Norway!

This week Eleanor and Henry took their first trip “across the pond” to visit cousins Saul and Alden. We hadn’t met Alden in person yet, so it was super exciting to see him in action. Eleanor really stepped into the role as eldest cousin – she followed Alden around often, always asked to sit next to him at meals, and loved putting her arm around him during picture times. Henry isn’t quite old enough to take on that parental role, but he really liked Alden’s taste in toys! By the end of the trip, all four kids had really gotten to know each other, and on our last night together they had a big dance party together!

A day by day event list for the trip:

Day 1:
We departed on a Friday night, and our first flight was a connection in Newark. We were delayed a bit and were worried that we were going to miss our connection, but lucky for us the plane that we were on was the same plane that would take us to Oslo, so we literally got off, hit the restrooms, and then got back on the same plane just across the aisle from where we had been. Eleanor and Henry both did great on the flight – our seat neighbor on the first flight said to me while we were deplaning, “You have a very well behaved little boy there!”, go Henry! They both fell asleep on the second leg of the journey, helped by the fact that the plane wasn’t full and we had two rows all to ourselves.

Day 2:
We landed early in the morning, and everyone was a little tired but excited to begin our journey. Henry couldn’t believe his eyes when he spotted a purple play structure shaped like an airplane right in the airport! After a bit of a struggle installing a European style car seat, we were on our way. It was just under an hour to our rental, and the kids enjoyed looking out the window the whole ride. Turns out Oslo has a very extensive tunnel network for there freeways which provided ample opportunities for shouting “Tunnel!”. We settled into our rental and as soon as Saul and Alden arrived, we set out exploring looking for a place to get lunch. We stumbled upon a Texas BBQ restaurant and enjoyed some chicken, ribs and cupcakes. We then stocked up at the local grocery store and spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and playing in our rental.

Eleanor’s favorite part of the day: Eating cupcakes
Henry’s favorite part of the day: Eating cupcakes

Day 3:
We decided to begin exploring in our local neighborhood, so we took a walk down to the water. We were only a few minutes from the Oslo Fjord, and we thought we could walk to a local beach – but it turned out to be mostly a marina, with lots of boats and docks. So we regrouped and headed over to the local recreation area at the Strand Restaurant. There we saw lots more boats, found a little beach where we could dip our toes in and skip stones, and found a nice grass field to play a little soccer.

Eleanor’s favorite part of the day: Can’t remember
Henry’s favorite part of the day: Playing on the ramp next to our driveway

Day 4:
Next on the agenda was the Frogner Park, filled with sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. One of the top tourist destinations in Oslo, the park didn’t disappoint. On our way there, we spotted a large playground on the edge of the park, and the kids made that the first destination. It was crowded with local school children, but our kids had a blast. It was larger than most of the play structures we are used to, and presented lots of new challenges. After the playground, we had a picnic lunch on some nearby benches, and then explored the sculptures. My favorite was “Angry Boy”, just as expected this is a statue of a little boy with a very angry face. Eleanor especially got a kick out of this sculpture, and a similar “Angry Man” who was balancing several children with his hands and feet. We spent a long time enjoying the beautiful grass hills and fountains – playing with sticks and trying to get the kids to roll down the hill. We then zoomed into downtown Oslo for a quick snack – Henry picked out a purple macaroon!

Eleanor’s favorite part of the day: “Angry Man” statue
Henry’s favorite part of the day: Purple macroon

Day 5:
Time to hit the museums. We headed out to Bygdoy and started at the The Norwegian Museum of Cultural History. Unfortunately, even though it was open, most of the exhibits were closed, so we spent our first hour or so just looking at the outsides of buildings. Things picked up quickly though when the horse drawn carriage ride opened up. It dropped us off at the barn and we got to check out some chickens, pigs and cows. Henry and Saul were super excited to sit on the old tractor. We headed for lunch at a purple café specializing in burgers, but the big hit of the day was the waffle for desert. Next, we hit the Viking Ship Museum, where the kids were mildly impressed with the very old ships, but very excited about the stairwells up to the balcony overlooks. To avoid a ancient ship v. Henry situation, we headed out to the museums lawn and found a robotic lawn mower that kept us interested for fifteen minutes – then Lala dug into her bag of tricks and pulled out a kite. There wasn’t much wind, but Saul was able to keep it up in the air for a few minutes while he ran – the biggest trick for all of the kids was that as soon as we told them it was up in the air, they stopped running so that they could take a look :) We ended the day at a nearby beach – Henry dipped his feet into the ocean and Eleanor enjoyed throwing pinecones into the water to “feed the ducks”. By far the highlight of the beach, however, was encountering Uncle J high tailing it back off the pedestrian path through the park after having driven all the way down to the beach – forcing two elderly women to get off the path both on the way down and the way back! Good thing he was ahead of us, because when we ran into him, we were about to make the same mistake!

