My New Norwegian Home

We had a game night Saturday night and tried out the game Brunost, langrenn og lusekofte. It is a game of questions to determine which player is the most Norwegian at heart. The game consists of a series of questions about how you'd react to a certain situation. Most questions can be answered with a yes or no and you are given positive or negative points depending on the answer. The player with the highest score wins and is deemed most Norwegian at heart.  Some question topics include manners, fashion, music, culture, and just every day norsk life. We had a lot of fun playing the game and the cultural discussions we had. I'd highly recommend it for a game night if anyone is interested in Norwegian culture! And on a side note, I CRUSHED my husband at being Norwegian! ;-) Arild had many negative points and a friend of ours was most Norwegian out of us all. I tied second place with my brother-in-law. 

This past Friday was a big day for Norway. It was the 17th of May or in other words the National Day where Norway gained its independence from Denmark 199 years ago by making their own constitution. Today it's celebrated with parades of bunad-wearing school children, marching bands, eating cake, ice cream, waffles and hot dogs all day. Yep, this pretty much explains it! From:  http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/17%20mai I was very excited to be here to finally celebrate my first 17th of May in Norway! We went to the city center in time to watch the children's parade and left right as the Russ were beginning their parade. Ate ice cream, then went to my husband's old elementary school where we thought there would be a local parade. Instead there was no parade, so we ate cake. Afterwards we went and ate more ice cream and hot dogs. That sums up our 17. mai! We were also bombarded by a couple of sugar crazed 9-10 year olds who were wondering if we were Russ. Apparently Russ g...

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...

Back in September was when I first learned about babies napping outdoors. The first post about babies sleeping outdoors can be seen here!  My initial reaction was a quick one and I kept thinking, "Wow, if that happened in America, Child Protective Services would be getting a call!" When I get a reaction from other Americans it's very close to the same as what I first thought about it, but more words and phrases are tossed around like, crazy , insane ,  "freezing to death",   kidnapping, " what are they thinking!?!? !", poor babies, neglect  and abuse . I explain, go into detail of this practice (Nordic cultures do this with children without a second thought) and sometimes it soaks in and they understand and other times it just simply doesn't. I'm not entirely sure if people get this image of moms wrapping their children in a blanket and tossing them into snow or what exactly is going on there. I hope this blog post clears up some things thoug...

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! ...

While my last post was about homesickness, it's very exciting and interesting to experience different traditions during the holiday season. It's mine and my husband's first Christmas together as a married couple and without Skype and though I'm a little saddened by not getting to be with my own family, I think it's very exciting to be here in Norway with my husband and my in-laws. I think Christmas here will be quite cozy because well, it already looks Christmas-y here and we're already basically at the north pole!  Welcome to the North Pole!  Since my husband has lived a bachelor life for so long, he hasn't really had too many Christmas decorations. That has changed thanks to me! :-) Within the past month or so I've taken notice to many interesting Christmas decorations and have tried to find the most Norwegian looking decorations as possible. :-)  The first thing I began to notice was pigs. Really, pigs are everywhere. In Norwegian they...

Well, today makes two special days, Thanksgiving in America and Hug A Norwegian Day. Thanksgiving is generally a time where Americans gather with family, eat a large meal and give thanks for everything they appreciate in their lives. It's really a great concept and such a shame Black Friday (the day where it's socially acceptable for people to forget all they're thankful for, trample one another in stores and shop and shop and shop mostly for things they don't need) follows after. I could so go on and on about Black Friday. I'm not a big fan, but this post isn't about my near-hate of Black Friday. :-) Anyways, since I'm not in America, I'm celebrating the best way I can here in Norway. I tried to make a very tiny meal for both of us, but I failed at that, though the chocolate cheesecake I make turned out good! I actually managed to mess up my mother's recipe for cheesy hashbrown casserole because I forgot to boil the potatoes before baking. No su...

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...

For me there are 3 things I think are the most difficult to learn. I even have a bet going on with the hubs that I will become fluent in Norwegian before learning any of these 3 things. The thing number 1) The metric system. When you really start to think about America and its relationship with the world or if you compare America to our Western friends, you begin to see that America just HAS to be different. America has rejected the metric system, though we do use it occasionally - in hospitals, in science or when fixing your car. I admit, the metric system really does make more sense. Things are counted in 10s and 100s and 1000s rather than 12 inches in 1 foot, 4 cups in a quart, 16 ounces (abbreviated as "oz.") in 1 pound (abbreviated as "lb.") and a normal body temperature is 98.6 F, water freezes at 32 F and boils at 212 F all of which really makes very little sense and it wasn't until just a few years ago I was able to memorize all of our crazy measur...

Oh there is so much to learn about living in another country. Right when I think I have most things figured out, something else comes along and surprises the living daylights out of me. I was at my friend, Eirin's house today when she told me she had to bundle up her baby so she could sleep outside. At first I didn't pay too much attention until she began to literally bundle up her baby in thick clothing and that's when what she said dawned on me and I said, "HUH?" She began to laugh at me and asked, "You don't do that in America, do you?" She went on to explain babies and children in daycare and kindergarten will nap outside unless it gets too cold. Too cold meaning below -10 degrees Celsius - that's 14 degrees Fahrenheit! I was a bit surprised when I started to learn more about outdoor kindergarten in Norway, but I had no idea about this! I just HAD to follow her outside to see how this was done. Eirin explained to me the benefits of childr...

I'm a huge Disney fan. Who isn't? Everyone loves Disney or has at some point in time. For generations people have been growing up with Disney classics and some new coming Disney films. If you're ever in a pit of awkward silence in a conversation with someone of a different generation Disney is usually a great topic to bring up as anyone living generally knows and enjoys  the subject. Occasionally my husband and I will face some confusion when I bring up talking about a Disney character or I'll be minding my own business and singing a Disney song to myself, my husband will ask, "I've heard that before, where's that song from?" and that's where the confusion begins.... I'll give him the name of the Disney movie, or a character and he'll say, "Hæ!?!" It didn't take us long to figure out names are sometimes different in English and Norwegian when it comes to Disney characters. Because Donald Duck is so popular in Scandinavia ...

This past Sunday was the premier for season 3 Alt for Norge! In English the translation is 'All for Norway.' The show is about 12 Americans with Norwegian heritage coming to Norway and learning the culture of their ancestors. The reality show has them competing in various tasks somehow dealing with Norwegian culture or history. The winner over the course of 12 weeks wins $50,000 and they get to meet their living relatives in Norway. America has about the same amount of Norwegian-Americans as there are actual ethnic Norwegians in Norway.  Norwegian Americans I love the show, but I wish it were available for Americans to watch... free. It is available for Americans, but at a price.  How Americans Can Watch Alt for Norge For those curious, here's t he season premier for the show  and here's a peek at the next episode s neak peek at the next episode. For me, it's just fun to watch other Americans and what they think about Norway. Of course the show emphasizes th...

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...