5 countries in 5 days. :)

It seems like so long ago since we have written on this blog! I suppose it has been more than a week. We were just lounging at home in Kristiansand last time we wrote, right? ..Seems like months ago. :) 

Back in November or so, when I was living and working in Eastend, I asked a relative of mine, Lester Morvik, if he knew of any people in Norway we could stay with. He came back a couple days later with a list of about 6 people that I should get in contact with while I am there. :) So, I tried looking them up on facebook, first, and Rasmus was the only one I could find, and he replied to my message, saying he would love to have us come and visit. So, now we are at Rasmus' house, and when sitting down for supper one night, Rasmus asked me if I had any other contacts in Norway. So, I went to get him my address book, where I wrote all the names and numbers and addresses of relatives that I got from Lester. All of them, excluding Rasmus, were living in a town very close to Bergen, called Morvik, Norway. Awesome, eh? :) Rasmus laughed when he saw the list! "That's my cousin, and that's my sister, and that's my brother.." and so on. :) He gave them all a call, and one of them, a man named Håkon, wanted us to stay at his house. So, Rasmus got it all arranged, and Håkon would meet us at the train station in Bergen. And so that night, the night of the 9th, we took a night train to Bergen, Norway. The trip across Norway, from Oslo to Bergen is spectacular. If you ever get a chance to do it, DO IT. :) It was beautiful in the winter, but I think it would be very good, if not better, in the summer. You go over a range of mountains, and at the top, we could not see anything but white. Once in a while, you could see a house poking up through the snow. It was clear that there was no one living there during the winter. The snow almost covers the houses! It was so fun to see. We arrived in Bergen, not really sure how we would recognize Håkon, but he came right up to us, clearly recognizing us.. How hard is it to miss two girls with big backpacks, clearly tourists? :)

So, he showed us the sights of Bergen, including this: a trip up a funicular railway, called the Fløibanen. It goes up the side of the mountin in Bergen, and has a great view of the city and ocean.

The view from the top of Fløyen mountain in Bergen. It was lovely. :)

Then we went to his home to meet more of our relatives! :) As it turns out, Håkon and his family lived in Eastend for 3 or 4 years, back in 1970's, I think, to work on Lester Morvik's farm. Their children went to Eastend School! Their daughter came over to the house while we were there, and it was fun to visit with her, someone who spent a few year of her growin up years in my home town. :) She went to school with my best friend's mom! Anyways, it was so fun to visit with them. Unfortunately, we did not have long in Bergen; we left the next morning for the trip back to Oslo. It was sad to say good bye after such a short visit, but I was excited to go to Oslo.

Bergen. There are so many beautiful houses, and Rasmus was telling us that they are all German architecture, and that it is the only city in Norway that is like this. Huh. :) Those Germans made beautiful houses, though! :)

Remember my Mom's cousin, Geir, whose house we stayed at, but did not get to meet last time we were in Oslo? Well, he confirmed that he was home this night, the night of March 11th, and wanted us to stay with him! So, we finally got to meet him. :) He was wonderful, and we had a great evening with him and his girlfriend. Back in the '70's or '80's, my mom's whole family, all her sisters and parents and even grandparents, (I think) came to Norway, and ALL of them stayed at Geir's house, the same house we stayed in! And then in the mid 1980's, my parents came back, along with my oldest sister Amanda, who was maybe 2 at that time. And they stayed in that house as well! So, now, I am part of the tradition. :) And Gier was a great host, and was so fun to visit with. Sorry, for some reason, I have no pictures of this time! :( Oh, well.
The next morning, we left for Kristiansand, to see our friends just one more time, then to take the ferry to Hirtshals, Denamrk. We got to Kristiansand around noon, and booked a place on the ferry that left at 4:30 pm. We hung out with Rasmus and Kari for one final afternoon. And while in Kristiansand for that afternoon, Rasmus took me to the shopping center, and we found a very good deal on a nice, digital, Canon camera! So, Rasmus chipped in a little money, (he kind of felt like it was his fault that my other camera broke..) and I bought the camera! So, now, I have a camera, and can take pictures once again. :) While we were in Bergen, Håkon bought us a disposable camera, :) and we used that until I bought this one. So, there are some pictures that you might not get to see until we get back to Canada and can develope the film, and such. :) However, you will notice down below that there are some pictures of Bergen. That is because Håkon let me borrow his camera while we were there, and then I got the pictures from him. :) So we have a few! Just no pictures of the trip from Bergen to Olso, or vise versa. :) You'll just have to trust me that it was incredibly beautiful. :) 
So, after hanging out with this wonderful couple for the afternoon, it was time to say goodbye, once again. 

