Vesterålen

Okay, it has been a long time...and I have about two weeks of excitement to fill in, so bare with me here. I got out of school last Friday for Fall break and dont have school again until tomorrow....so a whole week off. On Saturday morning Ivar, Trude, and I packed up and headed to Gardermoen Oslo Airport and meet an old soccer friend of Trudes and her children. All seven of us boarded to plane and headed up North. We were in Vesterålen. Nooooooorth! I loved it. Its like the American steriotype of Norway. With grass on barn roofs, sheep...cattle, mountains....it goes on and on. We arived at the airport in the north around 11ish after a cute little breakfast on the plane, where the flight attendants passed a basket of bread rolls, and gave us those little packages of butter or whatever. So adorible. We got a handfull of treats like yogurt and such. Anyway, after we landed, we got off.....into the freezing cold, ha....and into the airport. (Which I've got to tell ya, might be competing with the Monmouth Airport...size wise.) Solfrid, Trudes friend, and her children (Siri (18), Heidi (16), and Morton (9)), Trude, and I wated around for our bags, while Ivar went to get the Rent-A-Wreck van..ha. It was awsome. I definetly took some pictures of it. :) While we were waiting for our bags though, we discovered that there were two bands on the same plane as us. One is known...and the other aperiently is quite famous in Norway. Siri asked one guy where they were playing and when. :) Although I had never heard of them before, its kinda neat to say I saw them....ha. Okay, so....we got our lugage, and piled into the nice little van (Fernando style) and drove about 2 hours to Sortland where we stoped to visit Jensine, Trudes 95 year old grand mother!!! Sennøva, Trudes mother, was already there, and she provided us with a nice cup of coffee and some cake. We headed on out to the old house where they used to live, and unpacked our things. I didnt have to much, since we were only stayinig until Tuesday. It has been so long, I wish I would have written sonner so I could explaine every single detail. :( Anyway, throughout the trip we did EVERYTHING. Everything from hicking, to sitting next to the cozy coal stove, to playing cards, to site seeing....I think you get the picture. We had went out in the van to see the moutains and the senerie , and got out and walked for a bit along one of them and down to the little beach area where we wrote in the sand. :) It was so cold, we had our coats, and hats, scarves, and mittens on. The wind was fierce, but it didnt stop me from noticing all the sites there were to see. The mountains came straight up out of nowhere. It was like oh...look at the ocean and the waves hitting the rocks and the BANG mountains. ha. I loved it. So very very different from home. We had attended a birthday party for the neighbors, and had some lasagne and cake. Although there were many people there, Siri, Heidi, Morten and I sat together and played different card games. I loved it, now I just have to remember how to play them all. :) They next morning I woke up early and..........SNOW! Ha. Very exciting. They day before it was all green and kind of fally looking, and then all of a sudden, it was Christmas. :) I took a shower, and when I got out, Ivar was up and had started the stove, so it was nice and toasty in the kitchen. After breakfast, we drove to Nyksund and got to see the cutest little harbor ever. Google it! Morten wanted to go fishing and had been asking all day every second..ha...so we gave it a shot. Nothin. :) It was fun though. The harbor was kinda like a broken down deserted town. So adorible. Now its starting to come back though for the summer tourists and it has a couple of small resteraunts. Solfrid, Trude, Heidi, and I went on a hike to Stø. We started there on the edge of Nyksund, and then left Ivar, Siri, and Morten to go and do whatever for about 3 hours until we arived at our desination where they picked us up in the van. We walked over a mountain.....im not kidding here. I loved it. We walked and climbed, and getting closer and closer to the top, we were pretty much standing parallel with the mountain. The top was amaising. It was soooo cool, you could look down both sides. On one side you see the coast, and on the other you can see exactly where we came from and the little tiny houses down below. :) I have a million pictures, but unfornuatly none of that. I will have to ask Trude for them. The first day, the beauty was so overwhelming, that I took too many pictures and the batterie on my camera went dead. oops. ha. So, I will have to see if I cant find some other pictures from somebody else or something. Anyway, we went back to the house again to find Jensine and Sennøva there.....waiting with a nice apple cake and we had supper shortly after we arrived. All in all, it was an amaizingly awsome trip. If I ever had the chance to go back again, I would take it in a heart beat, no matter what the price. Its the new Heaven on earth. There are soooo many details I have missed, but I should leave now, I am about to go on a little toury trip with my "cousin." At least now you have a small glimps of what I have been doing. I deffinetly have a HUGE suprise to tell you later on about once I got back from the north. Later for now....and although it might not seem like I am keeping my promises about adding pictures.....you just have to have patience. I'll get them up here some time. Later.