Ja, Ve Elsker Dette Landet

I'm sitting at Oslo's "Sentralstation" (train station) drinking espresso and eating a sweet waffle with Norwegian brown cheese. The cheese tastes a little like toffee - sounds gross, but it's not that bad, especially with the waffle. I think I remember Rick Steves (travel guru, for those of you who don't know him) saying it's from a goat, but I could be wrong.

A night on the clean cozy railroad sleeper was a welcome change from the hostel of the previous night (and cheaper and more time efficient too!). We roomed with some crazy New Zealanders who had been on the rails for months, traveling the trans-Mongolian and trans-Siberian railroads across China and Russia.

After my last entry, I feel the need to give Denmark some credit. It redeemed itself the next day when we went to visit Sarah's ancestrial town of Nyborg (pronounced "Noo-bohg"). The sun finally came out as we picked wildflowers and walked around the home of her great-great-grandfather, Søren Danielsen. We couldn't find his grave in the local cemetary, but Sarah "Stickyfingers" Shotwell stole a souvenir hymnal from the church they used to frequent.

Back in Copenhagen (or København, as they spell it), we had to go see the little mermaid statue, which is really beautiful in person (she is, like, sooo much hotter than Mona Lisa). And what better place to soak up local culture than a visit to Copenhagen's Hard Rock Cafe? I didn't know how much I missed being able to order without guessing and not paying for the restrooms until we sat down and ordered a huge meal of good old American crap. As Madonna sang "And I feel like I just got home" we munched our way through a hamburger, chicken strips, fries, and a salad (the last three were all mine...). After what seemed like weeks of consisting on baguettes, croissants, and the occasional apple, it was nice to have a square meal. Miraculously, our meal came out to 310 kroner, EXACTLY the amount of cash we had between us, down to the cent. We hadn't ordered with this in mind or anything. It was quite a coincidence. From there we caught our night train.

After a night in Oslo, we're planning to travel by train to Trondheim - near the village my great-grandma Dina was supposedly from (Levanger), spend a night in Trondheim, then fly out of Oslo to Dublin...or something like that.

I find it so amusing that my grandmother was always so fiercely proud of Norway, even though she had never even been here. For some reason, that transfered to me, and as the first generation to set foot on this soil since my great-grandma left in the 1890's or early 1900's, I hope that will remain after I've seen this country.