35 and I'm so alive

Yes, my birthday was this past weekend and I turned 35. That sounds so old to me. I am now in my mid-thirties and half way to 70. It was kind of a weird birthday really. We are in Norway so really not many people here know it was my birthday. My love language is gifts (and celebrations) so I usually like to have a big celebration - getting together with friends, cake, ice cream, cards, presents - all that stuff. This year it was just me, Sam and Katherine so very low key.

As mentioned in a previous post, Sam had a work retreat and was going to miss my birthday so Katherine and I rented a car and a cabin so we could be with him and then he took Labor Day (not a Norwegian holiday) off work to celebrate. You can see that we had a great view from our cabin of Lake Nisser.

The day started off bad because Sam was sick all night. So, I let him sleep in. That meant I had to keep Katherine entertained and quiet in a small cabin with not many toys. We ate breakfast on the porch and walked around the facility finding the playground and the "bouncing pillow".

Our plan was to go into town to eat lunch and then go on a hike. Here is another cultural difference. Everything was closed because it was Sunday. I mean everything. I knew the grocery store would be closed so we bought some groceries on Saturday. There was not a single restaurant open. So we decided to drive to the next town which is larger. We were lucky and there was one restaurant open. You can see that it was a gorgeous day with perfect weather but no one was enjoying the restaurant. There was one other group there. I guess if you are used to everything being closed on Sunday you plan for it and enjoy the day of rest with family. Really in a way I am jealous of the mentality because so often we are way too busy on Sunday. But, when you are used to everything being open, it kind of throws you off. I digress.

After lunch we went back to Vradal where notmuch was going on. We went on what was supposed to be a short hike but we misunderstood so it was kind of a long hike. It was pretty though and we had great scenery.

This was an interesting community we saw on our hike. It was literally in the middle of no where. I have not idea what these people are doing there. It was probably a complex of vacation homes. I thought it was cool thought that a newer community still had the grass roofs.

For dinner we went to one of the hotels in town for a buffet. It was good. It will be one of our only chances to have traditional Norwegian food since we are cooking most of our meals.