Lillesand, Norway

Dear Friends,
We are finding it is not as easy as we thought to find internet access. Our hotel in Oslo charged 3Kroner (50 cents) per minute, and did not have any way to upload pictures. We are now in the Lilesand library, but there is no USB port for uploading pictures. We admire Justin and Amber for finding access all over the remote areas of Vietnam and Thailand!
We had three wonderful days above the Arctic Circle in the Lofoten Islands. These are a series of connected islands that have small fishing villages backed by huge jagged mountains, and surrounded by ice-blue glacial waters. Tom took hundreds of pictures, but you may have to wait to see them until we locate faster, more "modern" internet access.
From Lofoten, we flew to Oslo, where we were greeted by cousin Jonas, son of Per and Kari Ariansen. Jonas and Tom's great-grandmothers were sisters, but Per is closer to our age. Jonas gave us a wonderful tour of Oslo en route to our hotel, where Per and Kari met us. We hope All of them can come to see us in the states at some point. We know that Jonas and our boys would be instant friends!
Thursday, Per met us at our hotel to give us a walking tour of Oslo, and a visit to the Resistance Museum. Then we took a ferry to their beautiful cottage on Nakholmen, and island in the Oslo fjord. Kari had prepared a beautiful and delicious salad for our lunch, which was served with a lovely wine. We had strawberries and cream as dessert, and had coffee on the porch while we talked about family history. Per delivered us back to the Oslo dock in his boat later that afternoon.
Friday, we toured the Viking museum and the Norway Folk Museum before getting our rental car and leaving town for Lilesand. There was a traffic jam, as we were not the only ones to be heading for the "Norwegian Riviera" on Friday afternoon! Per's daughter, Inger, welcomed us to their family "Sjøglott" (means it has a glimpse of the sea), where we slept wonderfully in their guest cabin. This is the town in which Tom's great-grandmother was born and raised. We have had fun walking around the town and imagining it over a hundred years ago, when Rakel was a young girl. She met and married Hans Hansen,a sailor from a nearby town, and they emmigrated to New York from there around 1897.
This afternoon we leave for Hans Hansen's town of Flekkefjord, and then to the heart of the Fjord country for the next 8 days. Then its on to Stockholm before heading back to Copenhagen and returning home. We will be met in Copenhagen again by the wonderful Frederiksen cousins, Eva and Jørn. They were our marvelous hosts in Copenhagen for the first three days of our trip. We hope we can send some pictures soon of that visit when we can access the proper equipment!
All in all, its been a fantastic week! Love to all,
Linda and Tom