New Record Found! Olsen boys' Confirmation Record

Randi also found the confirmation record of Christian Olsen Wold in Vestre Aker Church, Oslo, Norway:

Source information: Oslo county, Vestre Aker, Parish register (official) nr. 5 (1859-1877), Confirmation records 1873, page 215, number 20




She also found the Confirmation Record of Nels Olsen, in Vestre Aker as well:

Source information: Oslo county, Vestre Aker, Parish register (official) nr. 5 (1859-1877), Confirmation records 1875, page 255, number 50

New Record Found! Rebecca Olsen's Burial Record

Randi just found the burial record of Rebecca Olsen, the infant daughter of Mathias Olsen and Nicoline Amundsdatter in Vestre Aker Church records!

Source information: Oslo county, Vestre Aker, Parish register (official) nr. 2 (1855-1877), Death and burial records 1863, page 446, number 95

Her full name is actually Oline Rebekka Mathiasdatter Olsen, she was named after Nicoline's older sister. She died on 23 Jun 1863, and was buried on 28 Jun 1863 in Vestre Aker Church Cemetery. She is listed as being age "1/4 yeas old", christened at the home of a teacher, and died of a stomach illness.

We're now looking for her Christening Record, as well as any Christening, Vaccination, or Burial record for Helmer.

Second Picasa Photo Album -- Oslo Photos only

I've taken so many photos in Oslo, that I needed to create its own separate album on my Picasa website:

Norway 2009 Trip Photos -- Oslo

The rest of my pictures from Norway will still be in the original album:

Norway 2009 Trip Photos

Remember, these will have every single photo that I've taken, as well as the full-size versions of the panorama photos that I've created using Microsoft Live Photo Gallery, but they do not have any captions or tags (yet -- I may get to that after I get home and find a job.)

Oslo and Lillestrøm (Monday, Day 12)

Well, I'm off to Lillestrøm to visit Gunnar's brother, Arne Rundtom, and get a chance to visit Oslo again with him. This time, I will DEFINITELY get photos of Pilestrædet and the Frydenlund Brewery! I told him that I'd also like to visit the Oslo Olympics Ski Jump (it was covered by clouds in 2006), the Vestre Aker Church (where they family attended Lutheran Church), and Sandager area (where they first lived in Oslo.)

I purchased my ticket online (as well as my ticket for Friday), and said that I wanted to pick it up at the train station. Randi drove me to the train station, and dropped me off on her way to work. I looked around the station, but could not find a ticket kiosk in Brumunddal train station. So, I boarded the regional Lillehammer – Oslo – Skien train headed for Lillestrøm. It is the stop after Gardermoen airport, and takes about an hour and a half to get there – just enough time to catch up on my blog entries. :)

Vestre Aker Church

Arne met me at the Lillestrøm train station, and took me to his new Toyota Prius Hybrid! Pretty cool car, running on gas and electric (which it generates itself). This one was the first that I had ever seen, let alone got to ride in!

We drove to downtown Oslo, to look for Vestre Aker Church, where Mathias Olsen's family attended church. We drove past what we thought was Vestre Aker, but discovered a small sign that said it was St. Olav's Catholic Cathedral. We drove past Gamle ("Old") Aker Church, and a couple of cemeteries, but couldn't locate it easily. So, Arne input the address for Vestre Aker Church from the Norwegian Wikipedia article about it, and followed the directions. Towards the end, we passed the church, but the GPS said to continue down the street to number 112. We arrived there, hoping to find a parking lot or the parish offices, but it was just a business. Apparently, the correct address of the church is 117. :)

We walked up the side street to the churchyard, and entered the wrought iron front gates, and strolled up around the church past the beautiful cemetery grounds, and finally to the front view of the building. It's a majestic red brick building, but not over done. We walked over to the office buildings in the back, and found someone to let us into the chapel so the visiting American could take pictures of the church. They let us in through the back entrance, and left us alone to take our photos. It is a beautiful, simple, majestic church. The altar is very simple and its stained glass windows are gorgeous. The side stained glass windows are simple but very beautiful. The walls are a clean white with dark brown brickwork outlining the vaulted ceilings.

