next morning we packed everything up and headed back to the train station where our Norway in a Nutshell tour began. We jumped on a really nice train and headed west toward the other side of Norway. Around lunchtime we stopped at Myrdal and switched trains to the Flamsbana rail that took us 12 miles down the mountains to Flam. ON the train we were surrounded by a Japanese tour group. I had heard this, but experienced first hand that the Japanese are obsessed with babies. They were all up in Hadleigh’s face which was funny at first and then frustrating as it continued since I was trying to get her to take a nap. Every time she would dose off someone else would be taking a picture of her.

We made it down to Flam which was beautiful and then jumped on a boat headed toward Bergen. After 1.5 hours on the boat we jumped off at Balestrand where we stayed for two nights.


Balestrand is a cute little town with a beautiful view of the Sognefjord (largest fjord in the world). It was quiet, calm and peaceful. We rested here for a couple of days, walked around, went swimming in the water. The fjord is like a long finger-like bay that comes off the ocean. The water is salt water and the mountains go plummeting into the water, just beautiful.


After two nights we reboarded the boat and headed onto Bergen. The boat was pretty cool, it took us 4 hours from Balestrand to get to Bergen. Once in Bergen we grabbed a couple of chicken curry wraps at a bakery and headed to the train station. We took a night train back to Oslo and had booked a sleeper car. Dave was VERY pumped about having a sleeper car, and as I explained the set-up (small, narrow room with two skinny bunks) he was determined that Hadleigh would sleep with him on his bunk. We boarded the train at 10pm and it was to leave Bergen at 11. After jumping up on the top bunk Dave decided that wasn’t the safest idea for him and a baby to be up there. He was afraid of rolling off. So he claimed the bottom bunk, grabbed Hadleigh and we turned off the lights. And Hadleigh cried…and cried…and screamed…and cried…Dave would change positions trying to get her to sleep and everytime he moved he would accidently hit the light switch on and she would scream. After a couple of hours of this, the light came on and I saw Hadleigh’s head appear at my bunk (of course she was screaming) “Your daughter wants to see you,” Dave says. I will insert here that this occurance was ver unusual. Dave is an expert at getting Hadleigh to sleep. He generally does it better and faster than I do, so this was an aberration. I took her and sang one of her favorite songs to her and she settled down. Now it was my turn to not get any sleep. She slept, but I continued to stay up, nervous that we would fall off the bunk or that I would smother her accidentally. I don’t sleep well with her in my bed, which is one reason why I can’t comprehend the idea of a family bed. Ugh!!! So I took one for the team, and Hadleigh slept the rest of the way to Oslo.

Upon arriving in Oslo we grabbed a yummy cinnamon roll type bread, ate breakfast at the park while Hadleigh slept on Dave and I finished reading out loud John Grisham’s “The Client”. I can’t read the book without picturing Susan Saranden as Reggie Love and James Earl Jones as Judge Harry. We jumped back on a bus to Torp and flew back to Germany. Dave called our flight an international zoo because there were SO many children from different countries…India, America, Norway, Germany…and they were all running around and screaming. It was insane.

So, Hadleigh was a little trooper and did amazingly well throughout our trip. This was her first flight and first major train ride. We continue to be thankful that the Lord gave us a good little traveler.