Welcome home

So, my last blog post ended with us seeing our new country from the deck of the ferry. However, we were still a long way from home!

Some people hardly make the same mistake twixe. I am not one of those people. Twixe is considered a pretty good score when it comes to making mistakes in my book! In this case, I already had made the mistake once that Norway = home. It's not. Our home is still about a day's drive from wherever you enter Norway. And since we arrived a couple of days before Midsummer's Night, a day's drive is a rather stretchy concept...

On the plus side, though, the girls had definitely stretched their legs on the ferry. And Julie, well, poor Julie just had to hang in there for a little longer! In any case, she should relish the fact that she was in the back of the claustrovan, rather than cooped up in quarantine at Norwegian customs. You know, with my form-filling-capabilities, being banned from entering Norway was a very plausible scenario for our fur baby!

The first obstacle on our route was Oslo. When Menno and I drove to Trondheim, we got to Oslo around 5pm and made it past Oslo at 7.30pm (that's right, 2.5 hours for 25km). This time around, we got to Oslo at least an hour before that! And, again, made it past Oslo at 7.30pm. I will have to look it up, but I think in Norse mythology Oslo is the God of Congested Traffic...

It is after tedious Oslo, however, that the truly "fun" part of the journey begins. Because between Oslo and Trondheim lies a 500km stretch of pristine 2-lane highway (yeah right...) that winds its way between the mountains and valleys. Glorious vista's await you. If you dare take your eyes off the road for 2 milliseconds that is. I never dared. Because to me, 2-lane highways, with trucks, are my worst nightmare.

I consider myself to be a cautious driver. My friends refer to me as a senior driver. In fact, some have suggested my driving style could use a little cayenne pepper. And, I know, I should drive faster. But I am too darn scared of ending up in a car crash. Plus, I need to be a cautious driver, since my girls are relentless at getting my attention while I am driving. Not a good situation (and I truly need to work on that!).

So, driving 2-lane traffic in a country that I have never been in before, with humongous trucks all around has me sending prayers to whatever deity cares to protect my family from imminent death. I try to stick to the speed limit, but usually I drive just a tad slower than that. Resulting in angry trucks driving up so closely behind me that I can almost hear the driver cursing this blasted tourist car that is blocking their way. The trucks coming from the opposite direction are obviously not hindered by my lack of speed, so they give a new meaning to the expression "trundling down the hill". My teeth rattle every time a truck passes us.

Luckily for me (and the girls) I am not the only driver and my dad is about as experienced a driver as one can possibly be. Still, it took a looooooong time on those winding roads. We took a different route when driving up with the girls than I did with Menno, so the promise of perhaps seeing a moose to the girls proved to be an empty one. Insert grumpy girls here. For the most part, though, the girls were great! They read their books, listened to their audiobooks, chatted incessantly (Eluin) and happily accepted all the goodies grandpa offered them (oh, the novelty of a bag of mars/snickers/bounty/twix mini's!).

But of course no trip with young kids, and Ms. E in particular, is without incidents. She waited until we were about 2 hours away from our final destination to work her magic. We had been driving for a very long time through Norway's endless forests when we all desperately needed to pee. Unfortunately, gas stations, or rest areas with a washroom, were few and far between. In this particular case too far between. I saw a sign for a gas station and took the exit off the highway. Alas...the gasstation proved to be for farm vehicles only and there was NO washroom. But, as the gas station was in the middle of the forest, we decided to embrace our inner forest girls and go au naturel!

Jura and Nori still need a little help when it comes to peeing in the woods and I was rather pre-occupied with my own pelvic floor muscles to pay sufficient attention to the danger that has just climbed out of the van. It was only after I got out of the woods myself that I saw Eluin in getting ready to make a big mistake. She was standing at the edge of the road with her pants around her ankles, her hands on her hips and a determined look on her face.

The thought crossed my mind that she was about to pee, but surely she knew she needed my help...or at least squat. I picked up my pace, told Eluin that she had to wait for me. To no avail, of course. As I was clambering out of the bushes, she assured me that she was fine. "I can do this mom!" And she started to pee. Standing upright. All over her pants and shoes. I yelled: "What on earth are you doing, you need to wait for me so I can pick you up!" She looked at me angrily and said: "I don't need you to pick me up, because I can pee just like him!" (at which she pointed at grandpa). Pee like grandpa. That's right. That's what she did. In fact, the phrase "pee like grandpa" has become an expression in our household to explain the kind of "I can do this" plans that can only end badly ;-)

With relatively empty bladders and dry pants for Eluin we made it HOME! Menno was waiting for us and although it was well after midnight, it was still light enough to unload the van. I still need to bake a cake for the entire neighbourhood to make up for the racket we made that night. We put up a bed in the playroom, grandpa had a bed in the basement that was left by the previous tenants and we were all asleep within minutes!

The next day, me and the girls had to go to the police station to get our "personal number". Menno had picked June 16th a couple of weeks before as a random date. And although it was through factors which were outside of our scope of influence that we ended up in Norway on June 15th, I still take pride in making it to that particular appointment! I mean, it is the first and foremost thing we had to do when entering Norway, it takes about 3 weeks before you can get an appointment, and we managed to that on our first day home. How's that for efficient planning?

The rest of the days that my dad was in town we unscrupulously used his added benefits (huge van, lifelong experience with assembling IKEA furniture, great cook and grandpa-pur-sang) to whip our home into liveable shape! And I have to say, we managed quite nicely! Our shipment from Canada arrived on June 16th as well. And so the great unpacking could begin, and the girls were finally reunited with all their pretty stuff that they had missed for so many months.

All good things must come to an end, though, and before I knew it, I had to go and pick up my brother from the airport. I am forever grateful to my dad for driving us up to Norway, but I am equally grateful for my brother flying all the way out to Trondheim, just to have a cup of coffee at our newly assembled kitchen table, before driving back to Holland as my dad's co-pilot.

And now we're here. Without family and no friends. We have met some acquaintances with serious potential in the friendship department, though, so that's good news. Nevertheless, I have felt lost now and again. And I have lost my kids now and again. Our living space has almost tripled in comparison to Canada, so I am not always completely sure where my kids reside. Especially when they have sneaked off with an iPad ;-)

Norway is our home and I will work my way through these awkward first months, just like I did in Canada. Trying very hard not to compare these first months with my first months in Canada, though...'cause that would still just hurt too much.