First trip to Sweden

Becca and I popped over to Sweden on November 24th to do some grocery shopping. There are a couple of free buses that run from Trondheim to supermarkets in a little town in Sweden called Storlien. Sweden is considerably cheaper than Norway so the buses are mostly filled with old people and immigrants that are trying to stretch their grocery money. Everyone else was purchasing adult things like hamburger, milk, and cereal: Becca and I bought bacon, candy, and beer.

Foreigners to the left, foreigners to the right.

The spice selection was serious business.

Cream cheese is also serious business. This is more than 3.5lbs of it.

Scandinavians love to find new and interesting flavors. And then make them into a cheese-like substance that comes out of a tube.

This is $1 USD worth of beer in Sweden. It has unicorns on it and you sober up while drinking it.

It started snowing as soon as we crossed the border.

The sun takes a long time to rise here this time of year so we had a colorful sky for the entire 90 minute ride. The scenery was amazing!

Care Package!

We received a care package yesterday from Oregon. It was filled with lots of wonderful things. I was very excited to see some Burt's Bees (you can find it here it is just REALLY expensive) and some terry cloth kitchen towels and dish cloths (which we haven't seen here yet). Also included were some wonderful notes and pictures from my family, a couple of magazines to read, some tea, Oregon Ducks knee high socks, a cute calendar and some yummy Jalapeno jerky from Michigan. My mom also sent me my advent calendar! I think she made it for me when I was 2 (Mom correct me if I am wrong). Every year she fills the pockets up with fun treats and goodies. I am very excited and happy that the tradition is continuing here in Norway. Thank you Mom!

So many great goodies!

Scotch whisky party

On Friday the 16th of November Nordic sponsored a whisky tasting party. It was hosted by a Norwegian whisky snob and it was awesome.

One dram of Scotch.

The night's selection.

By the end of evening our Norwegian presenter couldn't maintain English for longer than a sentence or two. Also, distilleries in Scotland like to use Oregon Pine for fermentation vessels.

Happy Thanksgiving, you foreigners

This is the first year that I was actually awake in time to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Unfortunately, I was still at work when it started.

However, Becca managed to pull off an amazing Thanksgiving dinner after she got home from school!

Turkey, home made stuffing, home made cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, green bønner, and gravy!

Chocolate mice, chocolate hazelnut, and caramel candy with sparkling rosé!

Brew Day

We made friends with some very nice Swedes that home brew. We hung out with them while they brewed last Sunday and last night we got together with one of them (Anders, henceforth referred to as the-Swedish-guy-that-should-have-been-born-in-Portland) and worked out a recipe for the next brew.

The Braumeister: because making beer in coolers is for hippies.

Last weekend we took a walk to explore Strindamarka, a 30 square kilometer natural area about 3 km from our apartment. There are kilometers of hiking/cross country ski trails there. Our understanding is that the trails are groomed and lit for skiers during snow season. We can't wait to go snowshoeing or cross country skiing up there!

The ski trails with lights!

A pretty little iced over creek.

Cool ice crystals over a puddle.

Pretty icy leaves!

Ice crystals on the bridge.

On the way home we found a sand volleyball court that was frozen.

Halloween

Happy belated Halloween from Norway! I know that his post is quite late but I thought that I would share anyway.

Halloween is a fairly recently adopted holiday here in Norway. Norwegians have only participated in Halloween for the past 10 years or so.

At school, we had a Halloween celebration for our middle school. It consisted of watching movies (one 'scary' movie and one fun movie) and eating snacks. Students could wear costumes if they wanted to. The majority of the costumes were quite nice, no scary or super bloody costumes. The younger kids had a costume parade to show off their costumes. They also had little parties full of homemade treats. There was also a haunted house that students could go though. My understanding is that the scariest part of the haunted house was the gross tasting drink that was given out at the end. One of the classes even made Halloween games. They asked for donations and gave all the money to a local charity.

On Halloween night kids do go trick-or-treating here. We wanted to make sure to have some candy ready so we bought some at the chocolate factory a few weeks before. We have since found out that giving unwrapped candy or even homemade cookies or muffins is completely acceptable. Not at all what we are used to!

