My New Norwegian Home

A blurry but still sweet picture of my eldest daughter dressed in her Lucia clothing some years ago. December 13th is Saint Lucia Day. It's celebrated widely in Scandinavia with children wearing long white shirts, tinsel and candles. Generally, the eldest girl in the barnehage (kindergarten) will be wearing a crown of candles. Not real candles, of course, but battery powered candles. Lussekatter, saffron buns with raisins, are passed out from baskets to be eaten. Delicious lussekatter.  As history has it, Saint Lucy was a girl who was a martyr. She would bring bread to persecuted Christians in Rome at night. To keep both hands free, she wore a crown of candles to light her way through the darkness. Lucy is a perfectly fitted name meaning light.

My pitiful attempt at a cartoon depicting Americans and Norwegians (generally speaking) Oh American optimism! I love it. I miss it. Where else in the world can you experience people with wide, glaring smiles, politeness, friendliness, names describing positive attributes (Hope, Faith, Patience) and the excitement of decorating for any holiday early? USA, that's where! A vast underlining aspect that Americans don't necessarily think about, yet live their lives by, is the never ending endeavor of the puritan work ethic - the mindset carried by nearly all Americans that hard work paves the way to the American dream, and not to mention, social problems creating speed bumps on the way to that difficult to attain dream. For whatever merit my own observations are worth, Americans (generally speaking) are pretty thrilled when we finally reach what we consider the American dream - a house, or well, a mortgage, a car, 2.5 children and a dog (or a cat, because you know, cats ar

Becoming Norsk 7 years ago I left the U.S. to live out my life in Norway. I had my newlywed husband by my side, a couple of suitcases and my cat with me. I traded a life of convenience for self-sufficiency. Fast food, processed foods and restaurants for learning to cook homemade meals from scratch. My car dependency for walking much more (and sometimes walking for just the fun of it). I traded bottled water for fresh tap water. Consumerism for minimalism, and a culture of broad class divisions for flat hierarchy. Everything I had known until that point, I left and tried to figure out in my new country. Within that first year, I finished college, married, moved, began language classes, became pregnant and then held a newborn scared out of my mind thinking, "what the hell do I do with this?" It was a lot of change at once and I would not recommend anyone to voluntarily tackle so much at once. I never planned on things happening that way, they just kind of fell into pla

Froot Loops! Who'd have thought so many Americans would be joyously celebrating Froot Loops' arrival to Norway like it's 1972? Yet here we are. Froot Loops have arrived in Norway. Our bland, unvaried  cereal aisle has become  slightly  more colorful. I say slightly because, well, the Froot Loops that have now ascended from cereal heaven to Norway are lacking some color. You know, artificial color! That good ole unhealthy stuff us Americans are so accustomed to eating. When I poured my first bowl of these Froot Loops, my first thought was  it looks like a comparison picture of how someone with colorblindness views Froot Loops.  My eldest daughter on the other hand exclaimed, "WOW! SO COLORFUL!" Same taste, just lacking some pigment. As it turns out, there are some ingredients which are allowed by the FDA, but are not allowed in foods in Europe.  Food dyes are one of those things, but if a product has certain dyes in it, they must have a warning label. I

Did you know there are mitten trees in Norway? It's true. The colder and snowier the weather, the more mitten trees bloom. A mitten tree.  Instead of leaving lost mittens, gloves and hats lying in the snow to become destroyed, lost or buried in more snow, a passerby will pick up the item and place it in the nearest tree branch. I like this about Norway; it shows some tiny form of respect for other people's belongings. If a tree branch can't be found, the key is to use something visible and off the ground. For example, in the picture below. The railing to the entrance of our local grocery store was used to hang someone's lost mittens. Lost mittens. 

Separate dyne!  On beds a dyne (duvet) is used and you purchase covers in many prints and different types of fabrics. These are a pain in the butt to put over the duvet, but we manage. Many people have a duvet for summer months and a duvet for winter months. Oh, and the most common thing is for each person to have their own duvet. Moving to Norway as a newlywed, I wanted to have one duvet that we shared on our bed thinking it would be extra cozy and we'd cuddle more. Newlyweds are hilariously idealistic though! This lasted only a few months before we surrendered with white flags in the war zone that was our sleeping quarters. Turns out, I'm quite territorial over the duvet. I hear a lot of women are like this. I freeze easier than my husband so I was often less comfortable than I wanted to be and he's a night owl who goes to bed later than I do which means every time he lifted the duvet, a gush of cold air would follow him waking me. We gave up with our idealism o

What's more interesting to watch on TV than 12 hours of burning wood? Paint dry maybe? Though don't let NRK know or else we may have slow TV watching paint dry. Anyways, for those like my husband who has nothing but pure Norwegian background, meaning his ancestors had to deal with the cold before heaters and electricity, they had no choice but to turn to wood for building a fire in order to stay warm in the cold and frosty Norway. It's almost hard to understand back then, why did people stay and live in Norway before the time of electricity? Why not move to a warmer place? So Norwegian history, I suppose, has a lot to owe to fire wood. Without it, Norwegians probably wouldn't be here today. In a tribute to firewood, 12 hours of burning wood was shown on air. Awesome. Not only that, but Stephen Colbert laughed at how "almost 20% of the population was tuned in."  National Firewood Night  (cue the Norwegian pride on making it in to American news). Or