Our family in Kristiansand, Rasmus and Kari Morvik. :)

Rasmus dropped us off at the ferry dock, and we made it onto our ferry, and into Hirtshals, Denmark, where, right away, we started our journey to our next destiantion: Berlin. However, we were starting this journey at about 9:30 pm, and we were hoping to find a night train that took us there.. No such luck. And so we train hopped all night, until we made it to Berlin. ..Not the most restful sleep, and also probably not the best for our health.. But we had no other option.. :) We made it to Berlin at about 2:00 pm on March 13th. Bleary eyed, but ready to be off the train. :) We explored Berlin for the afternoon. Wow. Now THAT is a city chockablock full of history. :) Unfortunately, we didn't have too long to spend there, as we were planning on catching an actual night train to Vienna at about 6:30 pm that day. But we saw the Brandenburg Gate, which was awesome.

The Brandenburg Gate, in Berlin.

The gate itself was very neat..HUGE. And very interesting to read about, and learn about the history behind it. But what caught our attention almost more than the gate itself were the buskers that were performing in front of it. :) It was a group of about 10 guys, break-dancing! It was awesome. Sometimes it was choreographed, sometimes they took turns letting each other show their stuff. :) It was so fun to watch!

This guy was.. incredible. :) He was so fun to watch. This video is just a portion of the whole dance routine that the guys in front of the Brandenbourg Gate performed. I gave them a couple Euro's. They were goood. :)

After watching them till they were done, we made our way to.. Yes. The Berlin Wall. 

  There is a part called the East Side Gallery that is the longest stretch of wall still standing. It is 1.3 km long. We found our way there, and it was.. incredible. I defiantely had mixed emotions looking at the Wall. I was excited to be there, but at the same time, it just made me so sad at what the history of this place was. We walked most of that section, and if you have heard of the East Side Gallery, you will know that it is famous for its artwork. In 1990, the city gave permission to a select group of artists to paint on the wall. And the paintings are amazing! Here are a few pictures.


The beginning of the East Side Gallery, the longest section of the Wall still standing. :)

The infamous painting of the former Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev kissing his East German counterpart Erich Honecker. ..We don't really know the history behind this painting, but its famous. :)

I thought it was funny. :)

The painting of the iconic East German Trabant car on the Berlin Wall, another really famous painting.

 It is said to be the longest-lasting open air Art Gallery in the world. It is incredible. The wall is right beside the River Spree, and so Anna and I lounged on the grass by the river for a while. And then it was time to head back to the train station.
We were planning on staying with a CouchSurfing family in Prague, but we told them that we would be there on March 14, and it was only the 12th. So, we had to have a place to stay for the night! Thats why we decided to take a night train to Vienna. Partly because I have always wanted to go to Vienna, partly because we needed somewhere to stay for the night. :) So, we caught our night train, and made it to Vienna. We spent the morning exploring Vienna, and it is a beautiful city. Someday, I would love to go to a opera or orchestra concert here. It just seems like the thing to do. :) We went to the main square, and explored the beautiful buildings around there. We saw the Parliament Buildings, (we only know it was them because it said so on the outside..) :)

The Parliament building in Vienna! So beautiful. :)

We didn't have a tourist map or anything, so we saw a lot of beautiful buildings and have no idea what they were. Down the street from the Parliament Buildings, there was a HUGE building we are assuming is a Cathedral. :) There is a picture below. It was so beautiful. I love Gothic architecture.

