Today was a day all about family. We headed out early today to visit my mothers side of the family who are still living in Norway. They live in Nordburg and Skjak in the Gudbransdal Valley. We first went to visit Aslaug Nyhus who knew both my Great Great Grandmothers side of the family and my Great Great Grandfathers side of the family. She didn't speak any english (and we spoke no Norwegian) but we were able to communicate through her granddaughter, visiting from Oslo on holiday. After visiting with Aslaug for a while and learning more about the family and the area, our cousins arrived and we all met and talked and then we drove to the farm where my great great 
grandmother was born and lived until she went to the United States. It was pretty cool to see where they came from and my grandmother was really having a good time. I thought a lot today about how important family is and it is really good and interesting to know where I came from. We went back to the cousins house and saw the farm where my great great grandfather came from. We spent the rest of the day there with our cousins looking at old photographs and hearing stories. It was pretty cool. They also showed us the church in the town which is was really beautiful inside. Olga is my grandmothers second cousin and Siv is her neice. Siv is a school teacher at the local school and went away to college but came back to live there. I really liked the whole area and thought it was someplace that I could see myself living. They were all so nice and they prepared this whole big lunch for us at Siv's house (her house is so cool and looks really Norwegian). We had porridge and cheese and ham and potato salad. There was a lot of food and not all of it is even describable, but I did my best to try it all and I liked most of it, which was good to find out.
grandmother was born and lived until she went to the United States. It was pretty cool to see where they came from and my grandmother was really having a good time. I thought a lot today about how important family is and it is really good and interesting to know where I came from. We went back to the cousins house and saw the farm where my great great grandfather came from. We spent the rest of the day there with our cousins looking at old photographs and hearing stories. It was pretty cool. They also showed us the church in the town which is was really beautiful inside. Olga is my grandmothers second cousin and Siv is her neice. Siv is a school teacher at the local school and went away to college but came back to live there. I really liked the whole area and thought it was someplace that I could see myself living. They were all so nice and they prepared this whole big lunch for us at Siv's house (her house is so cool and looks really Norwegian). We had porridge and cheese and ham and potato salad. There was a lot of food and not all of it is even describable, but I did my best to try it all and I liked most of it, which was good to find out.All in all, we had a really great time. I sort of wasn't planning on liking today that much....I thought it would mostly be boring family stuff. But, I actually really liked meeting my family from Norway and learning about where I come from. It was hard to say goodbye at the end and leave....but we did. Maybe someday I'll go back and visit there again, it's one of the places that I've liked the best so far and I hope I see it again.
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