A lesson on brunost and lovely Bergen weather

I'm sitting on the couch having an inner war with myself whether or not to go for a run. The rain is whipping by in horizontal sheets outside, and I think most of our snow is melted again. Last night all the side roads were solid ice with a thin layer of water on top, and I'm a little hesitant to go out and check how they are today. Mostly just because I'm lazy and would rather tell you guys about brunost than go out and get soaked. I'd rather be here: (excuse the angry face):

Than out there :

So, I'm going to start this post off with a lesson on brunost, or brown cheese.

I’d heard a bit about brunost before I came to Norway, but really didn’t understand what it was. Cheese is cheese, right? Soft, hard, whatever; you still eat it on pasta, with crackers, and on your ham sandwiches. You would never eat normal cheese with strawberry jam, or on waffles. But brunost is no ordinary cheese. Actually, it's not really cheese at all; it's made from the whey instead of the curds. (I don't actually know anything about cheese making; the only thing I know about curds and whey has to do with little miss muffet and a spider)

 

At my first breakfast here in Norway I was encouraged to try it, and thought it was just normal (although brown) cheese. So I tried it with tomatoes; first and last time I've done that. It's more common to eat it with sweeter things, like jam. Ever since I tried it with raspberry jam and toast it's become one of the staples in my diet here, for better or for worse. There was definitely one day where I ate this combination for breakfast, lunch and dinner. 

So if it isn't cheese, and you don't eat it in a normal cheese-like way ( if such a generalization even exists), what is it? A mixture of milk, cream and whey boiled until the lactose caramelizes, turning it brown. I don't want to do too much internet research on it, because I know I'll come across its nutritional information somewhere, and I really don't want to know that! I would describe it as tasting like caramel and peanut butter, but it doesn't really taste like that at all.

Fløtemysost was most often in the fridge at Tord and Helene's, it's mild and has lots of cream. It's made from cow's milk.

Gudbrandsdalsost is stronger, and made from a mixture of goats' and cow's milk. My best translation of the package is: The brown cheeses from TINE (brand) are some of what makes norwegians norwegians. These særnorske? cheeses have traditions back to Anne Hov's original recipe from 1863. I can't figure out what "særnorske" means; google translate gives me "weird norwegian", "relatively high" and "relatively sharp" depending on how I type it in. None of which really make sense. 

 

The last major category of brunost from TINE is Ekte Geitost ( real goats cheese). It's made from, well, obviously goat's milk, and is the strongest tasting. 

At first I only really liked the milder fløtemysost, but I've grown to love the other two with jam as well. Bread isn't even neccesary!

I think I'm going to go out and give running a try now. I told Devin (exchange student near Oslo) on skype that if I hadn't seen lightning or falling trees by 3:00, I would run. It's 2:56 and doesn't look like either of those is going to happen. Although there was thunder and lightning a few weeks ago while it was snowing; I didn't even know that was possible!

Hopefully I'll come back alive to finish this, preferably intact. If not, well, my last written words were about Brunost, so not a bad way to go. 

Well, I survived. It was pretty anticlimatic actually; the roads were bare now and it was only drizzling. It was my longest run in a while, an hour and twenty minutes or so. 

On Friday I helped with the SFO (after school program) again; I think I mentioned it before. The kids, who are around 6-8 I think, have gym time after school for an hour as long as there's enough kids to run it. On Friday there was only five, but instead of sending me home until next week, the leader said I could just take them on my own. I was a little nervous; it's one thing to play with them when there's another leader in charge, and quite another to give orders on my own. With kids I can't just say things in english and know they'll understand; I have to figure out how to phrase things in Norwegian, or mime it. Luckily I got an easy group; four girls and one guy who were thrilled that I was willing to drag them around the floor using a hockey stick. Exhausting, but pretty easy entertainment. Alternating that with jumping randomly off benches onto mats and playing disorganized floor hockey easily took up the hour. When we had a few minutes left and had cleaned up the equipment, I tried to suggest we play tag, but didn't know what it was called in Norwegian. I asked one of the girls what it was called by pretending to tag her, and she said something in Norwegian that I didn't catch. They all seemed excited to play, and one girl told me they needed a ring to play with. One ran off and found a screw, and they sat me down with them in a circle on the floor and started singing. Not exactly the game of tag I'd expected; I was pretty confused. It ended up being a "duck duck goose" type game where one runs around the circle and puts the screw (or ring) in anothers hand, and then they open their eyes and guess who has it. 

I still have no idea what "tag" is called in Norwegian. 

Regardless, I was happy to make it through the hour without any major miscommunications. The next communication challenge came on Saturday, when I took the train to the city to go shopping.

I have a bus pass which Rotary pays for, which you buy every month on the bus or at the station. I bought mine for this month on the bus, and the bus driver gave me a receipt without a "valid until" date on it. I asked him about it, and he said nahh, it's fine, see here, a green light comes up when I scan it, so it's valid! I was a little skeptical of how it would work on the train, but long discussions in Norwegian aren't really my strong point so I let it go.

I forgot about it until I was on the train yesterday, and the conductor was coming around checking tickets. I tried to explain that you could see the date I bought it on the reciept and that the bus driver said that was all I needed. She told me I hadn't activated it yet, and went into a long winded explanation about bus cards being like bank cards, which didn't make much sense. She said if it wasn't valid, I'd have to pay 1000 kr. I said I didn't have any money with me, and definitely not 1000 kr, so she took the card and said to come to the station when the train had stopped. So I went in, annoyed at the bus driver I'd bought it from, trying to figure out how to explain myself in Norwegian, and thinking about all the things I could buy with 170 dollars besides a little slip of paper. They checked the card, found out it was activated and valid, and gave me a new receipt. The end, nothing dramatic. I figure if they had tried to make me pay, I could have switched to english and played the clueless exchange student card, but as it was I'm pretty proud they never noticed I wasn't norwegian. 

So that was the beginning of an eventful Saturday which also involved running on the ice, in the dark, in the pouring rain ten minutes to the shopping centre and ending up soaking wet. I didn't plan very well and assumed I had lots of time to get ready, then realized we were meeting earlier and there was no bus for half an hour. Then our  ride wasn't even there yet because of road closures. Gotta love Norwegian weather! I met Tonje from my class at the shopping centre where we waited to be driven to Eirin's. We got kicked out of the centre into the rain just as our ride arrived. The rest of last night more than made up for the day though; a relaxed fun "jentekveld" (girls night) with the girls in my art class. 

That brings me up to date again. 

Oh, and my host family has a walk in fridge. Reminds me of all the hours I spent working in the freezer at Safeway, although warmer and way less crowded.

I'll finish off with some more brunost to make you hungry   =)

I've also updated the norwegian page up top, so feel free to comment and correct it! Jeg lærer mye når folk korrigerer meg, og jeg vet at det jeg skriver er ikke helt riktig. Så ikke være redd for å skrive en commentaire! 

takk!

=)