After we took all of the photos I wanted, we went back to the groundskeepers' office to see if they could tell us if Mathias' infant children, Helmer and Rebecca, were buried there and maybe if their graves still remain. The children died in 1868 and 1865 respectively. The office stall called the archives for Vestre Aker Church and they could not locate a burial record for either of the children, nor for Mathias' two sisters that I remembered living in Oslo at that time -- Pauline and Ingeborg (although they did only search for Ingeborg Olsdatter, not Olsen or Pedersen -- her married name.) Apparently, the city of Oslo has a fee for burial plot usable that needs to be renewed every 20-25 years, so unless one of Mathias' sisters' children took care of them, the children's burial plot would be sold to someone else for use -- as Mathias left Oslo in 1878.

Vigeland Sculpture Park

Next, we went to Vigeland Sculpture Park (Vigelandsanlegget) where over 200 of the nude statues by Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943) are displayed. It is a huge park, with a large bridge over a swan filled lake, and life-size bronze statues along both railings. The most famous one there is the Grumpy Boy (Sinnataggen) statue, and he is quite so! :) At the center of the park is the Monolith (Monolitten), which is about 56 feet (17m) tall, and made entirely of 121 nude figures of all ages and sizes. Surrounding it are many "cycle of life" statues, depicting life from birth through old age for both men and women.

The place is swarming with tourists from all over Europe and some from Asia and the United States, so it was difficult to get a good photo of JUST the statues or one without someone's head walking through your photo shot. On one statue, a man is carrying a woman by the hair on his back, and it appears that he is "carrying" what appears to be two large potatoes in a sack too. Well, a group of Eastern European women were standing there with the statue getting their photo taken, with one hand (or two) on the "potatoes". LOL! I tried to avoid that particular photo angle. ;)

We walked through the park, and stopped in the Visitor's Center for a nice lunch of ham, tomato and cucumber baguettes, and a Coke for me.

Oslo Folkemuseum

We then toured through the Oslo Folkemuseum, the open-air folk museum, which has many old homes and farm buildings from the past.

It was neat to see the old Stav style church, although it was very dark and scary. I imagined that it would have to have been so to convert the Vikings of the Dark Ages. :)

Also, seeing how small a husmann's plass actually was. A husmann's plass is a cottage that the skilled workers would live in on a large farm. In return for their residence, they would need to work an arranged number of hours on the farm each week, in addition to working their own trade. This is the kind of place that Ole Pedersen Ståterkongen would live, as he worked as a ståterkongen, a type of parish peace officer before their was a police force. He would move from farm-to-farm, as long as one could support him, or as long as they got along with the farm's owners.

Frydenlund Brewery

We went to visit the old Frydenlund Brewery site on Pilestrædet Gate, where Mathias and his family worked and lived shortly before coming to America.

Mathias was listed on the 1875 Norway Census as a foreman in the brewery, and Chris at age 17 was listed as a malt laborer, probably working in the vented rooms that would dry the malt before it was added to the beer.

Standing in that very location where they lived, worked, and probably first hear of the Gospel, and decided to join the Mormon Church and emigrate to America, was a wonderful feeling again. I don't know that many American LDS members can say the same about a specific spot in their homeland.

Sandager Area

We next visited the Sandager area, where Mathias and Nicoline first moved into when they came to Oslo. Arne said that it followed a river that was in the area, and was full of mills and sawmills. I didn't have the address of where they lived at the time, but the area has been recently re-developed into a urban residential community, so we probably wouldn't be able to find anything still there.

Lillestrøm

Arne took me on a tour of the communities around Lillestrøm, where he was raised. We then stopped by his home to pick up his wife, Odveig, to go out to dinner at the Chinese restaurant that they took me to the last time I visited. It was still just as delicious, and a very nice Chinese restaurant with tablecloths, candles, and good service. The Chinese waitress even spoke English, so I could clarify that what I was ordering was actually Sweet & Sour Chicken. :)

Solheimshagen Restaurant

After dinner, they dropped me off at the train station at about 18:30pm. I went inside and found the NSB kiosk to buy a return ticket on the next train to Brumunddal at 18:49pm. I got everything ordered for the ticket, but my debit card was declined. (VISA had probably locked it again for out-of-country activity.) I canceled the order, then walked down the hall to the convenience store and asked the clerk in English where a Mini-bank (ATM machine) was located. She said that they had taken all of them out of the railway station, and that the nearest one was quite a ways away. I must have looked shocked, because she said that it is not too far away -- I just needed to walk all the way through the station to the new entrance, go down the street to the UNB Bank, and they have an ATM around the corner. I followed her directions, and found the ATM about two blocks away from the station. I retrieved 600 Kroner (about $100.00 USD), enough to pay for the 332 Kroner ticket to Brumunddal, and some extra cash on hand. I bought a ticket on the KOMFORT car, which gives you an electrical outlet and a fold-out desk to work on your laptop, for an extra 90 Kroner (about $15.00 USD.)

