My New Norwegian Home

This past weekend in Skien has been filled with festivities starting with a football game and monster truck show on Friday, food festival on Saturday and Sunday there was the 11 hour viewing on TV of the Henrik Ibsen boat leaving its port in Skien and traveling up the Telemark Canal, as well as a craft festival in the city. We only went to the football game on Friday and the food festival on Saturday. Of course we couldn't miss a football game - that's no surprise. The food festival was fun and attracted many people in Skien. There were booths from tastes around the world - like Finland, Sudan, Thailand, Vietnam and Germany. I tried svele while there. To the best of my explanation, it is a type of pancake, but more like an American pancake. Norwegian pancakes are thin, but American pancakes or as some people call them flapjacks are thicker and larger. Svele is similar to that. The svele we had at the festival was served with butter, sugar, a berry sauce and baked apples. YU...

Children in Norway, Sweden and Finland are only allowed to have candy on Saturdays. Again from our visit with friends this weekend it came to our attention this is a Norwegian custom after our friends' children were handed candy. They were enthusiastic when their mother held up cups of candy when they stopped jumping on their trampoline and ran to get some candy. We started talking about their "Saturday candy" and I questioned what "Saturday candy" was. We don't celebrate this in America, so it had my curiosity. It's called Lørdagsgodt in Norwegian which translates to Saturday candy. I was told that Saturday was their favorite day of the week as children because they knew they'd get candy or as they got older they'd be given money to go buy candy. I know I certainly couldn't live up to only having candy one day a week, so I had to ask the parents what they do and where they hide their stash - candy stash, of course! They told me where it wa...

Yesterday, Arild and I went to a friend's house who has two small children. I just love listening to them speak! I can actually understand more of what they have to say than adults. I'm assuming because children probably emphasize more on syllables. What impressed me most was these two children ages 5 and 3 knew a little English! They could count to 12 in English and the 5 year old knew colors in English. Arild's friend, her dad, would name a color, rosa for example and he would ask her, "Hva er rosa på engelsk?" (What is pink in English?). She'd reply back with "PINK!". They did this with about 5 colors and she knew the English words to them. It was very impressive to watch! I was later informed that on the show Dora the Explorer in Norway even though there are Norwegian voice overs, one of Dora's friends speaks only English so it helps the children learn English. I know in America Dora helps kids with Spanish and I'm not sure if she als...

Usually on our lazy Sundays, the husband and I will go to a small coastal town. We've been randomizing lately so we can visit all the nearby coastal towns. We only live about 20 minutes from the coast which is absolutely great! Some people may not understand my excitement for these trips and that's okay, but I'm more properly used to just seeing farm land as that's what the majority of Kentucky consists of. Farm land and coal mines in the Appalachian mountains on the eastern end. There is no coast in Kentucky. It's surrounded by borders to Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia,  Missouri and Illinois. If you see any body of water in Kentucky, it's probably a pond, a river or a lake. Anytime I've been able to see a coastline and look at the ocean has been on trips to either South Carolina or Florida - and I know many people who have never even seen the natural beauty of a coastline. A few weeks ago I went to Kragerø, Norway. I like to research these tow...

First of all, I have really taken for granted how easy and simple it is being an American immigrant compared to some others. Before coming to Norway, Arild told me, "An American in Norway is almost like a Canadian in America." I thought he was for lack of better English, full of crap. I'm really starting to talk more to some of my fellow classmates and learn more about them and after speaking with them, I now know Arild is completely right about that. Though for language sake, let's just say French-Canadian! Being an American in Norway we have it easy compared to others and for that we should darn well better be grateful! Our education is valid. We don't need a visa. We can drive on an American license for 3 months, but after our application is approved we don't have to pay for the driver's training, just the final test, so long as it's done within a year. We can apply for residency after arriving to Norway rather than before arriving. We are also We...

