My New Norwegian Home

A few weeks ago I was introduced to BloomNation - a  flower delivery service  and was inspired to share some of my own ideas of how I as an expatriate use my own cultural background in my personal decorating with my blog readers. My husband and I bought our first house last year. When I first moved here to Norway and moved into his apartment I never had the feeling of fully being in my own place. It just felt like I moved into my husband's bachelor pad. Of course I did change a few things, but once we bought our own home I felt like I could completely let loose and feel like our new house was my blank canvas. I do whatever I set my mind to as far as decorating my home - inside and out. I do like having a bit of American-ism in my decorating. I really love primitives as can be seen in my kitchen. When in America, I enjoy finding primitive decor and bringing it back to my home in Norway. For example, I have a sign in my kitchen I bought from Tennessee that says, "When mama ain...

Why buy berries in the late summer when you can pick them yourself?  Last fall, my husband and I bought our first home and we now have a spectacular view of the woods. Our daughter has recently discovered the joy of picking raspberries and now that she knows she is welcome to her own free buffet of raspberries, I'm often dragged into the woods by a wild 2 year old shouting, "Here, Mamma!" as soon as we reach the raspberry bushes.  Picking berries in late summer is a popular thing for the Viking people to do in the untamed Nordic wilderness. ;-) I often see others picking blueberries or raspberries along the forest, or wherever else wild berry bushes can be found.  My berry sweet partner in berry picking.  Blueberries picked from my back yard, not the forest. :-) Wild raspberries. This was my first time making raspberry jam. :-) 

Kjøp drikkeflasker og matbokser billig på Med24.no  A staple in Norwegian life is the matpakke. An openface sandwich with cheese, leverpostei, or other forms of pålegg  (the wonderful word that basically means all types of food you can place on bread) is what a matpakke consists of.  Bread + pålegg + waxpaper + bread + pålegg + waxpaper  and continue.  Simple as that. :-) The matpakke is brought to work, to the forest, to barnehage and school, to the park, etc.  A complete matpakke. 2 sandwiches made of polarbrød (the bread of the northern folk) to be shared between me and my little girl.  Extra food for another matpakke box. Fruit snacks brought from USA, a banana and a can of leverpostei. The matpakke is such a large part of Norwegian society that children bring them to school on a daily basis as warm lunches we are so accustomed to in the United States aren't served in Norway. The typical lunch drink of choice is milk, ...

So much of Norwegian culture is revolved around the outdoors. Generally speaking, the Norwegians are very outdoors-y people as they like to gå på tur (go on a hike), visit the coast, go camping in their hytte up in the mountains and of course, skiing. I think it is common for foreigners to kindly make fun of Norway and its regard to "curing" oneself with time in nature, or if you really want to get crazy, take a paracet and gå på tur . ;-) Norway's best medicine comes from the great outdoors - which it has a lot to offer as it's a very "wild" country. There's plenty of forests, cool, crisp, fresh air, mountains, nearly everyone takes advantage of good weather days and soaks up the sun, and the beaches are amazing in summer months - all the more reason to eat lots of ice cream in the summer! For me and part of my "feeling better" plan, I've been trying to do as the Norwegians do and spend some time with good ole Mother Nature. Evidence ...

May is usually a very busy month. There are several days to celebrate in the month of May. hence why I haven't posted in a few weeks. There has been 17. mai.... The beautiful daughter in her bunad.  Us together at the local school.  Mine and Arild's 3rd anniversary.... (WOO HOO!) My 26th birthday...... and I actually had a Kentucky Derby themed birthday party!  Apples made into roses. MMMM Food art.  Horse shaped Kentucky Hot Brown, rose apples and alcohol free mint juleps.  Centerpiece.  And me enjoying my mint julep. :-)  Very pleased with the gifts I received!  The 3rd anniversary of me living in Norway.... Strolling through Brekkeparken. Colorful tulips!  My Norskprøve 3 or A2/B1 exam...  which I hope I passed! study study study Because I like making various things in my free time, I've attempted to start selling my own homemade products. I have sta...

En koselig morgen. Norwegians are the kings and queens of koselig. What exactly is koselig , you ask? It is my favorite word in Norwegian. Possibly my favorite word that exists to my knowledge. And there's a lot of words I like, rumpetroll,rumpeballer, smilhull,bøtteballet, tjuesju and so on. Koselig  doesn't quite translate to English. It's a feeling. It's an action. It's the atmosphere. Koselig is a lot of things. It's warmth and comfort. It's being in the presence of loved ones in the evening. It's laughing in a pub with your closest friends. It's intimacy and love. It's warming your feet by the fireplace while wearing knitted woolen socks. It's candlelight on a dark night (or day). It's cuddling with your significant other under a blanket while sitting outside sipping hot chocolate - or cuddling on the couch with chocolate ice cream, watching Netflix, whatever your thing is. :-) It's something as simple as lighting candle...

