FAMILY - STAVANGER TO BERGEN, NORWAY - DAY 4

I wake up at 4AM to catch my bus at 5AM. It’s pouring rain, and my empty stomach still isn’t right. I meet a nice Canadian traveling through Norway, and we swap stories as we catch the bus together. I pay the student price, and the lady driving the bus is so nice, that because it’s raining so hard, she lets me ride with her to the fish pier / Fiskpieren for the ferry, even though her last stop is the city center. The pier office is closed, and there’s no one to ask to verify my ticket. I assume it’s all smooth sailing from here, because everything is going according to plan, and I’ve followed instructions on time- I’m early actually. But I walk around in the rain for my ferry and can’t find it. All the ferry’s are either small, local ones, or they look like big cargo ships. I sense something fishy, and walk over to a worker, unplugging cables on a nearby local ferry. I ask him about Fjord Lines as I can’t seem to see any around, and I need to be there an hour before departure, which is 7AM. Essentially, I needed to be there at 6AM, and it as 5:40AM.

He said no, that’s a different pier, far from us at Risavik Havn Pier. My stomach drops more than before from feeling ill. He said the ferry leaves soon, and asks if I have a car, or maybe I can take the bus. The lady at the front desk gave me the wrong information, and now I have to hurry up and fix this or I’d miss my ferry. A bus would’ve been the answer and probably half the cost, but I couldn’t take a chance and miss the boat... Literally. I was told to go to Fiskpieren just like I did to get to Tao, and there was no way to know how long the bus would take- I only had 20mins. My only other option to get to the opposite side of Stavanger was to to take a cab. I run over to the two Somalian cabbies to ask how far and how much. Since the pier is in the exact opposite direction of us, it’s roughly 600kr ($67), and would take 20-30 minutes. VA FAAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!! *This is Swedish, and it translates into the most fowl curse word you can think of.

I always think I'm getting cheated by cabbies in any, and all foreign countries. I don't want to do this, but I don't have a choice. I take the $67 cab, stress sweat the whole way there, and track the cab’s route on my downloadable map to make sure he wouldn’t pull a fast one- He didn’t. We made it exactly 6AM for check-in.

I’m still kicking myself over this, and am too embarrassed to tell Ove, but it’s my first time in Norway, so how could I know? Looking at the map, it makes sense for where the Fjord Line pier would, and should be, but I was told to go to Fiskpieren early by bus, and so that’s what I did. I don’t have any information in my email other than the confirmation number for the ferry ticket, and after receiving the wrong information from my hostel, how could I possibly know better? It didn’t matter, I had to make my ferry, so I took the only other option which was a cab. I made it just in time for check-in and everything was fine. Only a somewhat small financial casualty. It’s still within my spending budget, but I hate when this happens because costs like this can always be avoided. But missing a flight, or in this case a ferry, is my worst nightmare when traveling, other than food poisoning or my cameras / passports / money being lost or stolen. This was an innocent mistake. If I missed my ferry and bought a new ticket, then both ferry tickets would’ve amounted to the same price as the cab, PLUS a bus ticket to get there, and no way to communicate any of this to Ove if this worst-case-scenario happened. I just have to eat it.

On the ferry, I take a seat by a window- There’s plenty of space, and it’s soothing to watch the rain glide down the glass. Still wet from the rain, fatigued from the early hours of the morning and stress, and still not feeling great from my stomach, I’m tired, but alert from the adrenaline rush of the morning. I try to relax by reasoning out my cab expense over a free two night stay with family and food, and by being frugal with groceries and bus tickets thus far. It’s quiet everywhere on the ship as people around me catch a snooze, and I’m able to take a deep breathe.

I knock out for 45 mins, and then try to nap until 8:15AM. There’s a tired French family next to me, and their baby boy was really fussy, so I give up and enjoyed the view right next to me. I can’t use my phone, because you have to buy WiFi, so I needed to figure out a way to entertain myself for the next 5-6 hours.

Despite the grey, rainy weather, going along the coast was very pretty. There were a lot of industrial harbors, but also many fishing houses along the way that were all very charming. It’s also a refreshing weather change from always hot and sunny West Coast in the States. At this point, my stomach isn’t feeling better, but it’s empty so no bathroom breaks needed. I try to stomach a banana and a granola bar. I feel a little better, and force feed half of a sandwich and an apple. We pass more of the archipelago, but my stomach won’t stop cramping, so I take two chairs, strap my valuable bag to me, roll grandpa’s beanie over my eyes and try to sleep more. I wake up around 10AM to an audience. Everyone has woken up, taken another chair, and sits next to me on either side, looking out the window at the passing view.