Once I bought the ticket, I stopped back in the convenience store to buy a Coke and thank the girl for her help. I then went to the men's restroom, and had to pay 10 Kroner to use it. I only had a 20 Kroner coin, so I deposited it in the machine, and got no change for it!

I then tried calling Randi from my cell phone, but it would keep telling me in Norwegian first that the number dialed was incorrect. I tried every which way to call her, US and Norway international calling codes, with and without the area code, etc. Nothing worked, so I found the pay phones, which cost 5 Kroner per minute. I again used a 20 Kroner coin and called Randi and let her know what time I would be arriving. She said she would meet me at the Brumunddal train station. I only used 1 minute to make the call, but of course the pay phones don't give change for unused minutes either! :(

I had to wait in the station for about a half hour before the train I would be leaving on appeared on the Departures display screen, so I could find out which track platform to wait on. Finally: Track 4.

I then went to the track platform, and waited for my train. I remembered the last time I was on this train platform in 2006, when the announcement came over the loud speakers to stand back from track 3 for the high speed train to go by. That sucker had flown by at over 200km/h (about 125 mph) in just a couple of seconds and it was out of sight around the bend. Well, this time I was set to get a video of it going by.

Well, I got sidetracked, and heard an announcement in the background, and the next thing I know, ZOOOOOOOOM! The high speed train flew by behind me! I didn't even have time to get my video camera out of my briefcase. Dangit! I thought I had missed my only chance, then I heard another announcement in the background, and ZOOOOOOOM! another one whizzes by! CRAP!

Well, my train finally arrived and I boarded on car #4, even though my ticket was for car #7, seat #32. I gave my ticket to the conductor, and asked him where the KOMFORT car was, and he pointed to the rear of the train. I saw the snack bar / coffee car, and saw a row with the seat #32 on it. I sat there next to another man, but could not see any sort of power outlet anywhere, so at the next stop, I risked it and got up and walked through the snack car, and there was the KOMFORT car. I found the section with my seat (facing backwards), but the section was empty so I grabbed one of the forward-facing seats, pulled out my laptop and power cords and converter (which I only needed for the plug conversion as my equipment can handle 110 US and 220 Europe voltage.) I looked under the table, and the only power outlets were four of the round "hole" recessed-style outlets that my square "peg" power converter cannot plug into! So, an hour and a half train ride with a nearly dead laptop. A wasted $15.00 USD so I can’t charge my laptop!!! Aaaaargh!!! :(

Well, I arrived at Brumunddal, and Randi was waiting for me in her car. I got in and jokingly introduced myself and asked her what her name was in Norwegian. She got a good laugh, and said that they had nice weather while I was gone, so we needed to send me away more often! ;)

Toten Folkehøgskole (Sunday, Day 11)

Randi and I had a nice breakfast of salami og tomat med brød, scrambled eggs, og sølbær syltetøy med brød (salami and tomatoes on bread, scrambled eggs, and huckleberry jam on bread.)

Jahn Frydenlund stopped by to drive us to Toten Folkehøgskole, where Linn would be attending to learn Chinese and Arts. We drove over the bridge over Lake Mjøsa, through Gjøvik, and on to Toten. Randi had Jahn stop in Gyøvik to see if the paddle steamboat was there, but it was put away for the season. Linn was unfamiliar with the area, so she followed us. At one point Jahn got mixed up, and a "We're lost" turned into "We had to get ice cream for the American." ;) Randi bought me a Norwegian ice cream sandwich, which had a graham cracker flavored "bread" instead of the Oreo cookie chocolate flavored "bread" the American ones have. It was delicious, especially with the Norwegian creamy ice cream. She also got a free treat, so she got me a chocolate covered vanilla ice cream bar on a stick, with a huckleberry flavored inside. :)

We stopped at the school in Toten, and were directed to the administration building, where one of the faculty, whose name is also Linn and lived in Philadelphia for a few months, gave us a tour of the small campus, and led us to Eli's dorm room and Linn's dorm room. Jahn then took us out for pizza at Lena's Grill – a restaurant with hamburgers (including the "Moelvenburger" -- funny, cause Randi and Linn lived by Moelv), pizza, baked potatoes, and baguettes (open-faced sandwiches.)

