A Few Last Photos from my Mom's Visit

My mom made it home to New York safely...hopefully once she gets a few good nights of sleep, she will fully recover from our marathon tour of Norway! The last couple of days she was in town, we did stay a little closer to home. On Friday, we ventured up to Hamar to visit the Domkirkeodden, the old cathedral ruins encased in glass. While she enjoyed seeing the limestone ruins, she was more intrigued by the baptismal font from 1200. The water was only changed once a year, at Easter, and in the winter the ice in the font had to be chopped up with an axe before the unfortunate baby could be dunked. Babies of wealthy families were a little luckier, as their parents could afford hot stones to warm up the water. Our tour guide explained that although the average life expectancy was very low back in the 1200's, it wasn't because people didn't live to be old, the average was lowered because so many didn't make it past infancy. If a putrid ice bath was their first rite of passage, I can see why so many didn't live to see their first birthday! On Saturday we drove down to Jevnaker to visit Hadeland Glassverk. It was amazing to see the workers create beautiful bowls out of blobs of molten glass. We also got a chance to blow our own glasses and I must say they turned out well. The drive home was a little rainy, but then the sun came out and we were treated to a beautiful rainbow, the perfect end to my mom's trip to Norway!