The Land of the Midnight Sun

When we were planning our trip we emailed Ronny Stulen, an LDS Bishop in Norway, and asked for his help in finding places to stay... he ended up finding places for us to stay 5 of the 6 nights we were in Norway.  Ronny arranged for us to stay our first night in Sandefjord at the home of Trond Barth, another Church member.  Trond was away to Stockholm for the weekend and was actually glad to have some one there to look after things.  It was very nice and we're really thankful to Trond for his generosity.

Sandefjord is a nice little city 90 minutes south of Oslo.  The weather was great and everyone in the city seemed to be outside the Saturday we were there.  We spent a few hours walking around Sandefjord including the the park, which featured a rose garden and sculptures, and the quaint town square where we were serenaded by a street performer, window shopped and ate a waffle and pomme frites.  We quickly came to realize how many of the stereotypes were very much true.  Many people were tall, blond and beautiful, many spoke English well, and everything was expensive (just to give you an idea, a Big Mac meal from McDonald's cost the equivalent to $14).  Next we headed back to the airport where we rented a car and headed on the road again.  We were able to see the small towns and villages where our ancestors were from, one of which is Risør, pictured below.  It was a beautiful little seaside town and we loved it.

Marijke has ancestors from Risør, specifically Marijke's great-great-great-great-grandmother: Serine Tarjer Torjussen Gahrsen Evensen, who later added one more name on there when she married Archibald Gardner in Salt Lake City.  She was the first female in Norway to convert to the LDS church and her husband, Henrick, was the fourth Norwegian man to be baptised into the LDS church.  Unfortunately Henrick died as he was returning from his last voyage before he and Serine would take a boat to America then cross the plains to Utah.  Serine continued to make the journey by herself.  She faced so many challenges on the trek to Utah including losing her baby to illness on the boat and had to bury her at sea, but stands as an example of faith, courage, perseverance among many other things.

A small town near Nipe where Marijke's family is from.

From Risør we continued on to Arendal where we would meet Ronny and his family.  Along the way we made as many stops as we could to take in the stunning scenery and Nordic villages (and to figure out where we were going).  Road signs (including speed limit signs) were few and far between which made navigation quite the challenge.  We never made it to some of the places, but we were in the general area and got a good feel for this beautiful country.

DEP: Edinburgh EDI --> ARR: Sandefjord TRF

We flew from Edinburgh, Scotland to Sandefjord, Norway, 90 minutes south of Oslo.

We flew on the infamous Irish budget airline RyanAir.  We had read and heard hundreds of negative reviews of RyanAir, but we must say we were pleasantly surprised.  If you are willing to read the fine print and follow the rules you should be ok on RyanAir.  The planes were nice enough and we had plenty of legroom (see picture, Richard had about 8 inches between his knee and the seat in front of him), although we were sitting in the emergency exit row.

We were disappointed we couldn't have flown into Norway during daylight.  We imagine it must be a beautiful view with all the fjords.  We were also a little disappointed when the first things we saw that night were a Shell gas station, Harley Davidson, McDonald's and some other American things.  We expected it to feel a little more "foreign".   It was an enjoyable ride however, because we were picked up by and older couple who were friends of Tronds.  They didn't really speak any English and we speak zero Norwegian but we found them ok and it was a good learning experience trying to figure out how to communicate.  They were so nice to pick us up and it made getting to Trond's house a million times easier.  Ryanair only flies from Edinburgh to NO every other day and only one time a day so our only option was arriving at 11:00 pm!

Edinburgh: Part Deux

Edinburgh Castle.  The statue of the knight is Robert the Bruce.  The chapel is the oldest chapel in the UK and only holds about 20 people maximum.  There are both inside and outside views of it.

Park that our B&B was next to and where they made the first rules of golf.  View from Edinburgh Caslte.  In the Christmas Shoppe.  Richard and Liz Manson.  In front of JK Rowling's house.

Edinburgh is the City of Hearts.  We literally drove right up to the gate of Edinburgh Castle the night we got there.  It was awesome!

Edinburgh: Part Un

 The pope visited Scotland.  He started in Edinburgh then drove to Glasgow in his pope mobile.  We started in Glasgow and drove to Edinburgh to avoid the crowds.  We passed the cardinals that came with him.  There were 2-4 police officers on every bridge on the motorway.  It cost Scotland £8 million to have the pope there for one day.  It was pretty controversial and one of the only things discussed on the radio for 2 weeks...that and the church leader who threatened to burn Qu'rans in Florida...