We got a pepperoni, onions and ____ pizza, a ham and pineapple pizza, and a taco baguette for Linn. It took quite a while for the pizzas to come out and even longer for the baguette. While we were waiting, the waiter brought us water in a pitcher, and we had to ask for cups! Later, he was cleaning up a table and dropped and broke a plate full of food – quite a mess. So, when we finally got our meal, and got everything we needed, we ate well, then Randi and Linn placed everything evenly on the pizza trays, making sure to lay the glasses down so the server wouldn't drop them too. Then, we started "safety" packing them by placing them on stacks of napkins, and I folded up a napkin to brace the glass to keep it from rolling off. Linn had to take a picture of our joke, and of course I had to take one also! :)

Østre Gausdal (Saturday, Day 10)

Jahn Frydenlund came by early to take us up to Gausdal, about an hour and a half drive from Brumunddal.

We arrived, and I was in charge of getting us back to Midtvold. :) I remembered so many of the farms and even the little coffee shop where we met Gunnar Rundtom at the first time we visited in 2006. We met Gunnar at Sønstevoll, he was waiting for us outside his home. He invited us in, and we had a nice kaffee and talked genealogy.

We then went over to Midtvold farm and were met in front by Ruth Midtvold, Per Arne’s wife, and she invited us in. We went through the old part of the home this time, and stepped into the lovely parlor which was last painted in 1869! The walls have a wainscoting on them, with a darker shade of robin egg blue below the white chair rail, and the beautiful robin egg shell light blue of the walls above. The top of the walls are edges with a hand painted border with a floral / fruit motif. In the wainscoting, there are the hand-painted scroll-work designs (one of which incorporates the date the room was painted.)

The ceiling is also original, and is a paneled white ceiling, each with robin egg blue trim. I noticed this time that in the corner where the stove was, the wainscoting was faux painted. (Probably easier than cutting the wood to fit around the stove.)

We had a nice time with Per Arne, his wife Ruth, two of their boys, and Erik Midtvold. Gunnar told me that his wife, who was ill the last time I visited, had passed away a few months ago. We did have a nice kaffee / lunch, although I did have to talk my way out of trying sandwiches with the Gudbrandsdal brown cheese slices. Per Arne, being a dairy farmer, had a hard time believing that someone couldn’t like cheese. :)

We talked about my job, and he joked that asked if I would like a job on his dairy farm. He asked if I could drive a tractor, and I told him that I could learn. He asked if I could milk cows, and I told him that I knew that was too hard of work for me, and explained that my Uncle Bob was a dairy farmer with about 30 cows, and I understood how difficult of a job that was – milking all of the cows twice a day, before the sun comes up in the morning, and again in the late afternoon, every single day of the year – rain, snow, or sun shine.

He brought out some old family books, and gave me a copy of two certificates(?) that Gunnar was very interested in. One of the books was a Psalms hymnbook. He also brought out a couple of "finds" he had recently made in his home. He has been cleaning out the attic above the living area in one of three sections, and discovered in sawdust in the rafters a couple of books. One appeared to be an accounting of activity in Midtvold farm from 1840 to 1842. Gunnar, Randi, and I looked at it, turning the pages, and Randi and I noticed Ole Pedersen's name. We investigated it closer, and confirmed that this is our Ole Pedersen Ståterkongen! Per Arne is not finished cleaning out the attic, and we look forward to any other finds he makes in the other two sections.

I gave him my blog URL, the URL for WoldResearch.org, and my email address. I hope that he can visit them and make email contact with me. :)

We then drive up through the valley that intersects Gausdal valley, to drive up to the setter of the Fjell farm. The road there wound back and forth and was very steep. A setter is a small cabin-like home that the farms would have the younger generation drive the cattle up into the higher elevations during the summer, and spend their summer days milking cows, making cheese and socializing at the setter. Needless to say, many Norwegian babies were born nine months later. ;)

We met the family which owns the walking stick of Ole Pedersen Ståterkongen. The stick is still in great condition. It is made out of juniper wood, which the family said grows several meters high and is very straight where they live. It had a hardwood mushroom-style cap on it, with a ringed stem. The wood of the stick is a lighter white, with little grooves throughout it, which are natural in the wood. The point and of the stick is a couple of inches long, and is locked in place with a metal band around the bottom. It looked to me as though the spike itself could have come from his Morning Star staff that was part of Ole Pedersen's Ståterkongen uniform.

