The Things YOU Take for Granted

Here is my ongoing list of things you take for granted living in the US:

• Automatic garage door openers
• Central air and heat
• Doing a load of laundry in less then 3 hours
• Free plastic bags at the grocery store
• A "bag boy" at the grocery store (I can't imagine being offered helped to my car in Norway!)
• Being able to hire someone to do anything you don't have the time or energy to do yourself such as a maid, lawn care etc
• Watching a movie (in English) at the theater without subtitles
• Having to wait up to 3 months after the US release date for new movies to be released here (sometimes we can rent them on iTunes before they make to the theater here!)
• Bagged ice (or ice in general really)
• Not having to think "will that fit in the oven?" about anything
• Appliances that are larger then what you find in a college dorm room or studio apartment

It is funny the things you never think twice about in the US that are completely different here.  

Nothing much new to report.  After a week of warm temps and us looking forward to Spring --- it snowed another 6 inches!  Grr!  But it is warmer each day so the snow that fell has already melted.  I do think I saw one of the first real signs of Spring though - the city trucks sweeping up the tons of gravel they use on the roads.  But we are not changing out of snow tires yet :)  We are looking forward to our Easter Week trip to the Canary Islands in two weeks. Interesting note- Norway has three and a half days of national holidays surrounding Easter (not including weekends) and from what we hear everything closes down including the grocery stores - can you imagine?  

Spring? Maybe soon..

As you can see from the new photo on the blog Spring is slowing making it’s way to Norway.  These flowers are called “Snow Drops” and they are literally coming up through the snow all around the house. We have had minimal snow this week and it is usually followed by rain.  The temperatures have been warm (33-46 degrees) and it has been mostly sunny.  We are defiantly getting excited for no more snow and warm weather.   We used to laugh at the Norwegian idea of spending all your time outside but now we are really starting to understand it.  When there is snow on the ground for 6 months and the weather is nasty (and it is dark) it REALLY makes you appreciate the little changes like melting snow, warmer temperatures and sunshine.  We have found ourselves craving time outside even though it is still pretty chilly by our standards.  

Funny story from the weekend- we are at the grocery store and I am looking at some stuff while Jason is off with the cart getting ice cream.  I hear a loud crash and think to myself “I hope that is not my husband”.  Sure enough it was – he knocked over an entire display of candy – maybe 500 boxes!  Luckily a worker came running and proceeded to spend the rest of her shift picking them up and sorting them!  We felt pretty bad so we bought a box.  There is not much else to report.  Work for Jason is slow and due to budget cutbacks we don’t think he is going to get to the States for work at all this year. School for me has been drama filled but it is still going just fine.

Turning 30

So it was my turn to get old this week – so sad. I turned 30 on Monday. We had a nice evening out the Saturday before with Matt and Kathryn. We went to a burger place downtown for some good American food and a beer – which is a rarity these days. We followed that up with a nice dessert at a local pastry shop and then we went BOWLING! It was pretty fun and felt like home except that it was only 10 lanes! It was tiny and I swear that everything was sold at auction from a defunct bowling alley in America. It was all about 20 years old and to top it off it cost $50 an hour! So we kept it short and had a good time. Monday rolled around and I was sick so Jason stayed home in the morning with me and we had pancakes. That evening we had a simple dinner and I got my present from Jason, which was a cool speaker system for the kitchen that I can use with my computer or iPod. And he even surprised me with a cake!

There is not much else to report. I was mildly sick most of the week but I am feeling much better. One of my students showed our home economics class how to make sushi so we had homemade sushi tonight for dinner, which was a great change. And the most exciting news would be that we have booked a trip to Istanbul for June! We are excited to get to experience a new part of the world and a completely different culture. We are both pretty excited about it and have been researching all there is to know and see while we are there.