Sunday May 3rd

Another late start for us, but we are getting better. This time I was the first one up at 10AM. It didn't help that again Ethan work up at midnight looking for his supper. (He had fallen asleep at 4PM). According to Nic's records he didn't get back to sleep until 2AM. We decided that today would be the day to try the Pirbadet (Norway's largest indoor swimming pool). Here is a picture of the outside. Notice Ethan in the foreground not listening to us to come back!

We also decided it was time to figure out the bus! The bus stop was right next to the grocery store (about 10 minutes away) and it turns out to be very convenient as many bus routes go up and down the road. We waited a few minutes and the number 46 arrived right on time. It only cost 60NOK (about $9) for all of us to ride one way to the pool. Pricey but worth not having to walk. I think that we are going to look into getting some bus passes tomorrow as the office was not open today.

We arrived at the Pirbadet by 2:30PM and decided on purchasing 2 "10 clips" that would give us 10 admissions for the adults (5 each) and 10 admissions for the kids(5 each) as we figured that we will be back. I took a little discussion with the attendant but we were quickly on our way, scanning our ticket to get in and noticing that we would need to scan the ticket again to get out. The big pile of shoes outside of the locker room gave us the hint that we were to remove our shoes before we entered the locker room.


In Gwyneth's words this was the "greatest swimming pool ever". There was a children's pool, wave pool, lap pool, lazy river, big water slide, little water slide, several diving platforms of various heights, a lap pool, a warm pool (98.2F and my favorite!), a sauna, a steam room, and we think tanning beds but we did not partake of those.

Gwyneth and Ethan were enjoying the wave pool (before we knew what kind of pool it was) when there was some announcement in Norwegian that we couldn't understand. A few minutes later the pool we were in had waves in it - so that explained the announcement! Nic and I both went down the large water slide and Gwyneth had fun on the smaller one. You had to be able to swim so it was not for Ethan. I also tried the steam room and sauna (which was hot!) and loved every minute of it. Towards the end of our swimming we discovered the WARM infinity pool and were wishing we had found it earlier! The adults were anyway.

After about 2 hours we were done and hungry so we tried the snack bar. Two softis (delicious Norwegian soft serve ice cream) for the kids. Ethan's is covered in cocoa powder in the picture. Next time I'll be getting one for myself! And some pomme frites (I'm sure you know as french fries) to share). We briskly ate our food to try to make the 5:30PM bus back (which we did). Upon coming home we noticed the fans starting to arrive at the Rosenborg Ballklub across the street from our apartment. As I walked the kids home Nic went over to the stadium to inquire about tickets. He came home with 2 - one for him and one for Gwyneth - in the family section. While I was disappointed about not getting a ticket the truth of the matter was that Ethan was not going to be able to stay up through the game. In fact he is asleep on the couch next to me after having watched about 5 minutes of the movie Cars. So as I sit here I can hear the cheering and I hope that Nic and Gwyneth are having a good time! I am sure that one of them can post later.