We had kaffee with them, and Gunnar bought me a CD that they had of the songs of Gausdal. We enjoyed Norwegian waffles, which are very thin and you sprinkle granulated sugar over them before tearing out each of the five heart-shaped portions and fold them in half lengthwise to eat them. They were delicious.

We drove back home, stopping by Myrmellom at my request, so we could take a photo showing both Midtvold and Mitdvoldhaugen farms. I also got several photos of the Gausdal valley, so I could stitch them into a single panorama photo. We drove back to Midtvold farm past the Østre Gausdal church, then dropped off Gunnar at his home, and drove back home to Brumunddal.

We had eaten so much kaffee desserts that day! But, I still had room for Randi’s Fresh Soup dinner (just the beef and potatoes for me that night.)

We taught Linn’s friend Eli how to play Phase 10, and when we quit on step 6, I was winning the game – finally! ;) At one point during the game, Eli claims "Close, but no cigar!", and Randi and Linn had no idea what she was talking about. I had to explain what it meant and how the phrase came from playing carnival games.

Laundry Day (Friday, Day 9)

My laundry day (and Linn?)

Randi will be making traditional "fresh soap (soup)" for dinner. ;)

Visit to Vinstra and Kvam (Thursday, Day 8)

A descendant of Even Engebretsen Bratlien/Brandon, Håkon Sveen, wanted me to come up to Vinstra and have him show me around their part of the country.

Randi and I had stopped in Moelv the night before to purchase the train ticket from Hamar (the major town just south of Brumunddal where Randi works) to Vinstra. I went to pay for it using my Debit Card, but it was denied -- then I realized that I hadn't let my bank know that I was out of the country. Randi paid for the ticket, and said that we should wait to buy the return ticket until I am up there, to see how our plans fall in place. She checked the schedule and there was a 09:26am train leaving for Vinstra, and the last returning train left at 18:56, which I could take directly to Hamar, or transfer in Lillehammer then on to Brumunddal, which would be easier for Randi to pick me up.

We had to get up at 05:00am to get showered and ready to leave the house by 08:00am, so that Randi could be to work on time. She dropped me off at the train station in Hamar, and I had an hour wait until my train arrived. So, I went across the street to a 7-11 store and tried my debit card. It worked fine, so I withdrew 200 Kroner (about $32.00 USD) from the ATM, and bought myself a pølse with crispy fried onions and a Coke, and some toothpicks and some Mentos breath mints for afterward.

And of course, the first thing I do is spill some of the ketchup laden onions down the front of my shirt! :)

Well, I finish up my yummy breakfast, and head back over to the train station and check the departures screen to see which spor (track) my tog (train) will come in on -- Track 1. It was a nice cool morning, so I waited outside on the platform for my train to arrive. It was one of the nice long distance trains, so it was very comfy. MRandi had told me that they couldn't assign me a seat when she purchased the ticket, so I should be able to sit in any empty seat on the train. I found a seat, and a woman came up to me and spoke something in Norwegian, but then decided to sit in the empty seat across the aisle from me instead. (Flashbacks of my first day in Korea, sitting on a bus alone as I'm off to Chinju (Jinju) -- with no idea how long it would take, if the bus stopped elsewhere, or who I would be meeting at the bus stop.

(to be continued later ...)

My Trip Photos

Here are all of my trip photos, not just the select ones that I share on my Facebook album. These will also be better quality photos of the "stitched" panorama photos.

Norway 2009 Trip Photos

(If you're not on Facebook, but want to see just the nice one's I've posted there, here is a link to my Facebook album: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2031987&id=1091963437&l=1a33271937)

Italian Dinner -- Norwegian style! (Wednesday, Day 7)

For breakfast, I had blåbær syltetøy on brød (blueberry jam on bread.) For lunch, I had leftovers from last night's dinner -- kylling og ris, mais salat med agurk, tomat og fersk kål, med Ravigotte saus (chicken and rice, corn salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, and fresh cabbage, with Ravigotte sauce – tastes a lot like Kraft French Salad Dressing, they use it as a dipping sauce for fish, chicken, and meatballs.)

CindyLee and Anka said that they would gladly give references for me, so I'm ready to start applying for jobs with the State Archives.