Just a little tip for those interested! :-)  Mattilbud is an easy way to compare weekly sales each grocery store is having. All grocery stores are listed such as Kiwi, Rema 1000, Meny, Coop Prix, Spar, Rimi, Joker and many others. It's also a paper-free way of viewing what would already be in a paper ad you'd receive in the mail.  It can be downloaded as an app with iOS, Windows or Android. I find this comes in handy as it's always updated on Monday morning, so I just check the new sales and I know where to shop for the week. 

The sun is out. The sky is blue. Birds are singing. It's a nice 60 F degrees! Gardening. Ahhhh it's spring! Hens and chicks.  Dandelion. Løvetann. I didn't want to get too close as I suspected there was a bee hive nearby,but here are hviteis. Happy Friday! Hope you enjoy the wonderful weather! :-)

I have recently returned to Norway from a nice trip to Kentucky. In the meantime while I am working on a seperate, but longer post, I thought I'd share one of my experiences which generally speaking sums up a common stereotype between Newark and Kentucky. As a Kentuckian, I admittedly am a bit biased and take pride in being from a place that is generally known as very friendly and hospitable. The difference in Newark and Kentucky customer service (true story): Newark Welcome Center The employee is wearing earbuds and chewing gum sitting behind her desk. I walk up to the desk and ask for help and whether she can help me get in touch with a local hotel so my family and myself can stay the night. After waiting for a 5 hour layover, we were told our flight was going to be 3.5 hours late. We decided to rebook the flight for the next day and find a hotel. The employee behind the desk didn't make eye contact with me and just pointed to a phone about 30 feet away and said rudely, ...

One of my favorite luxuries in Norway are the heated bathroom floors. I call this a luxury because it's something I never grew up with, I don't know of anyone in Kentucky at least who has a heated floor in their bathroom and I think it really is a luxury to have one. To Norwegians, this is just a standard part of their housing. Without the heated flooring, the bathrooms are pretty cold, so it's actually a handy thing to have in the flooring and it's also comforting to start your day getting your toes toasty from a warm floor. Under the bathroom tiling lies a mat with coils, these coils are what heats the floor. It's a good investment as it doesn't take up any space unlike a heater in the bathroom as it's concealed under the flooring, it can be used to heat the entire bathroom and it doesn't use much power. Not that bathroom floors are particularly nice to look at or anything, but here's ours. Warm and toasty. 

How to fall in love with a Norwegian in 2 easy steps: 1) Find a Norwegian. 2) Fall in love. Simple as that. I love my Norwegian. Regardless of nationality, I'd love him just the same. God helg!!! :-)

Last April/May we took our trip back to the United States to visit my family and our sweet little Pia came with us. I was very anxious prior to the trip because I really didn't know how travelling 24 hours with a baby would be. It really wasn't as bad as I imagined, but I do have a few things I will do differently this time around and some pointers to share. I had read and read and read so many tips on how to travel with an infant. Of course every kid is different and I have since stopped reading so much about others' experiences with their own children. It only leaves me shaking my head and thinking to myself, "That is so not my kid!". Here's a few pointers from my own experience: Bring a travel stroller, not the huge prams we use in Norway. They're big, bulky, you have to also pay for your own travel bag for them (I bought one used) and in my experience when I brought it to the airport in Washington D.C., they were confused and asked how many strol...

I'm feeling a little nostalgic today after listening to some music my husband had on MTV Rocks. It takes me back about 10 or more years, hence the title of a Disturbed song as my blog post title. (It's now sometimes embarrassing to admit to some of my former music taste.) Usually I feel indestructible and very healthy. I've now been sick 3 times in 2 months. I'm pretty sure I haven't helped matters any because I hate being sick and I really make a terrible sick person. I just want to deny it as long as possible and keep going, which in turn probably makes me sick longer as I just won't take a break. This makes my 5th day of possible flu, though I am feeling better. Even though I was feeling pretty cruddy last week, I was thinking 2 things. How much it is good I'm in Norway and I felt like this and how much I wish I were in America feeling like this. It's a lovely torn feeling. One day at the end of last week I was feeling somewhat better and I finall...