Eleanor’s favorite part of the day: Horse drawn carriage ride
Henry’s favorite part of the day: Horse drawn carriage ride

Day 6:
Finally time to hit downtown Oslo. We started with the Akershus Fortress, an imposing fortress and castle guarding the entrance to Oslo harbor. After a day of museums, Eleanor and Henry really enjoyed the “hands on” nature of the fortress. They did lots of climbing and running, loved the archways and tunnels and the sole sentry guarding the castle entrance. There was a random top hat sculpture that was also a big hit. After lunch we hit the Opera House, which has an amazing design where the roof gently slopes all the way down into the ocean, and you can walk up and down in like a giant sloping patio. Henry dipped his feet into the ocean again, but unfortunately stepped on a snail shell on the way out and hurt his foot. He recovered quickly and enjoyed the view of the commuter trains from the top of the roof. We moved on to the pedestrian promenade, and Henry couldn’t get enough of the streetcar trollies. We decided to take one for the fun of it, and rode it down to another section of downtown with City Hall and the ferry docks. From there we hopped on a ferry to Bygdoy – just a quick 10 minute ride, didn’t get off and rode it right back downtown – a fun little boat ride that was just about the right length for Eleanor and Henry. Just as we were getting back to the docks, Eleanor said, “Dada, I’m ready to get off the boat now” :) We ended the day with our fanciest dinner of the trip, and excellent seafood restaurant in the brand new waterfront development.

Eleanor’s favorite part of the day: Ferry ride
Henry’s favorite part of the day: Streetcar trolley ride

Day 7:
We headed into the countryside to explore the town of Drobak, complete with it’s own year round Christmas ornament store. After some shopping and a yummy lunch (we had to order another round of Ham and Cheese croquettes for Eleanor and Saul) we headed out to a local park and beach area. Henry, Saul, Dad, Uncle J, Auntie Shawnee and Alden all took the chance to sport our best Huckleberry Finn imitations and wade into the ocean. Eleanor and Lala did some serious shell collecting. Eleanor and Henry also got a kick out of climbing up the nearby rock formation for a beautiful view of the fjord.

Eleanor’s favorite part of the day: A little playground we found in town
Henry’s favorite part of the day: Can’t remember

Day 8:
We started the day with a trip to Holmenkollen, where they have just finished rebuilding the ski jump tower. Unfortunately, it was too foggy to see much of anything, so we moved on to an up and coming Oslo neighborhood featuring a famous coffee house. We found an American style diner for lunch, and I think the waiter got a kick out of serving us. Eleanor and Henry enjoyed a big pancake and some eggs. We then hit a nearby playground for some downtime – all the kids really enjoyed this playground, and each wanted a turn riding “motorcycle and sidecar” with Alden. Henry and Eleanor took some time to push their respective lovies on the swings as well – which had us laughing. Next on the agenda was some souvenir shopping, but Henry had a coughing spell in the car that ended in regurgitated lunch all over the backseat. We decided that some downtime at the rental would be a good idea and so we headed back and pulled out some rainy day activities. That night, all four kids watched some videos on the iPad together, and then had their big dance party. I’m sure the rental owners would be thrilled to see their coffee table and lounge chair cushion being used as props. It was then time to say goodbye to Saul, Alden, Uncle J and Auntie Shawnee as they were off very early in the morning.

Day 9:
Our last day started out with a mild rain, so we headed to the Norwegian Museum of Science and Technology. It turns out they were having Legofestival day, so it was a good thing we got there early. By the time we left, the line was out the door! The museum had some great hands on displays – both kids loved getting into a red glide plane where they could actually operate the control surfaces, and there was a neat little planetarium room with pictures of the Earth from space, and you could use a joystick to zoom in and out and make the Earth spin and progress in orbit around the sun. In the transport section, they had a huge commercial Caravelle jet, a steam train and a huge assortment of old cars, trollies and planes. On this level we also found the professional Lego builders display, including the Statue of Liberty, a “Nine movies in one” cityscape and a spaceport using all original Lego retro space pieces. After lunch and a few more exhibits, we left the museum and decided to try the Ski Jump one more time. Wouldn’t you know it, it was fogged in even worse than the day before! We killed some time in the gift shop, the café and the ski museum until finally the fog began to lift. We took a funicular car/elevator up to the top of the jump. At first you couldn’t see much of anything, but Mom managed to entertain the kids long enough for Dad and Lala to get some views as the fog continued to lift. By the time we got to the bottom, you could see everything clearly. For the past three days we had been telling the kids that we could take the ski lift up to the top of the jump, but unfortunately they had a chair lift in mind – and Henry was particularly sad when he saw a chair lift next to the ski jump that wasn’t running and realized that we wouldn’t be riding one of those. It would be another three days till that stopped coming up in conversation every so often.

Eleanor’s favorite part of the day: Planetarium room
Henry’s favorite part of the day: Riding in the red glider

Day 10:
Headed home at last – we started our long travel day with a drive back to the airport with the car windows rolled down (attempting to eliminate the smell from the day 8 incident…) and playing a mildly successful game of “I spy”. Once at the airport, Eleanor and Henry were fascinated by our passport picture and wanted to look at them each time we needed to show them to someone official. Eleanor picked out a Norway flag souvenir for herself and one for Henry, and Henry was thrilled to rediscover the purple airplane play structure. Both kids did amazing on the long flight back – Henry watched two episodes of “Doc McStuffins” about thee times each, and Eleanor spent probably four hours making feltboards on the iPad. Not the most educational activites in the world, but Mom and Dad were pretty wiped out too. The kids got a mac and cheese dinner in Newark airport, and we thought we were home free as we boarded the plane for home – but then we promptly were told to get back off for a three hour delay. Luckily it turned into more like an hour delay, and we all fell asleep quickly on this final flight.