In my early teens I spent 2 summers in Norway. My parents got seasonal jobs were and they took me with them. We drove there by car, but first we took ferry from Klaipeda to Karlshamn, Sweden, when another ferry from Sweden to Norway, I do not remember which towns were they now. It took us two long days to get there, a small island not too far from Stavanger.
We lived in a lovely wooden house with hardly any neighbours. It was very quiet there, especially if the sheep weren't nearby. It was a short walk from a small harbour. Sometimes my parents would borrow a boat and go fishing or just a jolly boat ride around the island or if it was good weather to a beach which was only accessible by boat, as far as I remember.
The nature and contrast to that of Lithuania was astonishing to me. Lithuania is very flat and rather boring, Norway was not. I could not stop admiring the mountains and beautiful coast line. The island we lived on was rather small and it had a population of around 200 people. They had a small shop with petrol station, two churches a school. That was about it! People were incredibly nice and all people I met speak very good English. I remember once a car stopped when I was walking to the shop which was a fair distance from our house and gave me a ride. Yes, it was a stranger and I was 12, but it was a lovely middleaged woman named May. All these years and I still remember her name! I don't think I would ever got in stranger's car back in my home country or here in UK for that matter, but that island was incredibly safe place. Nobody was locking their houses or cars. My parents' boss used to leave his lovely car at the harbour with doors open, keys in the ignition for hours. There was a like a chicken farm where they would leave out eggs, different classes with prices on them and a box to put the money in. That's what kind of place it was and I loved it. The first summer I worked a bit with my parents but I spend most of my time just handing around in the nature. It was nice, I would go to the harbour or just explore my surroundings. I used to draw a lot at the time but when I look at them now, they look really awful.
One day parents' boss's wife to me to the local school to meet some children. As you can imagine, there weren't many children as the island was so tiny and all children of different ages were taught in the same class it seems. I made a few friends and we even became penpals for a while until we lost contact. I still have their letters somewhere.
The second summer I was there, I also had a chance to babysit a lovely young lady called Ellen. She was just over 1 years old but she couldn't walk yet. I spent hours with her trying to get her to walk and she quickly did! I was super excited to see that! She was incredibly well behaved child and she only cried a few times when I was watching her and mostly it was for a genuine reason rather than a tantrum. She knew a few words, look, family's dog's name, but she called all animals by that name and a few others but I don't remember now. She quickly learned my name and I was super excited, I never even taught her that. Most of the time I was just playing with her outside and going for walks. If it was bad weather I would spend the day in the play room, but it was not as interesting, even though I could watch TV. I remember that it rained constantly but usually not for very long, the sea was very cold but we had very hot days and I don't think it was much worse summer than in Lithuania.
Food- I didn't have a chance to try any of traditional food, we carried on eating as usual. We brought a lot of food with us as Norway is incredibly expensive.I remember not having many sweets during these summers. Sigh!....
I wish I had pictures from the trip, but they all are with my parents. I would love to come back to visit and take thousands of pictures of the amazing views. One day, one day.
- Monday, July 07, 2014
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