Views of Edinburgh and Arthur's Seat a.k.a. Pratt's Hill, to the missionaries, who traditionally climb this at the beginning and end of their mission.

Scotland Edinburgh Mission home--now the Scotland Ireland Mission (as of July 1, 2010).   

Notice Joseph McConkie on the plaque.

Nardini

June Wilde took us to Nardini's, a fun art-deco ice cream shop in Largs.  It's been there for years and is really famous.  It was delicious--thanks again June!

In photo: Richard with June, Ben, Bethany and Joy Wilde.

Irvine, Glasgow and Surrounding Areas

We arrived in Irvine after our drive down the west coast.  In Irvine we stayed with the Wildes, one of Richard’s favorite families he met in Scotland.  Jack and June Wilde have 7 children (only 5 living at home) and a very loving household.  We didn’t originally plan it this way but we ended up staying with them for 5 nights.  We stayed longer partly because we both got colds and aches and needed the time to recuperate.  June was great and basically became our mum while we were there.  We had a lot of fun with the Wildes, especially Jack Jr.

We went to church in Irvine and Richard was happy to see the ward had grown since he had left.  Jack Wilde Sr. is in the bishopric of the Irvine Ward and from the pulpit he announced that Richard would be speaking.  We thought he was joking at first but he said he was serious.  Richard spoke for about 10 minutes.  After church we celebrated Jack Sr.'s birthday with the family and June made a delicious Scottish dinner for us including cream of cauliflower soup, steak pie (for everyone but Marijke) and a veggie pot pie for Marijke, roasted potatoes, trifle and diluting juice with sparkling water.  It was delicious and fun to have a traditional Scottish dinner.

Using Irvine as our HQ we were able to see Glasgow (just a little), Kilsyth (Marijke’s ancestors), Dunsyre and Carmichael (Richard’s ancestors).

Richard's Flat

On Monday the Wildes invited the Favliolis (sp?), a family from Slovakia, over for Family Home Evening.  They are also known as the Raviolis by a member of the ward or the Pavlovas by the Wildes.  The Favliolis had interesting stories to tell about life in Slovakia.  They brought a traditional Slovakian cake with a sort of sponge and hazelnut cream filling/frosting.  We also played a game with flour and a doughnut (see below).  The family home evening was great.

Kylsyth, home town of Archibald Gardner, Marijke's great-grandfather.  The high street was charming and the buildings date back to when he lived there, but the rest of the town was really disappointing and junkie.

House Archibald Gardner was born in--read and see more here.

Carmichael and Dunsyre were the towns of Richie's ancestors.  June Wilde was so sweet and packed us a delicious lunch to go.  Also, that lovely, fairytale mushroom was huge—like the size of a grapefruit!  Spencer and Emily: Carmichael/Dunsyre is the home of Emma Sommerville.

Glasgow University and the Kelvin Grove Art Museum in Glasgow

Some of our favourite people in Irvine: The  Adiars (Hannah, Hayley and Kathleen), Jack and June Wilde, Jack Jr. and Immanuel.

The doughnut game: Fill a bowl with flour then turn it out on a platter.   Balance a mini doughnut on top.  Take turns cutting a piece of the flour away.  Whoever makes the doughnut fall has to get it out of the flour with their mouth—no hands!

*Don't forget you can click on the photos to view them larger, click a second time to see them even larger*

Richard's First Day

Richard started his internship at the U.S. Embassy in London today.  He can't really mention on the blog what he did today but he enjoyed it and is looking forward to getting some real assignments later on.  He said the people were all nice and there are even some other Utahns working there.

Forress, Inverness, Ullapool, Eilean Donan, Isle of Skye, Glenfinnan, Glencoe, etc.

Marijke is a Robertson and McConkie (or versions of it) often associate with the Robertson Clan.  Also pictured here is a mixture of Inverness, the Inverness castle, Ullapool (top left photo) and Urquhart castle.

From Aberdeen we drove to Forres (collage to come) where both of us have family history.  It was a beautiful little town with lovely parks and flowers (holds a flower festival there each year).  From there we went to Inverness which is sort of like the capitol of the Scottish Highlands.  We didn’t spend a lot of time in either of these places as we still had to get to Ullapool where David Crook (son of Tom and Anne Crook in Perth) and his family live.

