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This was a full day for us in Kongsberg. We enjoyed a wonderful breakfast of breads, cheese, jam, caviar, vegetables, coffee….delicious. After getting ready, we went for a little hike up behind Elisabeth’s house. The area is called Håvet. There are trails and fields and a local road that leads to a place called “The Crowns in Håvet”.
From Wikipedia:
This attraction (Kronene i Håvet) is a site where Norwegian royal monograms have been carved into the mountainside overlooking Kongsberg to mark royal visits to the city. In June 1704 King Frederik IV visited Kongsberg and started a tradition that is still celebrated. King Frederik also arranged for the monograms of visits from earlier monarchs to be recorded as well.
The first monogram on the hillside property belonged to Christian IV who in 1624 founded Kongsberg at the site of the newly discovered silver deposits. His visit was followed by that of Frederik III (1648) and Christian V (1685). Christian VI and his Queen Sofie Magdalene (1733), Frederik V (1749), Oscar I (1845), Oscar II (1890), Haakon VII (1908), Olav V (1962) and most recently Harald V (1995).
It was a nice little walk but very steep for us! After our little walk, Elisabeth and Kristine stayed home while Shelley and I ventured down into the town to pick up a few things for our road trip the next day, and to snoop around.
In one of the women’s consignment shops, just from the entryway into the store you could see that there was a huge ‘Kringle’ there on a table. I brought Shelley inside and pointed it out to her. The shop owner said she was celebrating her six month of being open, and the local bakery next door gave her this Kringle as a celebration gift to share with any customers or visitors. Shelley was able to try her first almond flavoured Kringle, and she loved it!
We then walked further into town
and entered the mall. Lots of shops and we realized a good many of them were dedicated to hardware type stores, outdoors, clothing, food, and home goods/furnishings/kitchen type stores. They were all spectacular to us and if we lived here, we’d be broke.
Shelley and I then returned to the house to get ready for the rest of the family we were going to meet. We brought Elisabeth a personal bag of ‘Ostepop’ to enjoy…and we all shared some melkesjokolade (milk chocolate) and chips; Løk og Ost (Onion and Cheese).
Fredrik, Elisabeth’s son, his girlfriend Eli, sons Aksel and Olav then arrived. So very nice to meet them; such a wonderful couple and those boys are special. Aksel was particularly excited in meeting his ‘cousins from Canada’ and came downstairs to find me. I was collecting up some Canada pins, pencils to give to them all as little gifts.
Even returned home exactly, and I mean exactly at 6:00 pm. He was stepping up through the patio doors at 6:00 which was so funny for us, because the night before, Elisabeth told him to be here by then because we wouldn’t be starting things until he arrived!
He takes the train in from Drammen and then walks from the train station in town up the hill to home.
We got down to feasting on chicken, sashimi (salmon), salads, bread, ost, many delectable delights. Eli brought a carrot cake for us all. Elisabeth was trying to describe what type of cake it was for us, and she made a mistake in association which turned into a funny joke. She called it ‘rabbit cake’ because rabbits eat carrots, and she really wanted to say carrot cake. Nope. It’s now forever rabbit cake! This was served with fresh whole strawberries with a drizzle of vanilla sauce.
After dessert, with Elisabeth’s help, I gathered everyone together to present Aksel with a silver spoon that belonged to his tip-tip-Oldefar - his great-great-great grandfather. The spoon is about 111 years old, and has his name engraved on the reverse of the spoon “Ingvald K” for Ingvald Klette. Aksel seemed very touched with the spoon. He even sent a little video of himself putting the spoon in a sock (as per my suggestion) to keep it from tarnishing so quickly, being pure silver.
The evening ended with some beer, aquavit, and
Steep
Shelley on the road for perspective conversation.
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