Also known as Valentine's Day, February 14th is what Norwegians sometimes call Alle Hjerters Dag. I've never really been too big on celebrating Valentine's Day. It's just a commercialized holiday anyways. My hubs and I are sort of anti-gift giving for most holidays. We give chocolate and make homemade cards. I think that's sweeter than anything else actually and if we just ignored the holiday completely, I'd be ok with that too. I'd just go out and buy my own chocolate. ;-) Since we're anti-celebratory, we went to the local dump at my own request. I really just wanted to make room in our over crowded storage room and Saturday was of course a good day to do that. I love being dumped on Valentine's!  The day just kept getting better and better. This was my first trip to the local dumping site and I discovered a "bytterom" where one can go and just donate stuff so someone else can take it if they wish. That is my kind of place! :-)...

Hubby's cooking! I love it when my husband cooks dinner. And by that I mean eating at a restaurant or ordering a pizza. ;-) Domino's is new to Norway and it has now opened its 3rd restaurant here in Skien. While we have McDonalds, Subway and Burger King in Norway, it's nice to also have a Domino's to the chain of American restaurants here. It makes me feel a tad bit better about the food culture that I miss so much! :-)  It was especially nice to order what I wanted online and have hubby pick it up on his way home from work today. Though, because our Skien Domino's has had a grand opening it was very busy with a long waiting time, so I'm pleased with ordering online instead of in the store. The Norwegian Domino's menu follows after the Icelandic menu, but from what I've seen a lot of the options are the same. You can order sides such as chicken wings, bread sticks, cheese sticks, cinnamon sticks and even chocolate sticks. MMMMM! My husba...

The title isn't a typo. It's just a really bad pun which I hope you get. ;-) I have kicked my studying norsk up a notch. I'm now studying this language a couple of hours a day. Quite frankly, I am beginning to freak out about my upcoming job search in the fall. I think my worst nightmare is probably being at home with nothing to do. I fear I won't know the language well enough to find work, or I will have to settle for a job at the "bottom of the barrel." Though there isn't anything wrong with that, it's just not something I'd prefer to do. Most importantly, I just want to feel productive, like I'm doing something and I'm helping support my tiny family. Phew! When I put it like that, it only makes my anxiety go through the roof! The only way to solve this problem is to study norsk and get over my self-consciousness of speaking norsk. To help myself learn on the go, I've attached a small notepad to my keyring. If I hear or see a wo...

When I first met the man who'd later become my husband, I thought he had a tic or some little quirk with his speech. Of course by us just talking online and then Skype, I never caught on until I met him in person. That's when I thought he had a speech abnormality, tic, or something, but I didn't want to bring it up for fear of hurting his feelings. Anytime I'd say something, he'd inhale "yeah" in agreement with me. As it turns out, he just has a case of Norwegian-itis. The next time we met, he did this less, so I assumed he was just less nervous this time. I didn't notice it again until after I moved to Norway and it returned. Except this time every Norwegian did it! This is actually an ingressive sound Scandinavians make in which they inhale when they say "ja" sometimes. In some way it sounds as if they are startled or scared and gasp when saying "ja." Here is a Youtube video I found where you can listen to the  ingressive ...

Now that my husband and I have our daughter on a schedule that is finally functioning better, we can have the evenings to ourselves. Recently we have actually finished watching the first season of Welcome to Sweden which can be seen on Netflix, but it also aired on NBC this past fall. If you're into comedy and culture shock, this show is definitely for you. It's especially relatable for my husband and I as Sweden is very similar to Norway. We can also relate to finding both humor and frustrations in our cultural backgrounds just as the show's characters, Bruce and Emma have. Created by Greg Poehler (Amy Poehler's brother) who also stars as Bruce, a New Yorker moving to Sweden to be reunited with his Swedish girlfriend, many cultural aspects between Scandinavia and the United States are pointed out with fun humor.Cultural changes such as taking shoes off vs. leaving them on when inside a house, clothing and "dressing American" (which I am just now catching ...

My New Norwegian Home is now on Facebook! I've been a major procrastinator about making a Facebook page for this blog, but it is up and working now. Just follow and like the link  here  to start following whenever I post something new! Takk and god helg everyone! :-D

I've been living in Norway for nearly 3 years. I've now come to the conclusion the best times to shop in one of the most expensive countries in the world is in January and July. January because it's after Christmas and you can find some pretty nice deals and July well, I'm going to take an educated guess and assume it's to try to lure customers in since so many people go on vacation that month. After lunch with a friend last week, I stopped by the local shopping center and went into H&M. I found tons and tons of children's clothes for 30 kroner (about $3.95). I decided to stock up on bigger clothes for Pia to grow into later this year. I also found some clothes I know she will need for barnehage in the fall which were marked down quite a bit. The weekend before last my husband and I were told about a sale on carseats at Barnas Hus. Some car seats were 40% off. The normal price of the carseat we purchased was about 4600 kroner ($605 USD), but we paid 2600...