A large Gothic Cathedral in Vienna. It was HUGE.

We wandered around for a bit more, then made our way back to the train station.

We caught a train to Prague, and got into the city at about 3:00 pm. Using the very detailed instructions from our CouchSurfing host family, :) we made it to their home. What a lovely family! The parents names are Radek and Katka, and they have 5 children, under the age of 10. Yikes. :) It was so fun! They have 2-year old twins, a boy and girl, and they were SO cute. Me and the little boy hit it off right away. I think he sensed that I had a nephew about his age, and that I was missing my nephew terribly. :) It was so fun to hang out with them.

This is the twin I mentioned, part of the family in Prague. He was so cute. :) 

We stayed there for two nights, and both evenings eventually ended up in jam sessions. :) When their oldest daughter, Magda, 7 years old, learned that we played piano, she got us to help her practice-perform on her violin. She was actually quite good! We would accompany her while she played from this book of songs, with songs like Puff the Magic Dragon, and Ode to Joy. :) It was so fun. They also had a selection of recorders, a djembe, and the Radek had a contrabass! So, when we all got going, it sounded so cool, and sometimes very chaotic, but SO fun. The twins would take their recorders and blow away on them, with the 5 year old boy banging on the drum. It was the most fun I have had in a while. :)

This is one of our jam sessions with the family. The little girl you see once, then hear talking in Czech is the other twin. Her name was Elizabeth, but again, spelled and pronounced much different. She loved to talk, and she loved the camera. :) These jam sessions were so fun. :)

Anna, with Magda and the boy twin, whose name, we think, is Thomas, but they spell it and pronounce it completely different. :)

While we were there, yes, we did also explore the city of Prague. :) We sat down with Radek and Katka one night, and the took out a tourist map they had, and pointed out all the things that were necessary for us to see during our day in Prague. :) I don't think they thought we could do it in a day. :) We proved them wrong! We can do a city in a hour! Haha, well, maybe not quite. I mean, if we had to we would.. but its not so fun. :) It was fun to take a whole day to see Prague, we could take our time, and not have huge, heavy backpacks on our backs. It was fun. We started walking towards the infamous Charles Bridge, and on the way we went through Old Prague. It was so beautiful. Right before we got to the old square, we had to go through a Gothic tower gate.. :) On our map, it was called the "powder Tower".  :) We laughed when we saw what it was called, but then started thinking about why it might be called that. Anna guessed that it was because they used it to store gun powder during the war, and I was doubtful. It would seem silly, cause then it someone wanted to blow away the town, all they would have to do was bomb the tower.. :) But we just looked it up, because we were curious why it was actually called the Powder Tower.. And it turns out she was right! :) "Originally the tower was known as the Mountain Tower, but ever since the structure was used as a gunpowder storage space in the 17th century, it is known as the 'Powder' Tower."  Huh. Cool. :)
While we were walking through Old Prague, we came across this group of people, wearing bright red jackets which had Canadian flags on the sleeves.. Could it be..?

It was a Canadian hockey team!! How random is that.. :) We talked with them, and they are from Toronto.. Of course. Are Toronto and Vancouver the only places in Canada..?! NO!! :)
We continued on our trek, and saw the Prague Palace, which was really nothing speacial, in and of itself. But the Cathedral that was on the Palace grounds.. WOW. It was probably the hugest, coolest looking building I have ever seen.

The Cathedral on the Palace grounds. It was HUGE. 

