Matthew in Norway: July 2012

My wife and me at Hardangarfjorden.

Norway is known for its spectacular fjords. Maybe you are like I was, before I had love for Benedicte or any interest in Norway at all, and don’t know what a fjord is. They are river like inlets from the sea, often surrounded by cascading green mountains or little towns built into the hills. They are usually a mix of saltwater from the northern Pacific Ocean and freshwater from melting snow in the mountains. In some areas they are deep enough for cruise ships to tread in, but in others they are shallow enough to see the fish you try to catch. The entire west coast of Noway is weaved with them due to the rocky mountainous terrain. I would recommend going to Google Images and typing in “norway fjord”. More than half of the pictures that will come up will be of the beautiful country, and it may help you get a better idea of what a fjord is.

I first learned of the fjords during my first visit here last December. During my second visit here in March, my Mother-in-law bought me a very nice sweatshirt. On the inside of the designer bag it came in was a beautiful picture of a fjord in Hardanger–a region in Norway know for its scenic beauty. Thats when my fascination with Norway’s beauty began. I took the bag home to California and posted it on my wall to remind me of the colorful country I so longed to be in with my girl. I had only experienced the fjords in pictures and stories, so when my father-in-law told me that he was going to take my Bother-in-law and me on a three day hiking trip beginning in Hardangerfjorden, I didn’t know how to tell him thank you enough or how blessed I felt.

We drove for two hours, crossed the fjord by a ferry, saw the construction of the 1,300+ meter long suspension bridge connecting the two sides of the fjord, and started our 7 hour hike to our cabin. The scenery we saw on our hike was unlike any other I have ever seen. We hiked 1,000 meters up through green forest, over rocks and boulders and along side of a raging cold river. We saw massive waterfalls hundreds of feet tall, constantly roaring with power and constantly filling the air with a damp mist. We got cramps. We hiked up a very steep mountain side of solid rock so smoothed out by years of glacial pressure it was literally dangerous to come down when raining. We would get to the top of one mountain and in exhaustion hope that the cabin would be just over the ridge, to only see more and more scenery and no cabin in sight. Sometimes I felt like Frodo and Sam in Lord of the Rings on an exciting but seriously long extravaganza. I experienced drinking true crisp mountain water from freshly melted snow, and no, Arrowhead Bottled Water doesn’t taste like what it says: “Bottled at the source”. The water was so cold, that when I plunged my hand in it to fill up my drinking bottle, it began to ache before the bottle was full.

We finally got to the cabin and, oh, I slept so rock hard that night. We fished all day the next day, but because the water was so cold, the fish refused to bite. The cabin was located in the valley between two large mountains which the snowmelt river ran through. It was so interesting to me to see such large mountains up close. I looked at the mountains and down the valley between them, and thought that it was a push-over ten minute hike to the other side, but after an hour of hiking to the fishing hole, I realized how much more ground it was to cover.

Benedicte and I have been doing quite a lot of hiking lately. Just ten minutes drive from the house is a few mountains that are very popular to hike. You can hike to the top where a big “golfball” is just like in Orcutt Hills, California, or you can hike around the local drinking water reservoir. We go alone, or with her friends, or with her family. Her mom took us on a hike around the water reservoir and kicked our butts. Shouldn’t it be the other way around, the young newly weds waiting up for the mom? Impressive Mamsen!

Learning Norwegian is coming along well. Its exciting for me to be able learn a little bit more every day. Its definitely work though, especially not being able to take an academic Norwegian class yet and having to learn it with my own initiative. I never seriously thought about learning a language until. Its not just memorizing words for vocabulary. There is grammar, pronunciation and word choice. In English we say “I put on my pants”, but in Norwegian they say “I take on my pants.” Even if you say all the right words and even if you get the difficult pronunciation correct, the other person may not understand you just because you didn’t say something the way their culture says it. Imagine if someone said that they want ice cream by saying “I will have ice cream.” You eventually would figure out what they meant, but it would take a little processing. When I actually try to communicate something serious with a Norwegian, in Norwegian, I feel like I am a little kid learning how to speak. It makes me think, when about I was young learning English. I don’t remember being this frustrated with all the specific sounds and having to get them correct. In fact, I don’t even remember learning English.

I appreciate now that I know how to say anything in English and can communicate clearly and precisely to any one what I want to say. I realize that human beings have an amazing ability of having a complex idea then babbling off dozens and dozens of different sounds in a specific order in a very short amount of time to communicate. The listener then hears the sounds, tones and lengths and can process the same or similar idea. Its not until we hear a foreign language with unknown sounds, some that we didn’t even know we could make, do we realize how amazing the ability is. That is my deep thought about learning a new language.

I’m enjoying being here in Norway. I miss my friends and family back home too. I’m greatly enjoying being in love and married to my best friend. We are learning so much together–about ourselves and about each other. Many people have told me over the years that marriage is work, that it takes effort to bring two individuals with independent lives together to make one life. I’m finally living that, and its exciting. I so thank you God for giving Benedicte and myself such clear communication skills with each other.

There is a line of text in our Norwegian marriage license that stuck out to me when the priest read it before us. It has been on my mind ever since. I don’t know all about the “ins and outs” of marriage yet, but I do know that I am so happy to be learning with my best friend, the person who I love more than I knew I could love.

“There is no contradiction between love and unity on the one hand, and freedom and autonomy on the other.”

