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...

In the past few years I've learned it's stereotypical of Americans to be terrible at geography. I greatly reinforce that stereotype. Really, I don't think it should be an American stereotype, but possibly just an individual issue. I have  learned a little geography since moving to Norway, but mostly it's because my husband underestimated how terrible I am at knowing about other countries and he's given me geographic lectures upon more lectures. Stereotyped map of the world. From:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/feb/17/stereotype-maps-tsvetkov# At my Norwegian course the other day, my teacher asked me, "What did you think about Norway before you moved here?" I laughed. Did he really want me to try to explain how I didn't know the place was even a country, but possibly a place in Moscow or Morocco? Not sure why I once thought that, but it's almost embarrassing to admit that. I didn't know Norway was a country until my husba...

Yeah... it's that  time of year. Russ. To my understanding, it's a traditional celebration where students in their last year of high school take a few weeks in May typically May 1-17 (but they can get an early start in April) and complete a series of pranks and tasks to earn knots on a hat which completes their overalls outfit. The pranks can range from the innocent like eating breakfast or spending the night in a roundabout to the not so innocent like drinking games and um... well, other things. From what I do know about it, I don't think I feel too comfortable with young people (well, anyone for that matter) acting reckless and senseless. Trying on my husband's old Russ outfit.  A typical Russ picture, red van and all. From:  http://no.gosupermodel.com/frontpage/news.jsp?news_id=3021 Recently I've been told about a day where the girls were supposed to come to school wearing a mustache.  If they weren't wearing a drawn on mustache they'd be chas...

A good sign spring has sprung in Norway is the neighborhood volunteering effort of spring cleaning called, "Dugnad." We had dugnad in our neighborhood on Tuesday where everyone took part in cleaning up something. I swept the carport and picked up trash while Arild hosed the carport and part of the driveway. Sometimes people paint, get rid of dead leaves or chip wood. The idea of it is to have a community effort in doing something and also because wages are so high in Norway, it would be quite expensive to hire someone to do the work. Afterwards we were treated to a cookout and we checked out a small playground in our neighborhood that neither of us had noticed too much before and talked about taking our little one there next summer.

I guess it's time I should update. It's been almost 2 weeks since my last ultrasound - t he BIG ultrasound!  We're now beginning month 5 of this pregnancy and everything is going well. As well as a pregnancy can go I guess - of course there's the fatigue, feeling like I have no control over my emotions or my appetite and other lovely symptoms and surprises of pregnancy. Most importantly though, our little troll is doing great! :-) Anyways, just a little update on the soon to be new addition.... Beansprout is a..... GIRL!!!! We were told by my doctor about a month and a half ago that our little one is probably a girl, but when my husband began interrogating the doctor for a specific percentage of certainty, she only said she was 60% certain. So, almost 2 weeks ago we went to our specialist and we were shown "girl parts" I'm assuming that's a decent probability Beansprout is a girl anyways! :-) AND she's not looking so much like a bean sprou...

Some people are called in to Civil Defense in Norway. My best comparison to it is a minor similarity to the National Guard because Civil Defense is what the country calls on when there's a state of emergency or problems like forest fire, floods and rescue missions. The purpose of the Civil Defense can be read here.  My husband occasionally gets called in for practice or meetings with the Civil Defense. He hates it. Mostly because this is something he gets called in to do. It's not something he's volunteering for. While some people work in Civil Defense voluntarily and make a career out of it, others like my hubs are called in for "duty." The portion he works in when he gets a call to come in and practice is a unit in decontamination. So, for example, if there were a local meth lab explosion or some other catastrophe where decontamination would be needed, he'd be called in to work on the site. My grumpy man in uniform.  Last week, my grumpy man ha...

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...