My New Norwegian Home

Danmark!  My husband's family loves Denmark. They love it so much they bought an apartment there. So this past weekend, we made a trip there. I think traveling within countries in Europe is best compared to traveling to other states within America. Taking a 3 hour boat ride to Denmark would be similar to someone in the US taking a little road trip to another state. More than likely a bordering state. The inside of the ferry we travel on.  I love how strangely diverse the Danish scenery is. One minute we're driving past windmills, rural dairy and turnip farms. The next we're driving past pine trees, a desert and then the seashore. Turnips!  An old Danish mill from the 1600s.  Hiking with some scenery similar to Norway's, but this time we climbed up a tree tower. And something else similar to Norway - grass growing on roofs!  Though I like a lot of things about Denmark so far, I really like this desert we went to...

Winter is well on its way. For the first time in nine long dark, dreary, cold, foggy, rainy, gloomy days we've had sunshine. :-) I've been preparing for this winter, so on nice days I try to take advantage of, like today. I went on a walk to embrace the sunlight. With it getting colder, you see many Norwegians looking very, well, Norwegian in their knitted clothing they sport so well. I've recently taken up knitting as a new hobby. Every time I go to a friend's house when we're gathered around and talking, they will bring out their knitting and knit while talking. It almost seems socially awkward to sit without knitting. Personally, I never thought I would ever enjoy anything like that because I've always thought of knitting as way too feminine and old-fashioned for my taste, but it turns out I like it - or I just like scarves. When I first moved here, Arild and I walked around a park and walked into this building which also had a kiosk (tiny cafeteria) a...

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...

When I meet someone new of Arild's friends one of the first things they tell me is, "You're very brave." I don't think that at all. I'm still extremely dependent on Arild and I try very hard for that to not let me down. He is very supportive, which makes a huge difference and I'm very appreciative for having an extremely laid-back and supportive husband, but I miss my independence. The day I get my independence back I am going to do one hell of a victory dance, but it will take baby steps to get there. I'm scared to go into public alone because I'm afraid people will talk to me and I have no idea what they say or say back to them. Any time I have ventured off on my own this has never happened, so it's really just an irrational fear. The times I have had to speak English to people they've almost always spoken English back. I''m learning how to drive a manual car. The first 3 months an American is in Norway they can drive with ...

Here's an interesting video I found concerning kindergarten in Norway. When I first heard about this I was thinking, "How on Earth can they let babies play outside like that!!??!?! They'd get sick! What are they thinking!?!?!" I think that would be the reaction of a lot of Americans and teachers would have to deal with listening to complaints of angry parents, but now after reading up on this and watching videos about these children I understand more about why children are more or less outside to explore and prevented from being sheltered the way indoor classrooms allow. Norsk Kindergarten  <---- You can see here how different the kindergarten is in Norway from the kindergarten in America. Longer Video on Norsk Kindergarten  <---- This video is longer, but goes more in depth about the kindergartens.

I just have to say, I'm getting a few e-mails from my readers and it's a very bizarre moment for me to realize I'm openly writing about the craziest thing I've ever decided to do with my life and receive e-mails from other people in similar situations. I greatly enjoy talking to others in situations like mine! It's very hopeful and relieving! I understand when people read blogs like mine, this is the sort of thing they're looking for. I've purposely made this particular blog extremely personal just for this matter. I guess I'll have to start off by saying I would never jump out of a plane without a parachute. I've done research on Norway and have spent countless hours talking to Arild. Being a high-anxiety person in general, I think this is a crazy crazy thing to do, but I am so happy and so excited to be able to experience this! I'm often asked if I'm scared doing this. I'm not. Not at all. I'm scared of falling off the bed in my s...