You Can't Get Lost

En Fest! Yes, it was a Party!  We USAers have a lot to learn from Norwegian wedding receptions.  It was held at  Samfunnshuset Fjellheim (the community center, Mountain Home) (from Fjellhiem page on Facebook) We arrived a little before 3:15.  Family and friends had been decorating it for two days.  It was eye-popping to me and even more so when I helped a bit to take it down on Sunday.   The party was supposed to start at 3:30.  However, pictures in the mountains took a little longer and they drove in at 3:45, i.e., right on time... in a 1957 Mercedes 220S sedan.  They had their first toast (of many) in the parking lot. Tore, Marit Helene, brother and best man Esten and maid of honor Kirsti It started with a toast from Tore to Marit. And then, there was the first serenade. Then was one of many traditions I think we ought to adopt.  Everyone tapping on the wine glasses is a signal for the couple to stand on their chairs and kiss. Then everyone stomping on the floor signals the couple to

 A Wedding and a Party!  And how!!!   I'm not even going to begin starting to write.  The wedding was a 1:00 and the party started at 2:30.  And Silje and I walked home at 2:30 am.  Yeah, 12 hours and three meals later.  And I fell write to sleep.  I just woke up at 5:30, and checked.  My phone, which lost its battery at 11:30, actually uploaded all 244 pictures and videos that i took yesterday.  I'm just going to start posting pictures and I'll fill in when I can.   (Remember, you can left click on any picture and and they will all open up at a larger size.  Then right click to go through them.  Then to get out, click on the little box with the "x" in it to get out of picture mode.) Below is a family tree of the Hilmarsen's.  Everyone here was at the wedding except Einar's father (and Olov's husband) Kolbjorn, who died of a heart attack in 1979 at the age of 43. How did I get here?  Sally's grandmother, Kirsti Moen Solien had a bygdebok (a history

 Hi, I'm combining Thursday and Friday, because everything important has happened over the last two days.  I got to Fremmermoen, Sally's family's farm in Vingelen at about 4;30.  When I walked up to the house, no one was there.  No surprise, it was two days before Tore and Marit's wedding, so I knew that Einar and Kiki would be busy.  It was early, but I thought I would try the milk barn, and as I walked there, Kiki drove in.  She had been up to the setra, Movollon, the summer farm in the mountains getting the house prepared because the wedding would be there.  As she greeted me, Einar walked up from the east side of the barn and he was laughing.  After we greeted each other, he said he had something to show me.   We walked into the north side of the milking barn and he opened a pair of doors into the milking parlor.  And this was what I saw.   The milking stalls are in the center blueish segment.   All the floor is torn up and being demolished and the interior walls ar

 Hi!  Yes, I'm alive.  I'll type. "It's a Miracle, Brother Dominic!"  (a line from an old Xerox copy machine ad.)  My pictures from today have downloaded.  Yippie, it makes it so much easier to type the storyline. It's a little over a half mile from my hotel (Thon Hotell Nidaros) to the Nidaros Cathedral depending on how you walk.  Yesterday when I got the official Trondheim tourist map, it showed three buildings close to the cathedral, a Baptist church, a St. Olavs Cathedral and the Kunstsmuseet, the Fine Arts Museum.  I wandered around downtown for a while.  It's really an interesting city, with many buildings from the 1850s-1890s, churches from the 1700s, new downtown malls, a bit of everything.  And of course, interesting construction everywhere.  I ended up walking two blocks east of the street I wanted to be on, but that took me past the St. Mary's Church (The Church of Our Lady) from 1739.  The eastern side of the church is medieval from the 110