We went to Laila's home above Moelv for dinner tonight. She made spaghetti and meatballs(?), Norwegian style. We had a nice salad, spaghetti & meatballs, baguette bread, and Coke for dinner. Here, they brown the hamburger and serve it separately from the sauce, so you serve yourself your spaghetti noodles, then cover it with as much browned hamburger as you want, then spoon the sauce over the top of everything. The baguettes were baked in a way that they were like a line of mini-breadloafs, so you could break off one at a time to eat. For dessert, Laila served us some caramel ice cream with ripsbær (VERY sour red currants) with some sugar -- delicious!

Here's a map of the places I've been to on this trip, or where I'll be going:

Map of 2009 Trip to Norway

Another Day in Paradise (Tuesday, Day 6)

Another "relax" day – so, I'm catching up on blog entries, and will finish modifying Mathias Olsen's probate record scans, and get them added back onto the WoldResearch.org website.

I was also thinking this morning that I might have a way of connecting supporting documents to a history document on the website, using an album as the linking item. We'll see how that works.

I've also got to test the HTML comment in Source names to help categorize them without the comment printing or displaying.

I got up around 9am this morning, showered, and made myself some Jordbær syltetøy on brød (strawberry jam on bread) for breakfast.

I got caught up on my blog posts (finally!) and made myself some familieskinke, tomat, og majones på brød (sliced ham, tomatoes, and mayonnaise on bread) for lunch. Now I should have time to upload Mathias' probate records before Randi gets home from work. (it's 2:30pm here now.)

I also sent an email to my niece Kayla, Randi's grandniece Kine, and their parents, so see if they'd like to be email pen pals, since they're both 12 years old, and distant cousins. :)

It's been cool and sunny all day, but sudden downbursts of rain have been happening all day. Beautiful weather to me. :)

For dinner, Randi made a delicious kylling og ris, mais salat med agurk, tomat og fersk kål, med Ravigotte saus (chicken and rice, corn salad with cucumbers, tomatoes, and fresh cabbage, with Ravigotte sauce.) Ravigotte sauce tastes a lot like Kraft French Salad Dressing, they use it as a dipping sauce for fish, chicken, and meatballs.

Randi served vanilla ice cream with warm jordbær (strawberries) on top.

Randi back to Work (Monday, Day 5)

Today was a nice "relax & catch-up" day. A chance to do some laundry, fix breakfast & lunch for myself (raspberry jam [bringebær syltetøy] on bread [brød] for breakfast, and salami [gullsalami] & tomato [tomat] slices with mayo [majones] on bread for lunch) – while Randi is at work.

I fixed the cabinet door for the garbage in Randi's kitchen – it just needed a couple of Phillips screws tightened. I also got started on working on Mathias Olsen's probate record scans, and got about 14 of them resized to 50% of scanned size and uploaded and linked to him and the album I created for them, but then I decided to get them down to original size (33% of 300DPI), so I got them all scaled down and cropped and renamed again before I gave up for the day.

Randi got home about 5, and fixed a sweet rice porridge for dinner, with fresh pineapple and melon pieces as side dishes. They have just the porridge for dinner sometimes, sweetened with sugar, cinnamon, and a big dollop of butter to melt in the middle. It was pretty good, but I didn't know how my stomach would handle so much rice, butter, and sugar at one time, so I took enough to satisfy my hunger for the night, and made sure with Randi that it would microwave well later for leftovers tomorrow.

Randi is going to send me on a 9:15am train on Thursday to Vinstra to visit with Håkon Sveen (pronounced "Hoe-kohn Sveh-ehn"), an "online" cousin descended from Randi Olsdatter too (like Randi is.)

Randi also called Gunnar Rundtom, and he asked to speak with me as well. He is hoping to have me (us?) come up on Saturday to hold Ole Pedersen's, my 4gg father's, walking cane from the 1800's!

Randi suggested a couple of Norwegian job search websites, as well as recommending that I try contacting the Regional Archives to see if they may have a need for me and my skills, with references from Anka Moss in the FHL, as well as CindyLee Banks, and Ken Muztafago.

