My New Norwegian Home

With Norway's national day coming soon (May 17th) I thought it would be fitting to talk a bit about bunads. I just love old culture preserved in bunads! It's such a great dose of Norwegian culture to go to an event and be surrounded by people wearing bunads that in a way it kind of feels like you've stepped back in time a couple hundred years. In fact, it is what people wore a few centuries ago in Norway. Today the traditional clothing can be worn to weddings, folk festivals and church events like baptisms and confirmations, as well as on May 17th of course. What better way to celebrate nationalism than to wear traditional folk clothing from the 1800s? I'm absolutely excited to celebrate this holiday for the first time. It's tradition for there to be parades with small children and school kids, some of which are dressed in bunads. Afterwards, the day is celebrated with ice cream and waffles. I have been looking at baby bunads lately. I know it's too early 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...

A couple of weeks ago, my mother-in-law told me a typical Norwegian quote, "There's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing!" I still have no idea how to dress and when I came here with all my "Kentucky clothes" as I call them now, I wasn't prepared at all for Norwegian weather. I just love a quote from one of the Alt for Norge contestants, "The Norwegian weather hates you!"   That really sums it up! :-) When I first arrived here to a very rainy and cool summer, my husband asked, "Where's your raincoat?" I told him, "I've never had one." He looked at me like I was crazy and asked, "What did you do in Kentucky when it rains?" I explained to him if it rained, it would dry soon. Kentucky weather changes from hour to hour, so a raincoat never mattered much to me anyways. And honestly, I've never had much use for umbrellas and raincoats. I hate wearing layers of clothing and I hate clothing (like...