An Immigration in Reverse

8 April 2010

The Setesdal valley is a spectacular combination of deep ravines, straight-sided cliffs and rushing rivers. The road follows the river, passing waterfalls, skirting canyons, and weaving through small towns, farms and villages. One of those villages is called Bjørnarå, and I think that’s where my family comes from. I met a cousin of mine, Cecilie, […]

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Passage on the MS Nordstjernen

4 April 2010

I was like a 19th-century adventurer, crossing the high seas in search of the exotic and the undiscovered. Though I was less a Victorian gentlewoman and more a poor immigrant, relegated to steerage for the duration of the voyage. I took the Hurtigruten from Bergen to Bodø last week, and I really was in search […]

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Towns of Norway

24 March 2010

So far, I’ve been in Norway for a month, and I’ve managed to visit all the major cities, and some of the minor ones, in the southern coastal region. Kristiansand, Stavanger, and Bergen have been my most recent ports-of-call, and I did some exploring and I did some dawdling, and I like to think I […]

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Norwegian Introduction

7 March 2010

I had arrived in Norway full of hope, but was quickly disconcerted by the language barrier and the poor directions I had from the hostel I had booked. It was a Friday night. I had flown from London and had taken the bus into Oslo from the airport, 2½ hours away. The bus station is […]

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Liverpool: The Emigrant Experience

28 February 2010

Everybody goes to Liverpool to remember the Beatles. It’s appropriate, of course, since they are still the towns most famous export. However, they are probably not the town’s most important legacy — that honor, in my opinion, belongs to its role as the main jumping off point for thousands upon thousands of European immigrants to […]

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