We carried on, and came across this tower called the Petrin Tower. There is a picture of it below, and in case you were wondering, no, we did not take a side trip to France.. :) This is a mini version of the Eiffel Tower, at one fifth the size of the original, and was built two years after the original. It is standing on the top of Petrin Hill, and with the added height of the hill, the top of the tower is at the same elevation as the top of the Eiffel Tower. :) I got a kick out of it. :)

The mini Eiffel tower! It was one fifth the size of the real one in Paris. :)

We went back down the hill, and slowly made our way home, back to the wonderful family we have come to love. :) It was so sad to leave them! We left at about noon on March 16th, and made our way to Salzburg, where we have another family we are staying with.
 And how do we know THIS family, you may ask? :) Well, let me back up a bit and tell you the back-story.
When we were in Mannheim, Germany, we took a day trip to Heidelberg. That evening, after our trip into Heidelberg, we checked our CouchSurfing account to see if there was any new information. Well, we had a message from a lady in Heidelberg! She had seen that we had logged onto our CouchSurfing account from somewhere in her area, and she saw that we were Christians! She is a new believer, and is desperate to find people who believe as she does. So, she wanted to meet up with us! It was sad to say that just that day we had been in Heidelberg, and would probably not have time to go back. So, she told us that her brother, Frank, lives in Austria, near Salzburg, and if we are going there, we should stay with him and his family! So, we got in contact with him, and viola! Here we are.

The town where we are right now! :)

 He and his family actually live in a small town called Mattighofen, about 40 minutes away from Salzburg. So when we got into Salzburg, we were supposed to take some other connecting trains to make our way to their Mattighofen. Well, needless to say, through a series of very unfortunate events, we missed every single train that was going to Mattighofen that night. Bummer.. So, we sent him a email, using an internet cafe, telling him that we probably won't make it to his house, because we missed the connecting trains.. We prepared to sleep the night in the train station, when suddenly a girl poked her head into the train station waiting room, where we were, and said, "Anna? Demara?" :) It was Elizabeth, Frank's daughter! She had driven to Salzburg to pick us up and bring us to their home. Wow. The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze me. :)


The Lutheran church where Frank is the pastor. Or, priest, as they call them here. Also, the street where this church is on is called "Martin Luther Str." :) Awesome.

We stayed last night at their house, and it was MUCH better than a train station. :) They are so kind. As it turns out, Frank is a Lutheran pastor! They live in the parsonage, that is connected to the church. When we got to their home, they asked if we would like to try some sauerkraut. :) ..I normally don't like sauerkraut, but I had to try some Austrian homecooked sauerkraut. It was so good! So different from the stuff you buy in a jar in Canada.. :) This morning, Frank and Johanna, his wife, are out, and Elizabeth is 18 and in her last year of high school, so she is at school today. She LOVES English, and is quite fluent, and she had so many questions for us on the ride home last night. What does German sound like to you? What does my accent sound like to you? Will you help me with my English? It was so fun, and we are going to be interviewed for a project she is working on for her English class! Today, she is taking a 4 hour English exam.. Yikes. :) Our original plan for today was to go into Salzburg when she got home from school, around 2:00 pm, but it was raining, and so we didn't feel like it. :) Instead, when she got home from school, we did the interview for her project. It was about couchsurfing! :) Then we went for a walk around Mattighofen. Its so beautiful!!

"The hills are alive with the sound of music.. Ahhhh.." :) ..Or, the sound of rain, at least. :)

Its a small town, and they live right on the edge. This is the beautiful view of the countryside. :)

The town. :)

Anyways, thats about it! We are now planning on going to a town in the morning, called Braunau, and it is right on the border of Germany. Like, RIGHT on the border. There is a bridge, that on one side, you are in Austria, and one the other side you are in Germany. :) Also, it is the hometown of Hitler..!! Huh. :) And then, when we get back around noon, we are going with Elizabeth into Salzburg tomorrow to see the city, when she gets home from school.

And so that is our whirlwind of a week!! :) It has been crazy, and tiring and wonderful. :)

God Bless you, and we will write more later!! :)

From Mattighofen,

Demara and Anna