Update for December and January

Hi Everyone! Sorry it has been such a long time since we have posted anything here! Hopefully this will get us all caught up for the past month plus :)

December started out with Daniel's company's Julebord, or Christmas party. Julebord literally translates to "Christmas Table." They are typically large hot and cold buffets full of modern and traditional foods. You can read more about Julebords here. They are also often semi-formal. So Daniel and I got all dressed up and headed downtown for the party. 

Dressed up, bundled up and ready to go to Daniel's Julebord.

We had a great time at the party. I met a lot of Daniel's coworkers and talked to a lot of different people. We also ate a lot! There were three buffet tables; a cold table, a hot table and a dessert table. So much food!

The cold foods table. 

We decided that we should try all the traditional Norwegian foods. We tried lutefisk, rakfisk and pinnekjøtt as well as plenty of other things. Here are my reviews: Lutefisk- strange texture, my brain kept telling me not to swallow it, but I eventually did. The taste wasn't too bad though. Rakfisk- I managed to not smell it, which is apparently a good thing! I ate it with some rømme (sour cream) and it didn't really have too much of a flavor. It wasn't too bad but I will not be eating it again! Pinnekjøtt: a bit dry and chewy but overall pretty good. The cinnamon gravy served with it was delicious though!

December also brought the Trondheim Julemarked, the annual Christmas market. We decided that despite the cold weather (-10 degrees C or colder for most of December) we should go visit. There were all sorts of booths set up selling goods, including a huge foods tent full of lutefisk and rakfisk! (We didn't buy any :) ) There was also a teepee like structure that was a little cafe and music tent. It was a cute festival. We ended up visiting twice, bought a few gifts and ate some food and drank some gløgg. We also bought a halmbock that we named Brunøst.

Trondheim Julemarked. There was a huge Christmas tree and a lot of little booths.

The teepee tents were a cafe.There was live music playing in there every evening.

Inside the cafe tents.

Buying some gløgg, yum!

Rakfisk

Halmbocks

The rest of December in Norway was pretty low key. It continued to be quite cold, the coldest day was about -18 degrees C (0 degrees F). With the wind if felt quite a bit colder than that. It was too cold to snow for most of the month. It did start warming up a bit toward the end of the month and Trondheim had a white Christmas.

The Christmas Tree at Daniel's house

We had a good Christmas and enjoyed time with our families. It was nice to see some of our friends as well. We ate some amazing food, drank some great (cheap!) beer and really enjoyed ourselves! We also got to do some shopping. We bought clothes and shoes and stocked up on some things that we have been missing here in Norway. Everything seemed so much cheaper! In the end we ended up with two 50 pound suitcases plus carry-on luggage to take home with us.

We made it home safely, though we were very tired and jetlagged. When we got back to Trondheim, the entire city was a huge ice rink! They had gotten quite a bit of snow over Christmas. Then it warmed up, melted and got cold again. The walk from the bus stop to our apartment was treacherous! The next week was more of the same and we were quite glad to have spikes for our shoes and bike tires. 

Shoe Spikes! They make walking on the icy sidewalks much easier!

The week got warmer and most of the ice melted off. Since then the weather has been better. Still cold though not quite as cold as December. We got some snow a few days ago, though it was only a couple of centimeters worth. It is apparently a colder and less snowy than average winter so far. There isn't even enough snow to go skiing on yet! We are hoping that we will get some more snow in the near future.

My Julebord was January 11th. It was similar to Daniel's with one main difference, Daniel couldn't come to this one! Employees only. So I sent him off to visit our friends Anders and Anna while I went to the party. It was fun. The food was good (I didn't eat the lutefisk or rakfisk this time) and it was nice to spend time with my coworkers outside of school.

Ready for Julebord #2

The rest of January has been pretty quiet, full of work and quiet weekends. We had our first guests over when Daniel's coworker David and his wife came over for dinner and board games. We had a lot of fun teaching them how to play Settlers of Catan!

Norway is continuing to treat us well. The days are getting longer and we are keeping busy. We recently discovered a neighborhood skating rink and have bought ice skates. More on that soon!