Norwegian Emigrant Museum (Sunday, Day 4)

We're going to the Norwegian Emigrant Museum between 1 and 4, when it's open, with Jahn Frydenlund and Laila Egeberg. It was a nice museum, with a church brought over from Minnesota, and several cabins and other farm buildings brought over from America. They even had an old Model-A Ford from Iowa. They have a half-size statue of the Mormon Handcart Pioneers statue that is from the life-size statue in the LDS Church Museum in my hometown of Salt Lake City, Utah. As I was looking at the statue, I caught for the first time that it had a Dutch oven pot hanging from underneath the handcart. I pointed it out to Randi who got a kick out of it, since my mother had made us a delicious chicken with potatoes, carrots, and onions dinner made in a pit we dug in our backyard, using the exact same Dutch oven pot. :)

We stopped by Randi's twin brother, Kåre's home, and visited and had dinner with him, his wife Eva, and their daughter Marion. She's grown up quite a bit since I saw her last three years ago. She's now 6 and about to start school. She's still quite shy of me, and gave me a cute ostrich craft as a gift. When we took photos just before leaving, she actually held my hand during one of the photos. :)

We taught Jahn how to play Phase 10 card game, which he won! They taught me how to play "Gris" ("Pig" or called "Spoons" in America.) Norwegians play the game placing their thumb on the edge of the table indicating that they have the five cards of one suit, and everyone else must place their thumb on the edge of the table. The last person to do so gets a letter of "G-R-I-S", and the first to get "GRIS" is the "loser".

Visits from Family (Saturday, Day 3)

Laid back day. Siw left at 7am to return to school in Kristiansand. Linn left around 5pm to fly to Budapest, Hungary for some cheese shopping with friends. Jahn Frydenlund stopped by to give her a ride to the airport.

Randi's sister, Laila Egeberg, stopped by for breakfast. She gave me a tiny book titled "Om Menn" (= "About Men".) We had lemon custard sweetroll cake that Laila brought for dessert.

Randi's cousin, Anne-Lise Evensen stopped by for a visit. She gave me a little porcelain dinner bell with Norwegian crest and flags on it.

First Full Day in Norway (Friday, Day 2)

For breakfast, we had toast with homemade Huckleberry jam (made by Finn-Olav's mother.) Finn-Olav stopped by in the morning for a visit, and to drop of Siw from returning his car.

Finished our game of Phase 10 – Siw came from behind to win.

Drove into Brumunddal to do some grocery shopping and get some soft-serve ice cream. :) I got mine rolled in crisp sugar candies. I learned that Norwegian adult magazines apparently DON'T have rules against nudity on the cover, but they do keep them on the top shelf in convenience stores.

Had kjøttkaker (meatballs), boiled potatoes, surkål and rødsurkål (sauerkraut and red cabbage sauerkraut), and cauliflower, broccoli and carrots for lunch.

Met Randi's friend Jahn Frydenlund from Moelv, learned how to play Gris ("Pig" or called Spoons in America) and Idiot card games, and taught him how to play Phase 10 -- he won! We got the Phase 10 score sheets translated correctly into Norwegian and emailed to Randi.

I went to bed around 12:30, Siw will be going back to school at 7am the next morning, so she and I said our good-byes then.

Flights to Norway (Wednesday/Thursday, Day 1)

OK, if someone had told me it would take me 26 hours to get to Norway, I'd have laughed at them. Now, I'd cry. ;)

While waiting in the Salt Lake International Airport for our first flight, I tried to call T-Mobile to have them add international service to my phone for the trip, but the woman I tried to speak with had a very heavy African-American accent, her mic as too close to her mouth so the sound was horrible, and her cell phone kept cutting out. I finally gave up and would try again during our 2 hour layover in Denver or Newark, NJ.

We made our flight from Salt Lake to Denver just fine, Randi and I were on the same plane instead of two different flights as we had thought.

When we arrived, we went straight over to our connecting flight's gate, and saw that they had bumped up the departure time by 50 minutes, and never told us! We walked up to the gate just as they were finishing boarding.

I sat on a window seat on my row, and another large guy sat on the aisle seat, and said "I hope someone skinny sits between us." A beautiful, young, skinny woman was just coming down the aisle (as I was silently hoping it was her), and she said that the seat must be hers. The other guy was chatting her up a lot, but I did glean that her name was Marianne, from Ireland, married (no kids), a photographer / author who had just published a book that I didn't hear the title of, but "chatter-mouth" translated into Spanish as "The Large Cockroaches"(?) Randi would later claim that I snuck in five minutes sleep, but I'm sure I was dreaming of her so I wouldn't have gotten much rest anyway. ;)

Once on board, the pilot informed us that due to the bad weather on the east coast of the USA, we had been re-routed over Canada. After we waited in line on the tarmac for about 30 minutes, the pilot let us know that they were lined up on the wrong runway, and it would take another 15 minutes to get over to the line for the correct runway!

