My New Norwegian Home

When I was a kid almost every winter my mom would make snow cream. It's like ice cream, but made with snow. However, I was always told to never use the first snowfall when making snow cream because it's supposed to be filled with the most pollutants and toxins. Whether there's truth to that or not, I don't know. So, I'd have to wait for the second snowfall before my mom would make snow cream. And of course you never use discolored or yellow snow!!! When I moved here to Norway, I figured this would be the land of snow cream. Norway has a lot of snow, right? So a country with a lot of snow and snow cream should go hand in hand, right? WRONG! I've asked so many people about snow cream since I've moved here and no one has even heard of it! Instead I've been told from several people they were told by their parents as children they shouldn't eat the snow because there are worms in it and those worms will grow in their stomachs! As naive and gullible as I...

While there are a lot of good foods and bakeries that will make you drool, there are also a lot of foods in Norway you can't help but wonder in its strangeness, "People really eat that?" As a foreigner coming to Norway, it's expected that I find some cultural aspects strange or weird. At first thinking people actually eat moose was a bit strange to me, but I've tried some and it's not so bad. If I hadn't known better I'd have thought it were beef. However, US customs doesn't allow "exotic meats" such as moose and reindeer jerky, so in Detroit's airport I had to hand over the jerky I was trying to bring to my family. First and foremost, being so accustomed to chocolately peanutbuttery candy as we have in America it was a bit of a let down when I couldn't find but some makeshift Reese's cups and in place of all the chocolately marshmallowy peanutbuttery candy, I have found an American's worst candy nightmare - LICORICE! ...

Just posting a link to another interview I've recently had with  www.expatsblog.com . The interview can be seen at  this link! I'm still slugging behind, but I'm gradually catching up and working on more blog posts! See you soon!

This past weekend, I met one of my blog readers who I have been talking to via email for a couple of months. She recently moved to a nearby city for a job and I was happy to reach out and meet her at a cafe for some conversation on adjusting to life in Norway and general expatriation. I've spoken to many people via email and recently I've been very busy and haven't had much time to get back to every comment on my blog or email, but I promise I will soon! Anyways, regardless of the differences of our reason for coming to Norway, we of course had a relaxed, easy and comfortable time discussing what it's like to be a foreigner in Norway, the "weird" things about Norwegian culture, and bits and pieces of what our home country is like as well as some personal stories. It was a kind of surreal experience to meet a reader. Just to go from one day last year deciding to start up a blog about my personal experience with moving to Norway and going from talking to oth...

I've been away for a while and I've just returned back to Norway from an emergency trip to America due to a family death. Part of the package of being an expat is sometimes when you need to be in your home country, you need to take a crazy flight back home. That's exactly what I did. What I have learned from this is when you live so far away and you need to focus on booking an insane flight and worrying about the travel ahead, it kind of takes away from the time you need to mourn. I kind of felt like I didn't really get in too much mourning time until I was in Kentucky. I took a 19 hour flight from Oslo to Amsterdam, from Amsterdam to Detroit and from Detroit to Louisville - that's on the way there. On the way back it was even longer with 20 hours of flying from Louisville to Minneapolis (whose natives are super friendly and proud of their Scandinavian heritage from what I've gathered), from Minneapolis to Amsterdam and from Amsterdam to Sandefjord. I traveled...

I've been away on an emergency trip to USA and have just returned last night. I haven't had much time to post or write anything in a couple of weeks, but I will get the ball rolling on that again very soon! There are many topics I want to talk about! In the meantime, I've had another interview posted which can be viewed here:  Blog of the Month Will be back to blogging very soon!!! :-) Ha det bra, folkens!