Day 36 - Halden and a Norwegian Play

July 27, 2023: We woke up to a Norwegian breakfast of open faced sandwiches with cheese, meat and cucumbers as well as brunost (brown cheese) with strawberries, and scrambled eggs. Brunost is one of my favorite cheeses to eat while I am in Norway. I decided to look up the history of Brunost and found out that it is made by boiling whey, a byproduct of making goat cheese, down to a caramelized sugar. That sugar is left to cool and then packaged in a block, so technically, is not a cheese at all, but it is so delicious!

After breakfast we headed to Halden to meet up with my Dad’s cousin Jørn and his wife Lise. Jørn has been to America twice and he and my Dad became close friends over the years. He owns a glass business in Halden. We had soup and fresh bread as well as blueberry and rhubarb pie with ice cream for dessert. I love the ice cream here, it is so creamy with no preservatives. Jørn’s son Joakim and his girlfriend Mary Ann also came by and it was great to catch up with him. He is working on our family history like my Mom has done over the years. We swapped information so we can connect in the future. We spent the afternoon catching up and enjoying being together. Then we headed back to Fredrikstad.

In the evening, we went to see a play called “Dreaming of America” at the Brottet Amphitheater in Hvaler. It is a family musical by Lars Kilevold. A humorous fiction about emigration to America. The Brottet Amphitheater is a very unique outside theater, built of stones with elevated seating. The performance was in Norwegian so Jimm and I had a hard time following most of the performance, but the actors were great and it was fun to watch and since my grandfather emigrated to America in the early 1900s, it was very relevant. It talked to the director before the show and he was happy to have us there.

Tomorrow we head on a trip to Trondheim with a stop in Røros with Knut and Marit. I am looking forward to sharing more of the beautiful country with Jimm.