Our House!

After weeks of traveling, we arrived at the villa perched on a hill that will be our home for the next eleven months.  When we initially went to the house to meet our landlady, my first thought was that it was too isolated.  For the past seven years, we've lived in sidewalk neighborhoods where the houses are close together and the people who live next to you help sustain you whether it's to borrow a cup of sugar, go for a dog walk, play tennis, read about the Civil War, or join for a late night glass of wine.   Or produce a documentary, for that matter.  

But the house has its charms, to be sure.   All of the villas here were designed by a French architect who believes that while the floors of a house can be level (lucky for us), "the rest must be movement."   

The houses remind us a bit of Vienna's Hundertwasser.  The architect claims that his staircases are designed so that you can run up and down them all day.  We haven't tried that yet, but Luke and I, with Charlie, have run up and down the terraced garden behind the house where there are fig trees, lavender bushes and a variety of flowers that I can't name yet.  

 There is very little division between inside and outside, thanks to the warm, sunny days and the gardens that were designed as additional living space.  And we're all loving the pool. In DC, we frequently bemoan that it's usually too hot or too cold or too buggy to spend a lot of time in our own beautifully designed garden.  Not so here.  

And we don't have to worry about Hannah's F.F.s.   We usually have breakfast and dinner on the terrace just outside the living room. 

 

The vast expanse of sky behind the house provides a spectacular display of sunsets and an opportunity to track the rise and fall of the moon.   We've already seen a rainbow and even a shooting star!  

After living in a comfortably cozy house for the last six years, our villa here feels rather large to me.   On the other hand, that means that there's lots of room for visitors.   Book your trip!  

Pulpit Rock

The highlight of our trip to Norway was spending time in Stavanger with Luke's friend, Oystein.   Thanks to gmail and Facebook, the boys have been able to stay in touch in a way that wasn't possible when we were young.  "In the old days, we didn't have internet or email and we had to actually write letters to friends we met overseas."   "Did you?"  "Well, no..."  [But I wonder if  Donna, Nancy and I would still be friends with the kids we met in Penang who joined us for Kick-the-Can every evening if we'd been able to friend them on Facebook?  Or the three brother in Cyprus who took the three of us out to a disco?  Hmm.  Maybe just as well we didn't have the internet.]

Oystein took us on a hike up to the Preikestolen, known as the Pulpit Rock in English.  Our guide book warned that it was a rigorous two-hour hike with a heart stopping view, but Oystein assured us that it was easy. 

 "We run up it sometimes," he said, "and, don't worry, even old people can climb it."  Girded by these words, we donned our best climbing shoes and trekked up the mountain.   

It was treacherous in parts as we scrambled up over rocks, steep paths and at one point had to go single file along the edge of a cliff.   After about an hour and a half, we neared the large mountainous rock  protruding out over the Lysefjord.  Luke and Oystein had raced ahead of us all the way up, but suddenly Luke hung back, staring wide-eyed at the precipice.   "I don't want to go any further," he said as we started to venture onto the face of the cliff.  But he took one tentative step and then another until the four of us were right in the middle of the Pulpit Rock.  After a picnic of sandwiches and homemade muffins, thanks to Oystein, we moved closer to the edge and peered over.   My stomach knotted up.

 "Is this as tall as the Empire State Building or the Sears Tower?"  Luke asked.  He and Jeff have been to the top of both of those.  "Even taller."  Pulpit Rock soars 1982 feet into the sky.   Sears Tower boasts 1451 feet, and the Empire State a mere 1250 (not that I'd braved either).   We took our photos and made our way back down, feeling proud of our accomplishment on behalf of old people everywhere.  

The Road to Bergen

The drive from Geilo to Bergen has to rank among the most beautiful in the world.  The road winds up and down steep peaks, rambles across old bridges, burrows deep into miles-long tunnels that cut through the mountains, and then stops abruptly at the edge of a fjord where you drive onto a sturdy no-fuss ferry boat to cross to the other side.   This is not a place for people who suffer from phobias about bridges, tunnels or water.... [ I have to confess that I kept a close watch on how many kilometers we'd already done and how many were left to go during each pass of the really long tunnels.]

We drove past waterfalls and alongside the stillest waters holding incredibly crisp reflections of the mountains.  Luke and I kept up a fairly constant banter urging each other to look and marveling at the beauty around us.   It was hard for  Jeff to concentrate on the narrow windy road with such distracting scenery and driving companions.   

We loved Bergen, Norway's 2nd largest city and the so-called Gateway to the Fjords.

   

 The old city centre is a walkable collection of medieval forts,  colorful wooden buildings from the days of the Hanseatic League, and a funicular that took us up to the top of one of the Seven Mountains that ring the city.  It's a rainy place, but we didn't mind the grey skies.  They fit the slightly melancholic, steeped-in-the-past feel of the place.  

The seagulls who regularly visited the ledge outside our room didn't seem to mind the rain either, especially when Luke kept them happy with chunks of bread and the Pringles from the mini-bar.