First thing was to partake of the breakfast at the Hotel Admiral where we are staying. It was a huge and delicious spread, although not quite as splendid as the spread at Christiania Teatro in Oslo. Julie saw a young gentleman drink a shot of something, so she thought she would try it out. She found the bottle which was listed as a "vitamin surge." She poured herself a shot, and it turned out to be cod liver oil. Yuk.
Julie ad Harold decided to spend the day in the Art District, and off they went. Much of the day was spent at 3 of the 4 Code museums. Apparently the name comes from the "codes" or symbols that can be found in art. We went through most of the permanent exhibits, but the highlight of the day was one of two tours we took -- the art of Edvard Munch. This museum hs quite a large collection of Munch's art, and we learned about his artistic progression from art that was a combination of realism and impressionism (mostly the former, with a few impressionistic lights and colors tossed in) to art that was more expressionistic when Munch was trying to paint the yearnings of the soul instead of people in a landscape.
Then he moved beyond to his next stage when he painted in combinations of red, black, and white.
After wandering around the Arts District a bit and viewing the Grieg Opera House, beautiful fountains and ponds, and statues of Grieg, Ibsen, and Ole Bull, Julie and Harold headed back to the hotel to pick up their luggage and scramble up the hill :-( to the Hurtigen terminal for the last stage of their journey.
In the meantime, Olive and Randall made it to Italy without any problems, and were even able to get out of the airline terminal in Amsterdam to have brunch, see the Van Gogh Museum, and do a little shopping.
Juleen and Joe weren't quite so lucky. They got to the airport fine, and things went well with their travels -- sort of. They grabbed their luggage and passed through customs before running across the ariport at JFK to make their plane to Pittsburgh. They got at the terminal in plenty of time, but once they arrived at their gate, they found that the plane to Pittsburgh had been cancelled -- not happy dudes. They ended up spending a night by the airport, but on the upside they got a chance to run to Central Park in the morning before their flight to Pittsburgh.
And so it was over -- our family heritage journey to Norway. We all have a better sense of the area where John Maristuen emigrated from, and we also have a better sense of the Norwegian Maristuen family -- and, thus, of the North Dakota Maristuens.
