On Going Home

I'm headed home for the holidays to visit family and friends and eat myself silly with Christmas snacks. I'm not sure why but I've been forgetting that it is only a two week trip- I keep thinking I'm going to be away from work for ages and have been spending extra hours trying to complete things. In truth, it's a short break and the company will not implode in my absence.

At least I find relief in the fact that most everyone is taking the holidays off. When a coworker asked who would be around next week, no one raised their hands. Norwegians seem to take their holidays very seriously (hence the five weeks of paid vacation). Maybe it's because they retreat into a cabin without wifi to spend the holidays, but they are really able to get 'away from it all', and nothing brings them more pleasure.

The funny thing is when I imagine Norwegians retreating into these winter cabins, I imagine them literally slipping into the mountains and disappearing into a cabin that doesn't have neighbors for dozens of miles. The truth is, many of these cabins are really just second houses without internet. They might take a while to get to, but everything takes forever to get to in Norway.

Normally I'm so excited to go home and eat gingersnaps, but I've been munching on an endless supply of them at work for the past month so I guess I'll need a new Christmas dish. The other day my boss asked me if I've made a list of food I'm going to buy once I'm back in the states, but the truth is that I haven't even thought about the things that are missing for a long time. Its comforting to know that I'm not missing the US all the time, that Norway is truly starting to feel like home. Not to say I wont get giddy when I enter an American supermarket; who wouldn't at those prices?

On Drinking Like a Local

I have had a tumultuous and slowly evolving relationship with coffee throughout my life. As a child, you couldn't find anything I hated more (except maybe for coconut). I didn't drink coffee at all through college, with the rare exception of a peppermint mocha or two my senior year (and let's be honest, those don't count as coffee).

In fact, for most of my life I've been a proud tea drinker (and really, I doubt that will ever change. Tea is simply delicious!) I can drink mug upon mug of greens, blacks, and herbals as if they were water.

In graduate school, I became highly dependent on espresso drinks (lattes and cappuccinos), but always with tons of milk and some sugar. Now that I'm in Norway, I've observed that Norwegians are constantly drinking coffee. I mean constantly. There are multiple espresso machines and coffee makers at work, and every home I've been to so far has at least one fancy espresso machine.

According to this source, Norway is the second most caffeine dependent country in the world, following Sweden. In fact, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Finland are in the top five! By comparison, the US doesn't even make the top ten. In short, coffee is a pretty big deal here.

I've been teaching myself how to drink like the locals do: hot and black. There is nothing more quintessentially Norwegian that to come in from the cold weather (most likely after trekking through a fiord for 10 hours) and drink a nice hot cup of black coffee. It's taken a few months, but I've learned to leave out the milk (and cocoa powder!) and drink it straight up. I'm kind of excited to go back to California and show off my newfound bad-assness. Cream or sugar? Nei takk!

Images from With Grace & Guts

On the Holidays

Norway has embraced the coming holidays with a vigor that makes me smile. The entire city is coated in Christmas lights, which makes walking through the streets positively romantic.

Norwegians seem to take the holidays very seriously. There was a big tree lighting ceremony in the middle of the square, and I swear hundreds of people showed up to see it happen. Every night, musicians gather and play music as well, despite the not so lovely weather. There's also Christmas markets popping up all over, and I went to one the other weekend that was full of people eating hot rice porridge and waffles and selling handy crafts in small wooden booths. I tried some pickled herring, smoked salmon, and reindeer salami. There was even a choir of monks singing.

The best things? The lights everyone is putting in their windows. There are paper star lanterns everywhere, and candles shining in little holders. There has also been a constant stash of ginger cookies at work that get refilled every day!

The food is pretty amazing as well: if you are from the east, you eat pork (svineribbe), from the west, it's fish, and from the north or south it's lamb (pinnekjøtt, a dehydrated salted lamb). All of the side dishes, such as rødkål (red cabbage) and pureed rutabaga, are loaded with butter and bacon and is designed to give you a little extra layer for warmth, or that's at least what I assume. Everyone has been throwing Julebørds, which are Christmas parties, which feature all of these dishes, gløgg (a spiced warm wine), and akevitt (a liquor made out of potatoes).

This evening as I was walking home it started to snow, big fat fluffy flakes. Simply magical.

Photo: Wreathe by With Grace & Guts, Pepperkake by Ocado

On Sounds of Affirmation

After a long leave of absence (from writing, not from Norway), I've returned to talk about sounds. In the US, we are constantly interjecting sounds into a conversation, to let the other person know that we are paying attention. I'm more at fault at interjecting sounds (and words and stories...) into conversations than anyone else I know. This fact about myself is actually very overwhelming to a lot of Scandinavians, not just Norwegians. I don't think in my entire time here I've ever been interrupted by a Norwegian, just by many ex-pats. One of my Danish friends admitted that she was shocked by how one of her American friends would always throw in "Yeah" continually while she was talking. It took her a long time to realize it wasn't meant to be rude, but instead to signal that she was listening.

I've seen different ways of communicating this continuation of the conversation across the world, encouraging the other person with signs and language that aren't all spoken. In India and Nepal, its the head bob. In Norway, its this three and a half part sound, that goes down, up, down and then quickly up again.

In fact, it's been amazing for me to slowly figure out how musical and almost tonal Norwegian is. They usually end words and sentences going up (like a Scandinavian valley girl) and mastering these ups and downs is very important for being understood.

Another sound of affirmation is the inhaled yes. When I first read about it, I thought it was a joke. The first time you hear someone do this, you think they are choking. It's this quick little ja, pronounced ya, that they suck in. It's usually reserved for women over 45, but I've seen some men around the office inhaling their ja sportingly. And so of course, now I'm doing it too.

I've been trying to incorporate these sounds into my conversations to 1. see how people react and 2. make up for the fact that I don't actually speak Norwegian in full sentences. It made me wonder, do words like this exist in sign language? (Fun fact: I just learned today that sign language is different in different parts of Norway to account for the differences in dialect)