Earlier last week language classes began. The night before I felt like I was about to start first grade all over again. I had everything prepared for the upcoming day, my clothes laid out on my dresser, I was reciting the Norwegian alphabet, words, phrases, whatever in my head. I even told my husband, "I am determined to make a friend!" It was exciting anticipating the upcoming day.  The first day was a bit overwhelming as only Norwegian is spoken. Really that's a good thing as it immerses you in the language and I am far too dependent on English (and good body language) to get by. It's also considerate of other students in the class as some speak fluent English, others broken English and some very little to no English at all. For those people living in Norway knowing very little Norwegian or English, I couldn't begin to imagine what it is like for them being in Norway or how overwhelming living here may be. Before going into class I was in hopes of if not fin...

As it's been a bit of a hectic week, I have a lot to update on, but first and foremost the most important thing, the application is turned in. We were able to hand in everything except the apostille on my newest birth certificate which we are still waiting for. We did e-mail the UDI about this situation and had to write a formal letter explaining why we don't have it yet. After turning in all the documents my husband was complimented on his organization skills (his OCD tendencies do come in handy at times) and we were told since we have a straight forward situation it might not take too long for me to get a residency permit. So that is wonderful news as we were at first thinking it could take around 6 months - which it still very well could of course if something goes wrong! Once the apostille is mailed back to us, we just have to turn it in for further documentation. As I've received the wrong birth certificate in the beginning, I was able to give that as documentation...

Just a quick post as it's been a crazy week and I feel I need to update with something. Just anything. So here's my light hearted post. As I'm on a mission to try out all things Norwegian whether it be food, hobbies (yes, I will try skiing this winter - anyone in my path BEWARE!!!), the language, etc. I just thought I'd share this one delicious pastry with my readers. This is one of my favorite things to buy at the bakery here. If visiting or even living in Norway, one thing that should be on everyone's "must try" list is skolebrød. Directly translated it is called "school bread." Basically it's a bun with shredded coconut and custard and it's awesomely delicious! Skolebrød Recipe

I think most Norwegians have an impression on Americans that we're generally outgoing (not all of us) and generous. Just this weekend in Bergen my husband and I encountered a bit of a cultural difference. We ordered a pizza the night we were in Bergen and Arild asked the guy behind the counter if a medium pizza was big enough for one person or two people. The man told us one person, so we each got our own pizza. The pizzas turned out being too big for us to have our own and after we finished eating and combined our pizzas we ended up with over a full pizza left. I hate wasting food. Anytime food gets thrown away at home I just feel guilty and have this icky feeling and it doesn't settle well with me. So my idea was to take the pizza downstairs and give it to our hotel clerk. I mean, it was more than an entire pizza left over! Arild told me, "A Norwegian would never think of doing that." We exchanged our confused looks and I said, "People do things like this in ...

I've been curious about the western coast of Norway and wanted to see it and with my father-in-law giving us a pair of plane tickets he won, we went. So we got on a tiny propeller plane and went to Bergen. The city was beautiful. It's filled with history, old well-preserved buildings, cobblestone streets and surrounded by 7 sister mountains. There was even a wedding at this church.  I began to wonder what it would be like for an expatriate living in Bergen and I came up with two things. Since at least down town Bergen is more of a tourist attraction, I can see how someone living there would be more comfortable speaking English and possibly be hindered in learning Norwegian. Of course Norwegians speak English as well, but I can understand when it's common to speak English especially in a place like Bergen how that may slow down learning Norwegian. Number 2 - the rain. I can completely understand how this may affect someone's mood. Especially with it ra...

Watching TV earlier, I noticed some movies are given different titles translated into Norwegian. I believe the movie being advertised on TV was Couples Retreat, but being translated into something different it was something like Trøbbel i paradiset. Translated it would be Trouble in the Paradise - you can see the similarities in the language in that title. All original English speaking movies are still spoken in English with no voice overs, but they are shown in Norwegian subtitles. There is an exception to this with children's movies and TV programs which do have Norwegian voice overs. I asked Arild why some movie titles are in English, some are translated, and some are translated into names completely different. He said he really didn't know and thought of a coffee table book he has which has a list of the most off-titled movie translations. He pulled out Typisk Norsk from under the coffee table and started reading these to me: I'll do the correct English title, t...