The drive to Ullapool was really pretty and Richard had never really seen this side of Scotland, even after living here for two years.  Ullapool is a nice seaside town way up in the northwest of Scotland where many people never go.  The Crooks were really nice and treated us like old friends though we had just met them.  They had three kids and they were all in Gaelic schools where all the lessons are taught in the Gaelic language.  Their kids' names were Mhairi (pronounced Vari, the Gaelic version of Mary), Joe and Finlay (pronounced Finley).

Eilean Donan Castle and drive to Isle of Skye

 We told the Crooks we wanted to drive from Ullapool to Urquhart Castle, then go to the Isle of Skye, and then go to Irvine all in the same day.  They laughed their heads off because they thought our plan was crazy.  We have different perspective on time/distance coming from Utah where it takes 8 hours to get to Denver or 6 to Las Vegas.  We were able to get to see all the we wanted to, even if we didn't have much time to stop or explore.  

Isle of Skye, including Skye Bridge, and the ferry ride to Mallaig...Richard's hair, in desperate need of a haircut, blowing in the wind.

In one day we saw: Urquhart Castle, Eilean Donan Castle, a little bit of the Isle of Skye (it’s pretty big), Glenfinnan Viaduct (featured in the Harry Potter films), the Bonnie Prince Charlie monument (of the Robertson clan) on Loch Shiel (the lake in the Harry Potter films), Glencoe, Fort William and Loch Lomond.  





Our route included a 30 minute ferry from Armadale to Mallaig which is fun for someone from Utah who almost never sees water.  Driving on the Isle of Skye was interesting on the single-track road and alongside the "heeland coos".   They had recently repaved the road and added quite a few pull-out points for passing, but occassionally we'd meet in the middle and one of the cars has to reverse to one of these pull-out points.

Glenfinnan Viaduct, Loch Shiel

All of these places were beautiful and it was great that Richard could finally see them.  We had a lot of fun driving through all these places but the area we covered in one day could really be a full week of sightseeing.

Glenisla, Dunottar Castle and Aberdeen

From Perth we drove to Aberdeen but we took some country roads so we could see Glenisla, where Marijke has some ancestors.  We found some headstones at the church that look like they might be her relatives.  Unfortunately the headstone that looked most promising was fenced off, we could see the name “William Robertson” but the headstone was so worn out we couldn’t read the birth and death dates and couldn’t make a rubbing.  If we could have gone a little closer we probably would have been able to make them out.  We went to ask some people in a pub if they knew anything about the names we were looking for and a guy there (top row) said he was pretty sure the original deed papers for his home (house on middle row) have the name we were looking for.  He said he would check later and email us what he finds out.

After Glenisla, we went to Dunottar Castle.  It was in a really unique and beautiful location on a piece of land that was almost and island.  It was on high cliffs overlooking the sea.  You had to hike down a steep path then back up to reach the castle gate.  One thing that was particularly unique was that it had a Lion's den where they kept one lion to watch and guard the castle.

In Aberdeen Richard doesn’t know as many people so we had to stay at a hotel.  The hotel happened to be next to the LDS chapel in Aberdeen, but we didn’t realize it until we drove up (Richard served in the other ward/other building).  The fridge in our room was unplugged and things were situated in a way that we couldn’t plug it back in.  We called reception and they couldn’t fix it so they upgraded us to a suite twice the size and with a kitchenette (unfortunately it wasn’t of any use to us).  Aberdeen is nicknamed the “Granite City” and has a really unique look.  All the houses and city buildings were made of grey granite.  Richard said it sparkles and looks nice in the sun, but unfortunately it was rainy while we were there.

Perth

We didn’t stay the night in St. Andrews; instead we went to Perth, which was Richard’s first area.  In Perth we met with Mary Harding, who Richard had met very early in his mission.  Mary is a lot of fun and she told us all about her life; we ended up talking to her for about 3 hours.  

In Perth, we stayed with the Tom and Anne Crook, who live in a beautiful, well-preserved (over 100 years old) home.  Tom and Anne joined the church in the early '60s and they have been the backbone for the LDS community in Perth ever since. 

With Mary Harding on the top left and right.  We had a lovely time having dinner with her and visiting with her.  Richard's apartment is in the middle on the top.  Their house, built c. 1900, had a beautiful terraced backyard and lovely vintage interior.