Sunday Salon: Home from my journeys abroad

Weather: It is a lovely day in the Pacific Northwest: sunny and not too hot. The whole time I was in  Europe we experienced warmer than usual temperatures with a lot of humidity. (A bad combination.)

The three sisters trip: My sisters, Kathy and Grace, and I journeyed to Norway to connect with our distant cousins and the homeland of our maternal grandfather. We also visited our niece and her family in Munich, Germany. What a fabulous trip. We arrived home yesterday evening.  I am still clearly impacted by jet lag so I will not even attempt a play-by-play account today, opting to fill in details later this week.

A few photos from the trip to Norway, as a teaser:

A beautiful Norwegian Fjord village

The meat house and barn on the property where my grandfather lived before moving to the USA at age two with his family.

The actual waterfall from which my grandfather's surname was derived.

The three sisters with cousin Eva at the waterfall (Fossen).

The church (kirke) where our grandfather was baptized and some of our forebears were buried.

The three sisters in front of the sisters gate in Frogner Park (Frognerparken) in Oslo.

What I read on the trip:

• The Great Divide by Henriques. I finished this audiobook on our flight to Europe. Set in Panama during the time period when the canal was being dug.
• The Tenth of December by George Saunders. Short stories by a favorite author. I was pretty confused by most of the stories and didn't even finish the last one before abandoning the book at the airport on the way home.
• The Swimmers by Julie Otsuka. Very similar in format to another book by this author: The Buddha in the Attic. I liked both. I listened to this audiobook on the flight home.
• Too Much Happiness: Stories by Alice Munro. This collection is much more up my alley than the stories by Saunders. I started it on the flight home. 32% complete.
• Sipsworth by Simon Van Booy. Another audiobook. I just listened to an hour of this book when I was getting pretty tired of being on the long flight. 8% complete.

-Anne