Four months in Norway!

If my exchange in Norway was a cake, I’d have eaten a serious chunk of it. Probably enough to be sick and not eat cake again for a few years. Actually, that’s not true. Especially if it was a brownie cake.  But Norway isn’t cake, and I’m definitely not sick of it. It’s hard to believe I’ve been here four months today. Four months since I flew across the ocean for the first time, four months since we touched down in the fog and rain into Oslo.

I’m sitting in Norwegian class, and we’re supposed to be answering questions about a movie we watched last class. I only saw the second half, and had no idea what was happening, especially since it was in Danish. The internet is blocked so I can’t look anything up, and I don’t really have to do it anyways. So I’m reading a section of the Norwegian textbook, and writing this blog post. With the balance seriously skewed towards writing the blog post.

I think it’s amazing how many more languages people are exposed to on a daily basis here. As I mentioned, we watched a movie in Danish last week. The next day, in history and philosophy, we watched a movie set in Iceland, with the text in gammelnorsk (old Norwegian) which I think is closer to Icelandic. The subtitles were in Swedish. I was partially able to follow along with the text, but understood only a few of the spoken words. We also have a French channel on TV here now; I watch it sometimes to try and retain a little bit of French. I was watching it the other night, and trying to decide if I understand the news better in Norwegian or French; I’m not really sure anymore. I think I still lean towards French, but the gap is shrinking. That being said, I don’t really feel like my Norwegian has improved much in the past couple months. I guess once you learn the basics it has to plateau, and I haven’t been doing much to actively learn the language anymore. Listening and reading seems to slowly and steadily improve, just from being surrounded by Norwegian. Speaking is harder though, and I still use a lot of English expressions and words, sometimes even when I know how to say it in Norwegian, but I’m not completely sure.

It’s a big leap to go from hearing a word or expression in conversation, and being confident enough to use it yourself. My speaking is definitely delayed in relation to comprehension, but I think this is fairly normal when learning a foreign language. I also tend to use English conversation fillers; I say things like “yeah” and “right”, even when speaking Norwegian. I guess that’s just a habit. 


Yayy for bear hugs and polar bears! (both real, of course...)

Sorry those were kinda out of context; they're Abby's pictures from Løten Lys back in October.  The part above I wrote in class, as you probably gathered. Then I took the bus in to the shopping centre to buy some pens and a glue stick. These took about five minutes to pick out and buy, leaving me with half an hour to kill before the next bus. So, I went into the grocery store and took stealthy pictures of random foods, mostly christmas themed, while trying to look like I was texting with my phone at a funny angle. Hence the bad quality pictures:

Christmas liver paste, and Christmas beet salad. I don't think they're actually any different than the normal products.

Nothing to do with Christmas...but lots of knekkebrød! :)

Julebrus: Pop that tastes like a mixture of cream soda and fruit punch. Yummm

Grandiosa pizza.....Christmasized

Christmas yogurt....they really go all out here

...and right beside the Christmas yogurt, random bins of bulk shrimp. 

Christmas sausage and Christmas beer...it's a little ridiculous

Brun ost <3

And the last one; packages of rømme grøt. I'm not really sure how this works, seeing as it seemed to consist mostly of sour cream when I had it. Maybe it's a thickening mixture? As i was taking this picture, a man came up from behind and took a package. My stealth camera skills clearly didn't work, because he asked jokingly if I buy food, or just take pictures of it. That was when I decided to stop wandering around aimlessly and leave to catch the bus home.

Hmm...what else do I have to say? I made buttertarts yesterday, and finished making the rest today. I think it's funny how I manage to break all the rules about pastry making: you're not supposed to work the dough too much; I ended up kneading it to make it stick together. You're supposed to use cold ingredients; I used hot water to smush up all the butter, which you're also not supposed to do. Not my proudest pie making experience, but I honestly don't taste a difference. So who cares! When I was looking for a recipe online, I found out they're actually Canadian, I didn't even know. So that makes it all the better to freeze them and have a little bit of Canada with a Norwegian Christmas. 

Today, December 13th, is Luciadagen; I'm not entirely sure what that means. It's some kind of religious holiday, and involved little kids going door to door  dressed as angels and singing. Some people also make Lussekatter, yellow pastries. Agathe at track practice gave me one of hers, it was really good! I took a picture, but a) don't feel like going and getting the cord to upload one picture, and b) it doesn't look all that appetizing sitting half eaten on a bench in the change room. So, here's a more professional picture:

Yummm :D

We had a few days of snow, before the rain washed it away again. But here's a couple pictures to finish this post, back when it looked like winter, and not October:

I think I set a new record for percentage of a blog post devoted to food.

Natta   =)

Edit: I forgot I had a couple pictures on my camera:

Julekalender...isn't it cute? Since I'm the youngest in the house right now I get the little gifts each day, either lottery tickets or little chocolate snowmen. So far I've won 30 kr! :D

Advent candles

And to finish off this blog post in a really anticlimatic fashion: a Christmas themed milk carton.

Natta for real! Although I guess it's morning now   =)