A colorful neighborhood in Hardanger.

A nice view on a hike.

An ice cold lake in the mountains.

I pretty town in the mountains.

My attempt at photography by the fairy.

Hardanger

Hardanger suspension bridge. Im interested in bridges. This one will be 100m longer than the Golden Gate.

One of the several waterfalls on our 7 hour hike.

For some perspective of how big the waterfall is, look at the average size tree to the right of the mist.

On our hike. The higher we climber, the more beautiful the scenery became.

This was on the smooth mountain side. Probably the most cramp creating portion of the hike.

Jan Øyvind, me, and Papsen coming home from the cabin.

We saw this jellyfish in the sea in front of the house. Literally in our front yard.

Photography by: Cecilie Foldnes

I am now married to Benedicte Foldnes, making me the happiest and luckiest man alive.

Yes married. We both know that it is not the traditional way to begin a life together — date across the world for 9 months, get engaged for less than a month, have a courthouse wedding and a year later have an official ceremonial wedding — but let’s face it, we do not have a traditional relationship either. She is from beautiful Norway, and I’m from cool California. We met in “The Land Down Under” in Australia two and a half years ago during my missions trip. After talking only a few minutes, we learned that a year before we lived only twenty minutes away from each other and shared a same favorite burger joint in Pismo Beach when she did the same type of missions trip. We have a peculiarly exciting relationship. We realized a while back that we would have to break our cultural norms for this relationship to work out. We both have to make sacrifices to be together, but I’m sure some of you know what I mean when I say that ‘when you find the one your heart loves, nothing will keep you apart for long’. For us, not even a little puddle called the Atlantic Ocean kept us apart for long. I will be honest, we do not know exactly how having three weddings is going to feel at the end, but we do know that we are up for the adventure. We are both adventurous people, both have traveled the world, she has been to more countries than she can remember of the top of her head. So now we are officially living this adventurous life together, as man and wife.

Our small wedding day last Thursday was nice. We went to the courthouse in Bergen with her family and friends. We wrote vows together and said them there before our whitenesses — at the end of the blog I will write out our vows. The Norwegian judge was so kind to recite the ceremony in English for me, even with her Norwegian accent. She took her time and made it special. After that we took a cable car to the top of Ulriken and had an elegant mountain top restaurant. The view was beautiful and spectacular. Every little intricate detail of the city and surrounding islands is on display to see up there. The family spent time taking pictures of us newly weds and of the view — as you will see in the pictures at the end. On the way home, we stopped at my mother-in-laws parents house to tell them the exciting news. Then came home to relax with her nearby family for the rest of the warm sunny day. Benedicte’s cousin, Cecilie Foldnes, is an exceptional photographer, who happily took some wedding pictures for us that evening.

We also have a date set for our wedding party in Norway next year; July 27th, 2013. We will have it in her nearby church that her family is a part of. After that we will head back to California for our final wedding party where all the loved ones on my side will be able to join. We are thinking maybe on the beach back in California and a traditional Norwegian church wedding here in Bergen. We do not know what the date is for the California party, but sometime within the first two weeks of August 2013.

Speaking of weddings, we went one of her friend’s last weekend. It was my first time experiencing a Norwegian wedding. They are not completely different from American weddings, but I did find many of their traditions interesting. Songs are a popular tradition, not only in weddings, but for parties in general. Lyrics to the many songs are found in the wedding program. At various times throughout the usual 8 hour reception and once or twice during the church ceremony, the guests and wedding party will sing along in unison. Some of the songs are traditional, well-known Norwegian songs, while others are original songs that friends or family members have written to the bride or groom. Which brings me to another fun tradition. The brides parents typically write a song to her and sing it to her while the grooms parents typically do the same for him. These songs are quite comical, because of funny embarrassing lyrics and because they take a tune of a well-known song, like "Marry Had a Little Lamb".

Norwegian weddings involve many many speeches. The wedding we went to started at 1:00 pm in the church for an hour, then to a 2 hour break and picked back up for the reception at 4:00 pm. This eight and a half hour reception consisted of a speech, dinner, speeches, coffee, speeches, skits, speeches, dessert, speeches, videos, speeches, picture videos, speeches and speeches. And no, there was not a single dessert containing peaches :) The wedding party is a bit different also. Bride’s maids and Groom’s men do not really exist over here, just the Maid of Honor and the Best Man. In the wedding we went to there were two Maid of Honors and only one Best Man. Benedicte wants to mix American and Norwegian traditions by having two Maid of Honors, two Best Men, three Bride’s Maids and three Groom’s Men.

If you are reading this, that means you care about me and my new bride. I want to share our wedding vows we wrote together. We found some traditional vows, mixed them, removed some, rearranged and reworded a lot and added a touch of our own original words. Here is what we said to each other.

I, Matthew, take you, Benedicte, to be my lawfully wedded wife,

to have and to hold,

from this day forward,

for better, for worse,

for richer, for poorer,

in sickness and in health,

to love, to honor, to respect and to cherish.

I take you, with all of your faults and strengths, as I offer myself with all of my faults and strengths.

I will help you when you need help, and will turn to you when I need help.

I will comfort you when you need comfort, and will look to you when I need comfort.

I willingly take the responsibility and privilege of being your companion, lover and best friend in this life.

I promise to always lay my life down for you, to always put you before myself, and to never forget the reasons why I chose you.