We're home!

There are a million things I could update on, but I'll just start with the very present.

We're home! All 3 of us!

After delays, traffic jams, and not knowing where to pick up my cat after our long flight after 30 hours of traveling, we have made it to our home. :-)

I am awaiting 3 more boxes I shipped while in America, but I've unpacked the other 15 and have now made my place in my new home and of course we do need a few more shopping trips as my husband has been a bachelor for 29 years and we are lacking things like extra clothes hangers and shelves.

Stella (my cat) is now settling in quite well. We of course knew this trip would be a lot of stress on her and we were worried about this, but she did just fine. I hope we've made up to her by giving her a nice play room. I'll be making a thank you card for her vet soon as she and the staff at our former clinic have been very supportive and had a major headache of trying to get paperwork to this place and that place.

It seems it's more hassle for an American cat to live in Norway than it is for an American human. I doubt there's any exaggeration to that.

A trip to the coast! 

I still don't quite have that foreigner feeling. I feel like I'm in another state or maybe in Canada. I had to overcome this fear I have of speaking to Norwegians in English. I don't think this has been as big of an issue as I first thought. I would refuse at first to speak to other people, so Arild threw me under the bus and told one lady he was speaking to, "Hun er amerikansk." (She is American.) She then started speaking to me in English and this lady we spoke to was incredibly fluent. If I were to have heard her in America, I wouldn't have thought she was foreign at all. Another situation  I was waiting in a bathroom line and a lady asked me something in Norwegian. I told her, "Oh I'm sorry, I don't understand much Norwegian." and so she switched to English. So for the time being, I am speaking English to Norwegians. We went to the mall the other day and heard Americans (or maybe Canadians?) talking. It was tempting to talk to them, but I didn't. His mother also told me she went to college with a lady from Rhode Island who still lives in Norway. I'm beginning to think there are more Americans here than I first believed there to be.

In previous posts I don't think I've expressed how expensive it is to eat in restaurants here. Yesterday, we went with his family for pizza. 5 people eating out ordering 2 pizzas, 2 beers, 1 coffee, and 3 Cokes costs..... wanna guess? $125!!!

Language sign-ups are Thursday, so this very exciting! :-) For those of you reading my blog, here is another site you can find free audio downloads to help with language learning: 100 Downloadable Norwegian Exercises Again, full credit goes to the gentleman holding the Louisville Speaks Scandinavian meetings for first suggesting this site. :-)

I've been learning a lot about recycling here. Norwegians recycle everything. Before, I would recycle plastic bottles and aluminum. Now I'm learning to put cardboard and paper in this container in the storage room, put plastic in a special blue bag under the sink, food and paper towels in a special green bag, and the rest in another bag.

Lastly, the married life! It's great! That's all I can say simply put. :-) Still feels no different than before. It's just having my best friend around all the time now. :-)

I'm just so thankful he has off work this week to help me settle in. :-)

I'm usually not too big on these quotes, but I really
like this one. :-) 

And so this is life in the present. I will update more on the wedding, the moving, the picking up my husband from the airport, etc. sooner or later.

This was on the very exhausting trip home.
I do believe Norway resembles Tennessee or North Carolina
quite a bit.