Things I Will Miss

Our time in Norway has been challenging at times but for me it has overall been a pretty amazing experience. I learned a lot about myself and how I view the world. I also learned a lot about how the world views Americans which was surprising at times. There are a lot of things I won't miss but there are many, many things that I will miss greatly. So here they are in no particular order.

Things I Will Miss:

The absolute beauty of Norway and Trondheim

The safety

The view of the fjord from the gym

The ease of recycling

Walking the dogs in beautiful and quiet surroundings every day

How well trained Norwegian dogs are

Being able to tune out random conversations

The metric system!!

Being able to reserve seats at the movies and bring in our own snacks

Waiting for the first snow

Watching the dogs frolic in the snow

Stretch

20 hours of daylight (4 hours of daylight should have been on my "won't miss" list!)

Having more vacation time and utilizing it to travel to interesting places

Leaves changing color

Mild summers

The adventure of daily life

The friends we have made

3 more days until we get on a plane. Movers are here now- I was a little worried when only two arrived but they had a helper arrive a while later and have made quick work of the packing. The best part- their truck has a viking helmet on the dash and one of our movers (who is Swedish) is wearing a moving kilt! It is seriously the coolest kilt ever- it even has utility pockets.

Things I Won't Miss

The end is drawing near. As with everything in life this experience has been full of both good and bad. Personally I think there has been more good then bad but I thought I would share with you the things I won't miss first. I will post the things I will miss later in the week but don't be surprised if some of them contradict each other!

Things I Won't Miss:

People wearing just socks at the gym (and watching the terrible form they use)

Not having a garbage disposal

Not having air conditioning anywhere (including the gym)

Not having screens on my windows

Norwegian TV

Dreading calling a business and having to deal with not speaking Norwegian

Bad customer service (or none at all)

Spending a small fortune to go to the movies or out to eat

Norwegian subtitles on everything

Struggling with the language and being embarrassed at my lack of skill

The lack of variety in almost everything including food

Produce that travels so far that it is almost rotten when it gets here

The mounds of snow and ice on the roads for 5 months

Not understanding the small details of life at times due to the language barrier

That the summer never gets really hot

Being constantly cold in the winter

Having to go to four grocery stores to find one item I need for dinner

The "major" highways which are one lane in each direction with a sidewalk

I am sure there are more but these are the most prominent in my mind. Needless to say we are excited for many things when we get home but for me it will be bitter sweet. We have lived here longer then Houston now....which is strange. Four days left- movers arrive tomorrow to start packing! Coming up next- things I will miss....stay tuned.

Sorting, Painting and Baking (and cats!!)

This week has been full of sorting and semi packing. We learned that we needed to have our living/dining room ceiling painted. We installed a light fixture and the landlady asked us to remove it- we did and tried to patch and paint. We went to the hardware store and as I expected there is one ceiling paint - no color options, no matte or gloss but just one paint. But of course the ceiling has not been painted in 10+ years so the white paint was too white. SO we had to paint the whole stinking thing. In theory we could have hired someone or paid the landlady to have it done but we expect that would have cost at least $500. We did learn that if we ever return to Norway we will pack an extra suitcase of blue painters tape to sell on the black market. One roll was $36 - say what! