Like a good neighbor, Norway is there!

 Since Kathryn never saw Norway we had planned to get over there this time around. Unfortunately we ran into some planning snags, and the trip was on again off again, so it all ended up being planned last minute. Of course that led to us not getting the most well-planned of trips. Fortunately everything came together and we managed to get on the way. This is the first time we got back together with the entire US team (Miles and Gerbers) since we got to Sweden, and Kathryn was happy to get to see her family again. We took a really leisurely trip since my dad wasn't coming along. For transportation we rented a mini-van that seated 9 people. We expected it to be a gas-guzzler, but we were really shocked when we had to fill it up. For a 5 point quiz question - How many miles to a gallon will you get with a Opel Minivan with 8 people and luggage traveling through the mountainous region of Norway?  We stopped on the way since we saw a cute little shop with a sign advertising waffles. We got one each with cloudberry jam and whipped cream, and it was amazing.
Our next stop was for lunch in Östersund. Hannah took a ride on a local celebrity (5 points - why can you find all these different statues of the creature Hannah is riding around the town of Östersund?)
We managed to find a candy store with a decent selection, and we all ate candy like crazy in the car for the rest of the trip.
Once into Norway we really got to enjoy the beautiful scenery. We only traveled for a short distance, but we still got to travel through 6 miles of tunnels. (one of them was 2.5 miles.)

 We stayed at a camping site in a couple of tiny cottages. Kathryn took the opportunity to sample the local seafood from the beach. (This makes it 2 pictures of her eating snails... it's a good vacation)
On day 2 we headed back toward Sweden, but we took a different route so we'd get to see some different scenery. We started of with our 3d ferry trip of this vacation, only this time we brought along our vehicle. The views we saw were amazing, but I do believe that Micah got some really nice pictures of them (I was in a terrible spot in the van, so I couldn't get any nice shots) he has a photo stream that you can check out. I'll try to find him to get the link to post later.
We also stopped at a really old church once we got back into Sweden, since we suspected we could get a photo of God's name in there, and we were right. The church was from the 1700s I believe, and it looks like people were a lot smaller back then. We didn't fit anywhere. I took a shot of some writing on the wall, and I'll give 3 points to anyone that can translate it. After dropping the van off, we caught sight of a moose baby in the dusk. He seemed very intrigued by us, and hung around the car as long as we were standing there, just staring at us. Once we started driving, he ran after us for a bit. Kathryn was quite excited to get her first good look at a moose, and Kristine was quite ticked that she missed out on it since she had already been dropped off at home... over all a pretty good reaction on both fronts I think.

Yesterday's competition has a slight controversy in it, so if Denise could post a link that backs her claim of 20 up, I'll give her the points, otherwise Tom gets them.