Living History

Our last day in Oslo we visited an amazing museum called the Norwegian Folk Museum. They had historic buildings from all over Norway reconstructed here. And they were not replicas, they were the actual buildings taken apart and put back together here on site. These buildings were actually used and lived in through lots of different time periods in Norway. And they had people dressed in traditional costumes to make it a real living history experience.

Learning about life in southern Norway in the early 1600s...and yes, this house and all its furnishings are from the early 1600s! A windowless house (though there was a skylight covered with a goat's bladder) filled with smoke and 8+ people in two beds. In winter they would sleep about 16 hours a day.

Turf houses galore! I love them! The turf roof was not only insulation, but also kept the roof waterproof.

Stone carvings from Buskerud, where a lot of my Norwegian ancestors were from.

One of my favorite buildings was the stave church. It was made all of wood, and just looked incredible! The most surprising thing was that the inside was all wood as well; even the paintings were done on the wood. We actually saw a few churches like this as we drove through Norway but never stopped at them.

Levi J liked the traditional Sami hut and teepee. The Sami are the indigenous people of Norway.

Aside from the stave church, my personal fave was the traditional homemade bread. A kindly stranger lent us some krone (Norwegian money) to buy some; can you believe we did not use anything but credit cards our entire time in Norway AND Iceland?? The bread was flat but still with a little thickness and so soft. It had a little sweetness to it, and it tasted ah--may--ZING! In the olden days, to make it rise they would use antler salt, which was actually ground up antlers, because it had a little ammonia in it.

They baked the bread right in front of us, of course!

But the kids' favorite was the farm and the animals. We caught the end of the animal feedings; we saw the cow fed, gave grass to the bunnies (again!), and watched the pigs pig out. The farm looked so similar to the farm we stayed in when we went to Oppdal, Norway. They said many of those barns and farm buildings are being torn down now to make room for more technically advanced farming.

Feeding the bunny in a bunny dress

So cute!

Scarecrows

A presentation of traditional Norwegian songs.

A few more pics from around the museum.

It is definitely a must-see experience in Oslo! It was so neat to see so much living history in one place.

And that is a wrap for Norway!

Fairytale Norway

After Flam, we drove north to a town called Oppdal. Levi and Andrew had plans to do a canyoning excursion up there, so I booked us a room at an authentic Norwegian farm.

The drive up was long (again), but the scenery was just breathtaking. And my camera worked again, hooray! We didn't have much time to stop along the way, but we did squeeze in one stop at the top of the mountain amongst the clouds.

These sheep came right up to our car! And then Levi almost backed over the little one and I screamed.

Six people in a station wagon...I rode in the very back!

After 5+ hours of driving, we made it to the farm. Oh my goodness, I absolutely fell in love with that farm! While Levi and Andrew went on their excursion, Christina, the kids and I explored the farm. And I took about one zillion pictures!

We stayed in the house on the right. The house on the left is occupied by the farmer's parents. His mother grew up in the house we stayed in.

We saw the chicken house and the bunny house, and spent at least an hour feeding the bunny plants. Quintana couldn't leave before saying goodbye to the bunny three different times.

The chicken house.

There were two little babies in there, but I couldn't get much of a picture.

These views were unreal

The house we stayed in was built in the early 1800s, and the house was filled with antiques that were original to the house. It has been in the same family all those years.

Our room; the beds were adorable. The kids called the snowman bed the "Olaf bed."

View from the kitchen

Butter churn

The kids adored wandering around the grounds.

We had a really lovely stay. It was right out of your imagination of old Norway. I am still so surprised that a place like this exists in today's world. Somehow, it makes me feel so happy to know it's here. The world isn't quite so flat after all. There is still places out of history to be discovered.

Then we were back to Oslo! On our drive home, we stopped for a picnic by a river, and most of our group waded in the icy water. We couldn't keep little Quintana out; she was determined to get in!

And more sheep!

It was a lot of driving (over 4 hours on the road every day), but it was amazing. We saw some incredible sights, unlike anything I've seen before. It makes my heart so happy to have traveled so much and yet still be surprised and delighted by the world. What a beautiful country.