We finally took off and headed for Newark, NJ (via Canada somehow). As we arrived about 50 minutes late -- the exact same time as our layover. "Chatter-mouth" was about to burst a blood vessel that he may miss his connecting flight to Albany, NY. For crying-out-loud, I'm sure there are more than one flight to Albany, and if nothing else, he could take a train or even a cab, but Randi and I are about to miss possibly the ONLY flight to Norway for the day or even the week!

Well, we checked at the gate if our flight had left, and they had just closed the door and wouldn't hold the plane for us. So, we went over to Customer Service (aka Newark's own Hell on Earth) to re-book our flight -- hopefully we could get an international flight to Europe, then catch any of a number of connecting flights in the morning. As we waited in line with about 50 other people, we're hearing our options get diminished as Spanish flights are being canceled. More and more flights are getting canceled as Customer Service has two or thee agents and 7 or 8 empty terminals, and one guy was actually pulled from the desk to lift boxes for a pregnant co-worker who was in no rush to leave. If she'd have stayed one more minute, I'd have demanded that she get someone in charge to help out here.

Well, we finally got to an agent after nearly an hour, and after two phone calls and assistance from the agent next to her, and the two of them arguing with a man who left his wallet in a bar and I heard them overhead page him to come to Customer Service, she finally re-booked our flight to Oslo through Amsterdam, Holland, and made sure our bags would be on the flight.

We went over to our gate, and got on board the flight to Amsterdam, which was already three-and-a-half hours behind schedule, and took off.

They had individual per view movies, with several that I had not yet seen, so I tried to sneak in 3 movies during the 6.5 hour flight. We arrived in Amsterdam as our connecting flight to Oslo took off, so we went to SAS (Scandinavian Airlines) Customer Service, and she did exactly what the SLOW woman in Newark had to do, but in less than TWO MINUTES! (not to mention that she's Dutch and had to communicate with me in English!)

Well, we had a few hours before our flight, so we got lunch -- some sort of Italian sandwich at a Mediterranean Shop, and bought some souvenirs before boarding our flight to Oslo. (Later, I wished I hadn't gotten the sandwich -- whew boy!)

The flight was quick and I caught a quick nap or two, before we landed in Oslo. We had to chase down our luggage (it apparently arrived on the earlier flight that we missed.) I stopped in Customs to see if they would stamp my passport to show that I actually visited Norway, but they do not do it here -- only the police would stamp it. Randi's daughters, Siw and Linn, picked us up at the airport and drove us to Randi's nice home in Brumunddal. It was nice making the trip by car this time -- the earth berms surrounding the train tracks made it difficult to see the landscape during my first trip here. I fell asleep in the car before we got to Brumunddal, so I'm not really sure if that's where they live or not! ;)

They showed me around their nice home, and the nice room I get to have with a double bed with two down pillows and thick down comforters. Their shower has a radio, colored lights, hand-held shower as well as over-head rain shower and full body shower heads (although the last two aren't currently working.)

We had an awesome chocolate lava cake with creamy Norwegian ice cream for dessert. :)

Randi and I taught Siw and Linn how to play the Phase 10 card game using two regular decks of cards, which we cut short to go to bed.

My Second Trip to Norway Begins

Well, it's a year or two later than hoped, but I'm on my way back to Norway. :)

This time, I don't have any itinerary planned, other than to stay with cousin Randi in Brumunddal -- although she may have a few things planned that I haven't heard of yet. I'm hoping to visit Gausdal again (where the Midtvold farm our surname came from is located), get a chance to hold Ole Pedersen's walking stick, and maybe stand in Frydenlund Brewery on Pilestrædet street in Oslo again (where Mathias Olsen's family lived, worked, and probably accepted the Gospel there.)

It will be nice to visit in another season, and I'm sure it'll be just as beautiful.

"Ha det!"

Section Guide for Township / Ranges

This is a guide to help determine where sections in a specific township / range are located:

36	31	32	33	34	35	36	31
1	6	5	4	3	2	1	6
12	7	8	9	10	11	12	7
13	18	17	16	15	14	13	18
24	19	20	21	22	23	24	19
25	30	29	28	27	26	25	30
36	31	32	33	34	35	36	31
1	6	5	4	3	2	1	6

(end)