Since we live in an apartment complex, we thought we would have a pretty good number of trick-or-treaters. We were wrong. We saw a lot of kids in the complex but we only got 3 kids at our door. 3!! Oh well, more candy for us!

My jack-o-lantern. I designed him myself. Daniel decided to name him Brunswick.

Our Halloween candy from the local chocolate factory.

Bicycle commuter level: Norwegian

Piggdekk Nokian Hakapelitta 240 pigg 622

First snow of the year

It snowed! There has been about 6" of snow on the ground since Thursday. We thought it would be gone by Saturday but instead the sky cleared up and now it's sunny and cold.

This is the soccer field that my team practices on; practice was cancelled. Also, this is part of the path that I take when I walk to work.

This is the front of the building that I work in. Nordic uses the entirety of the 3rd and 4th floors and it recently acquired space on the basement floor as well. I sit on the 3rd floor near one of those windows.

This is my workstation. There are many others like it, but this one is mine.

I stuck my camera out of the window near my desk. This was taken in the early afternoon on Friday.

This is the path that runs behind our apartment complex.There are many paths like this throughout Trondheim.

The view from the back porch on Thursday afternoon. You can see it is snowing if you look carefully.

The view from our bedroom window.

The view from the front porch. You can almost see the tower in this picture.

Brown cheese is quite common in Norway. Especially on waffles!

According to Google the description says: "known and familiar brown cheese made ​​by long tradition, with a distinctive, rich taste of caramel."

Tine is basically a dairy monopoly as far as well can tell.

The first thing you notice is the odd, peanut butter-like texture. The taste is kind of like a sweet, nutty, cream cheese. If you have enough of it in your mouth the finish tastes like a very mild goat cheese. It is delicious.

Great success!

UPDATE:
After asking wikipedia we've come to conclusion that the variant we tried does have goat milk in it.

It has felt like Autumn here for about a month now. I snapped this photo to use as a desktop background while I was walking to the store this evening.

Those blurry pink things are berries.

Norway used to be a poor country. Although modern Norwegians are rather spoiled, many Norwegian eating habits are influenced by the country's impecunious history.

Stabbur-Makrell
Filet i tomatsaus
Den originale siden 1958

Clearly this is canned mackerel in tomato sauce. Add some hearty crackers, tomato cheese, and Scotch and how bad can it be?

This is a great snack to eat while drinking Scotch; the fact that both foodstuffs preclude interaction with the girlfriend binds them in infamy.

Scotch, crackers, tomato cheese, and mackerel.

Mmm, mackerel in tomato sauce. Norwegians will put anything in tomato sauce. Usually they will then eat it with potatoes. It smells like cat food.

Great success!

On September 29th I went for a 40km bicycle ride with Miles and a few other people from work. It took us several hours to ride around Jonsvatnet (the lake that is used as the drinking water source for the city).

We left the city by climbing a hill that alternated between dirt roads and single track. There was plenty of mud and many slippery rocks so it was interesting on a rigid hybrid bike with smooth tires.

Any land around the lake that is flat enough to grow something on is used as farmland. This photo was taken fairly close to town where the road is paved.

The lake is a source of drinking water so many activities are restricted. There are many houses around the lake but no new houses are allowed to be built.

After a little while the road turns into packed gravel and becomes rugged. The scenery is amazing on a sunny day.

A little picnic table surrounded by clean water and trees.

There are many boat houses around the lake. Motor boats and swimming are prohibited, however.

On September 25th we received our first aid package from the states. The following contents were all shoved into a $60.95 Priority Mail International Flat Rate package:

My favorite slippers, undershirts, a skirt for Becca, hard-to-find toiletries, and about 5kg of chocolate and candy.

Thanks mom!

The New Apartment

Living Room Area

Kitchen: Look counter space!

Dining Room Area

Under the stairs

Bathroom

Spare Room

Cupboard at the top of the stairs.

Bedroom, view #1

Bedroom, view #2

View from the bedroom

View from the front door. Daniel works pretty much at the base of that tower.

View from the balcony.