Kitchen Adventures

Eating out in Norway is prohibitively expensive. We have eaten out some (mmm...kebab!) but I have been trying to cook at home as much as possible. I think I have been doing a pretty good job keeping things interesting, but it is definitely easy to get into a rut and start making the same things over and over again.

Some ingredients that I am used to working with can be difficult to find. There is a grocery store called Meny that carries quite a few British and American products. We have been able to find most of the things that we have looked for, but we definitely pay the price. Hershey's chocolate chips are 63 nok (about $11) per bag. A bottle of Frank's Buffalo Sauce (I think Daniel eats some every day) costs about 60 nok (about $10). It is also definitely a challenge reading labels. Everything is in Norwegian! Can you believe that!?   :)

Working in a small kitchen has been quite a challenge. I thought that my kitchen in Oregon was small but our current kitchen is much smaller. We are also using the kitchen goods supplied with the current kitchen. As you might imagine, this is a bit limited. We have purchased a few kitchen items since we have gotten here, but for the most part we have been trying not to buy too many things until we get settled into our own place. This has definitely led to some interesting situations (have you ever mashed potatoes with a spatula?) and the realization that I was quite spoiled back in Oregon.

As we are getting ready to move into our own place (October 7th! Yay!) I am getting excited about a slightly bigger kitchen and a few small kitchen accessories.

These two photos were taken 10 minutes apart at 5:30pm after an otherwise nice day:

If the sky looks like this in Norway you better find cover.

If the sky looks like this in Norway you are probably standing in a mud puddle.

It's my birthday!

It has been a good day!

I only had to work until 10 am today (I love Thursdays!). I finally got to go to the library to get my library card and they have a pretty good English book selection. I got a good amount of reading time in today which I have been missing. I got TWO cakes, one made of paper (thanks Mom and Dad!) and one made of chocolate (thanks Daniel!) and I had a wonderful dinner with a cute boy. Daniel had tuna carpaccio for a starter and reindeer for his main course. I had mussels for a starter and a wonderful duck dish for my main course.

And to top it all off, I got a lot of birthday wishes! Thank you everyone!

French cake, made by real Norwegians. And it is delicious!!

Now to end my day, I am going to go eat a piece of my chocolate trio mousse cake and drink a glass of wine. :) Not a bad way to start a year!

Everything is expensive in Norway. Miles told us that bicycles will inevitably go on sale to make space for the ski season so we've been shopping around and waiting. Yesterday we finally scored some transportation!

Becca's bike has a basket, a rack, fenders, and an internally-geared 7-speed rear hub. It's pretty much exactly what she was looking for.

My bike satisfies my top three priorities: disk brakes, fenders, and the skinniest tires you can ride while retaining the ability to swap them out for studded tires in the winter. Unfortunately, it also has a bunch of superfluous gears and artwork that objectifies women (the model name is 'Assphalt').

I started work at Nordic Semiconductor this morning. I'll be working with the System Architecture Group for the foreseeable future and my first impression of the R&D department is overwhelmingly positive.

A view from about 2/3 of the way up the hill on my walk to work.