Institches with Bonnie: Norway

I'm back! We flew back from Sweden on Friday. Unfortunately it was not a direct flight so we had a stop in Reykjavik, Iceland. I think I woke up at 6 am on Friday, an hour earlier than I needed to. We arrived back in Dulles International around 7:30 pm or so but it was well past 8:30 by the time we cleared Customs and gathered our bags. FYI -- that was 2:30 AM in Sweden. We stayed overnight at a local hotel rather than try driving when we were so tired!

It was a wonderful trip with lots of wonderful things to see. After my goals info I'll share some pictures of the beginning of the trip.

Here's what I did the week we left for our trip.

6/5/23

✅Put binding on numbers quilt

Clean front end of cutting table — some progress was made

✅Work on Thirty Something project

✅Organize hand work for trip

✅Attend a wedding

✅Fly to Europe!

Yep, I still got most of my goals done. On the other hand, half had to do with our travels. Now fast forward nearly 2 weeks for my goals for this week. It's a sparse list but we are both still jet lagged. I did get to spend the whole day Sunday putzing around in the studio.

6/26/23

Cut out 1 quilt for upcoming retreat

Make some blocks for FCQ EQuilter

Make some more 30 something blocks

Today I made some headway on making blocks for Irma who is the recipient of blocks for June and July from FCQ Equilters. She wants any block(s) we want to make as long as they are either 6, 9 or 12 inches. And we are to use summer colors. EEK! What's your idea of summer colors? Let me know in the comments. Here are two I finished today. I'm trying to use Accuquilt to make the blocks. I have another one already cut out. I'm going to try to repeat some of the fabrics I've already used to help tie the blocks together.

The rest of this post will be the beginning of my travelog. My goddaughter, my friend Sharon's daughter, got married the day before we were leaving. It was a lovely destination wedding on the Eastern Shore in Maryland. We had an excellent time and enjoyed seeing her so happy. The next day we had lots of time before we were leaving so we made visits to both of our kids/grandkids. After we forced Kevin and Aimee to feed us it was off to the airport. (Really, they didn't mind at all...)

First class airfare came with our cruise so we decided to hit the free United lounge to wait. (Hum, not the most flattering picture but we were enjoying the quiet, the comfortable chairs and a snack before departure.)

The jet had sleeping seats. It was nice but also weird. I was in my own little area and couldn't see Pat much at all. Nor could we really carry on a conversation. We both got some sleep but clearly not a normal night's rest.

We landed in London and were bussed to our hotel in downtown. (The traffic made me feel right at home. Sigh.) I heard, but didn't see, that Buckingham Palace was fairly close. We valiantly stayed awake and had a good meal at a local pub. We gave up on staying awake, went sound asleep at 6:30pm, and slept through the night.

After another bus ride we boarded our ship at South Hampton. Of course, our cabin wasn't ready as the previous cruise passengers had left just a little earlier in the day. We enjoyed checking out the public spaces and having lunch outdoors. The weather was glorious.

The second day on board was cruising the North Sea. I'm happy to report it was smooth sailing. Actually the whole trip the seas were really calm. Saw this wind farm. (No clue where it was except the North Sea.)

The next day we visited Kristiansand on the southern tip of Norway. Who would miss the opportunity to get a picture with a moose? (Pat wasn't interested, but I was!) Norway's national animal is the moose. The stuffed moose was on a base with wheels. He was gone by the time we came back. That's our ship in the background.

Our excursion was a visit to Kristiansand Open Air Museum.

The museum was a series of old buildings from the 16th to 19th centuries. We spent the most time in the oldest buildings. The building below was for storage. The next picture shows the designs on the lintel. All the buildings we went into were of similar construction. But I failed to take pictures of them. (Bummer!)

The next picture shows more "modern" structures. (I borrowed this from Trip Advisor's gallery where Management posted it. I'm assuming that means the Open Air Museum management.)

We were able to go inside the 3rd building from the left. It was bigger and had a hearth in the center of the house. Multiple generations lived in the house. Once children were old enough they slept in the barn, if I remember correctly. These household items were on display in the house.

So can you guess what the first and last items are? Well, surprisingly enough they are irons. It was used with the wooden rod next to the first one. Evidently a young man would make his intended an "iron" when they got engaged. Obviously the first one had a lot of loving carving done on it while the second one was, um, plain. It's hard to believe that rubbing a wooden paddle over cloth on a wooden rolling pin look alike would actually remove wrinkles. (Hum, maybe Pat could make me one and I could try it out. NOT!)

I realized as I was gathering additional information to share about this visit that it was actually closed this summer as they are doing work on one of the buildings. I suspect we didn't get the full experience especially since we were on a 3 or 4 hour tour with other things to see.

Next stop was to a local dock/beach. We had a short walk through a neighborhood street to get there. I couldn't resist snapping the picture of this doorway.

I thought it was particularly charming. We saw several beautiful gardens and some bird houses too.

Our next stop was Copenhagen. I'll get those photos organized and posted in the next few days. I have to mention that I didn't go wild taking photos. I may borrow some from Pat if he took other photos. So the posts won't be exceedingly long.

As usual, I'm linking up with several Linky parties today.

Take some time to see what quilters are doing all over the world. I'll come back over the next two days to link up the other parties.

Happy Quilting All! Bonnie