Day 20 to 21: Christmas and the road to Bergen

Originally we had planned to move on to Bergen as of Christmas Day. The main celebration is over and it seemed like a good time to switch sides of the family. However, we ended up finding out that things had changed in the past six years since the last time Jon was here for Christmas. These days there is no bus service at all on Christmas Day, so that put that plan to an end.

Turned out it was a good thing anyways, as it made it possible for us to spend our last day in Hardanger with the entire family out at Hans' hytte. Even Ola!



So, it was an afternoon of more great desserts... charades... and just general good cheer.

We said our farewells to all from Rosendal as well as Hans and Oddny, since we wouldn't see them again before we left the next morning.

We were having some trouble getting accurate information on just when the next bus actually did leave Mundheim. We didn't really want to leave, of course, but we knew that time was ticking down before we would be flying up north, and we knew it was time to go see the other side of the family. Calling the bus line brought up bad news... apparently there was no service out to Mundheim on the 26th either. Svein didn't think that was actually the case though, so we let everything slide until that morning. Then we would figure it out.

The morning came. The bags were packed. Everything was good to go... except by now we had confirmed that there were indeed no buses. So once Svein got home from work, he'd drive us out to Bergen.

It's about an hour's drive to Norheimsund, a town on the north of the Hardangerfjord, where we would have been able to get a bus. But it's just an hour and a half to Bergen. Bergen was the better call.

It was definitely a beautiful drive. Since the first snow came down, it hasn't left. Apparently this is very unusual for this area of Norway. Usually, like it does in Vancouver, the snow comes down, stays a day... and melts away. This year there has been much snow. Everywhere.

The problem was that I hadn't nailed down all the exact details on when we were to get to Bergen. So as the drive progressed, our plans changed. First we were going to Sveinung and Eva's. Then we ended up going to Gudrun's, who didn't turn out to be there at that exact moment. Finally we ended up back in Arna with the family there.

It was nice to get a chance to spend another afternoon there before we finally did make it in to Bergen.

We spent the first night with Sveinung and Eva. Eva is my father's cousin, my Grandfather's brother's daughter.

Then, the next day we headed out to where we were staying for our week in Bergen: my second cousin (tremenning) Glenn's apartment. Glenn, Eva's son, is out working on the local cruise ships right now. So for the first time since we'd left Iceland, for the next week... we're pretty much on our own.