I’m still not feeling great, so I roll over to the other side and try to nap. To be fair, the passing archipelago is nothing I haven’t seen at this point. I’m in and out of sleep until 10AM to 11AM. I finally sit up, and get ready for arrival in 1.5 hours. I’m not hungry, but I’m feeling a little better after sleeping more. I wanted coffee to wake up and have something warm, but I didn’t want to further wreck my innards. Plus, walking around the ferry seemed nice, but I didn’t want to lose my seat, and have to take all of my bags around with me- The downside of traveling solo.

We finally arrive, and Ove meets me outside in his original 1970s Cortina Swedish car. We hug it out and I tell him how nice it is to meet him. It’s a bit awkward at first, but once we start the day, Ove is my new best friend.

We begin by taking the car around Bergen, and he gives me a full tour of the city. During the ride, he tells me about his car, and “Sailing On A Shoestring”. *("Sailing On A Shoestring" was a documentary that I had made about my Dad. It was my senior film thesis at University). At this, Ove gets choked up, and begins to cry, saying he felt such a strong familial connection when he saw Dad and heard his story. I’m so touched, and thank him for loving my movie so much. I tear up a bit too, but blink away the tears. I just feel really intense love for my new-found family. I can't believe how many years have passed without Dad, or my two aunts knowing about their cousins from their mom's side. They've been in Norway this whole time. Thanks to the invention of LinkedIn, and me happening to take my first trip to Norway now, we were able to finally find each other. The emotions surge through both of us, but it still feels quite surreal for me. It's a bit of an out-of-body experience. Part of me feels like, I'm sitting in an amazing car, driving around Bergen with a complete stranger, but the other part feels like I've known him my whole life, and there's nothing strange about this at all. In fact, it feels entirely normal. Ove looks like a much younger you, Dad. The resemblance is uncanny, and I can't help but feel at home. How incredible! The only down side is that, growing up Swedish, we can't shit on the Norwegians anymore- We're one of them! Hahaha!

Once we park, we try to meet his son, Thomas, at the main red church. Thomas was supposed to be a best man in a wedding, but we find out the wedding is tomorrow- Oops! We stop for lunch at an old Norwegian restaurant and we split stock fish. It’s very salty, and served with bacon and pea stew. We have this with a beer each. I had a Hansa Fatøl. My stomach still sucked, but I’m not going to refuse this traditional Norwegian meal with my new best friend. We discuss things about both our families. Ove told me about his new endeavor for green energy. He’s already developed a trash bin pickup for harbors, and is now working on something new with his brother. Ove wants me to make some commercials for his new product when it gets off the ground. We finish our meal, and I try to help pay, but Ove refuses.

After this we walk around Bergen, and he shows me his invention in the harbor, walks me through the fish market, and buys fresh berries to make jam. It’s pouring rain from morning until the early hours of the night, but this weather is authentic to Bergen, (and truthfully all of Norway). We head over to the crooked houses called, Bryggen, where Ove takes me to look at a Christmas shop. Throughout our tour, he talked about Christmas a lot, so I had a feeling this was his favorite holiday. I hold up a small Tomten *(Santa) and make fun of his beard. Ove offers to buy it for me to remember us meeting, but I simply can’t. He takes a phone call and when he gets off the phone, instead I ask, is Christmas your favorite holiday? He says "Yes", so I say "How about I buy that little Tomten for you so you can remember this moment"? He tears up again, and says "That would be great". He calls it Emilia, as that is my name in Norwegian.

We explore Bryggen a bit more, and then take a cab back to the car as the sky really opens up, and it begins to pour. We drive all the way to Ove’s childhood home where we meet one of his old friends, see the castle where the composer Ole Bulle had lived, and looked at Ove's childhood summer home. He lets me change the gears in his car as he drives- Pretty awesome. I also buy him some beers here as part of my thank you gesture that he’s taking such good care of me.

