Oslo

Jason was invited to his company Christmas party in Oslo so we decided to make a weekend of it since I have not been before. Our friends Matt and Kathryn watched our dogs and we headed down early on Friday morning. It was snowing quite hard but we did some sightseeing. We tried to see the City Hall which is were they hold the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony but it was closed- but the building might be the ugliest thing in town! We did attend the worst changing of the guard ever but the highlight of that was we got to see the King of Norway leave the Palace in his limo. Though the locals say it is not uncommon to see the Royal Family – I still felt lucky! Then we warmed up and rested up for the party. It was at the world’s only Mini Alcohol Bottle Museum. It was really neat and we had a nice time. Dinner was excellent- we had reindeer –which was really good. Though we had to laugh that reindeer was the Christmas meal – pretty sure children in the US would cry at eating Rudolf.

The Christmas Party

We defiantly decided that Oslo would be a great city to live in but only as long as it was the company dime – it is the most expensive city to live in the world! Saturday we went to the Viking Ship Museum (Visa Commercial), which was interesting, but I have to say the Norwegians are not the best curators in the world. Many of the displays are confusing and give you little information. Then we went to the FRAM museum, which is a ship that went to both the north and south pole and was designed to get into the ice packs – it was stuck in the north pole ice for three years! Then we went to the Oslo Cultural Museum, which was having a huge Julemarket (Christmas market) so we got to see traditional gifts and foods. After warming up we headed to dinner at TGI Fridays. Dinner was great – American food is so good sometimes- but our dinner, which consisted of a potato skin appetizer, quesadilla for me and chicken sandwich for Jason and 2 sodas, was 450NOK, which works out to roughly $64 USD! And we thought it was pretty funny that all Norwegians were wearing fancy clothes like suits and ties…it is Fridays…but I guess that doesn’t translate for them.

The Viking Ship Museum

Our very cool room at the Grand Hotel- where the Nobel Peace Prize winner stays!

Cross Country Skiing

We bought cross-country skis a few weeks back – we finally had enough snow to try them out Saturday after Thanksgiving. Our Norwegian friend Lena and her husband Carlos offered to show us. Jason was a natural since he is already a skier, I on the other hand have a lot to learn! My mom can tell a great story of me taking ski lessons at the age of 5 – I was great at making snowballs but didn’t learn a thing about skiing. Thankfully Lena was very patient and I made some good progress. I learned the general motion of track skiing and how to climb hills. I learned how to go down hills and stop but that still needs LOTS of work. Most importantly I learned how to fall down! It is really great to see everything from 2 year olds to 85 year olds trucking along on their skis! Overall it was a good time though I could barely move my arm the next day. Hopefully we can get another day in before we head home. It is a great workout! Though we have decided that Norwegians don’t ski for fitness- it is more like hiking – they just want to be outside and enjoy nature and family. Some would say it is like their church.

Thanksgiving

It was strange to not have Thursday and Friday off for Thanksgiving but we got by. We had 3 couples over on Friday night for Thanksgiving dinner.  We had all the traditional food, which was really nice. Not everything tasted quite the same but it was close enough for us.  Jason was thankful for passing his driving test on Thanksgiving day in the snow and rain!  So we are both now official holders of a foreign license –we are pretty excited considering they last for 75 years!

The best story from Thanksgiving dinner came from Lena – our Norwegian friend.  We were talking about Bob Barker (random) and his famous line about spaying and neutering animals.  Then we got on the subject of how most animals in Norway are not fixed etc- she ends up telling us that most people give their cats birth control.  Everyone at the table died laughing – we thought she was kidding but she wasn’t. Another hilarious Norwegian idea- birth control pills for your animals!