After this, we get to his home, and meet his sister, Anita. I do a double take as she looks EXACTLY like a younger Gebba, *(my aunt / my Dad's sister). Anita is more nervous because she thinks her English isn’t that great, but of course it's excellent. I help fill in the gaps with broken Swedish.

We take coffee and sweets in the living room to ask more questions about each other. Ove simply says to me, "It’s such a good energy to be around you". I tell him it just feels like I'm at home with family, (which of course I am), so this is natural for me too. He pauses, and gets up from the couch for a moment, and walks over to his desk. He then pulls out a photo of me in Vietnam from 2011, and says his dad had this photo of me on his desk in a tin. Because his dad had drinking problems, he couldn’t fully tell or articulate to Ove who I was in the picture. Ove kept asking his dad, "Who is this girl"? "How do we know her"? His dad passed away, never able to tell him. Later, Ove posted this photo of me to a Facebook group to ask who I was, and to find my family. The problem was, that he used Framor's *(Grandma's) maiden name Gudding, and not Dad's last name, Svensson. So the Internet couldn't help either. As it turns out, all this time, he was looking for me too.

I’m amazed, and now I’m the one breaking down, trying to choke back tears. *(I hate crying in front of people. I never want pity, but I also know that I ugly cry worse than Kim Kardashian, and that doesn't need to be public). I don't know how to explain that Dad, Mona and Gebba hadn't thought of finding each other sooner. *(I still haven't asked my dad, but my assumption to tell them was that it was because they just thought everyone was gone, and the line ended with Ove and Anita's dad. No one thought of LinkedIn or social media before....Granted LinkedIn wasn't founded until 2002, and Facebook in 2004. Add about 5-9 more years when everyone begins to create a profile, but by then everyone's just living their lives and forgets about the possibility of ever finding each other).

We relish this moment, and then Anita calls their mom, Borg, to see if we can meet up and have me ask more questions. The three of us drive over to Borg’s, and she has albums full of our family and of theirs. They’ve been keeping up with us, as Dad has been sending them photos of me growing up. But over time, and as we kept moving all over the world, the few Christmas cards were being sent to Ove and Anita's Dad, and not their Mom. So Borg didn't know where we were either. She then pulls out an envelope, and in Swedish it reads “To Emilie”. It’s a family photo, and a silver fork as a gift. I’m holding back tears again and thank her in Swedish over and over. Borg then asks if we want cake and ice cream. We all say yes- It's home-made, with Apple and rhubarb. My stomach is still all over the place, but I never refuse sweets. It was insanely good.

Next, we drive to Ove’s and Anita’s childhood river for a freezing Viking swim. We strip down to our underwear in typical, crazy, Scandinavian fashion, and without thinking, we jump in. It’s exhilarating and I wake up- My senses sharp as ever. I embrace the cold, sharp, stabbing pains, and let the soon-to-be ice water run through me. If you're not already a Viking, this will make you become one.

We towel off and head back up to the car eating wild berries. What a life! The skies finally clear, and the colors are INCREDIBLE! We head back to the car, and drive over to spots so I can shoot the sunset and the car. I'm grateful for Anita and Ove humoring me in this. The shades change right before your eyes from crisp yellow, to orange mixed with swirling blues, then crimson, violet, and hot pink. The clouds push the colors around, and it feels like I'm standing inside of a painting, with ever changing colors, compositions, and possibilities. All of this, hovering over expansive farmland, and rolling hills, surrounding by reflective, crystal waters.

After all this, we finally go home to have smorgås *(sandwiches and snacks) at 10:30PM. I also tried Norway's famous brown cheese. It's sweet, so you need to each it with jam. It's unusual, but wonderfully delicious. I munch away, eyeing the little Emilia Tomten next to my Vietnam photo on the table. I know the cheese it bad for my stomach, but it's too good to pass up.

I’m extremely tired at this point, and I would to tell this in more detail, but I’m rushing to go to bed. I’ll send more photos later, but right now this will have to do. Family dinner tomorrow.

I love my family.

-eM

P.S. My stomach isn’t getting better and I think I might need to see a Doctor. It’s to the point where I’m so uncomfortable, I have trouble sleeping. I’m taking half of a pill tonight just to get some FULL rest, but something isn’t right. My stomach has painful cramps, and is making all sorts of noises. Maybe Dad and I can go to the Doctor and get something if I can wait until Sweden?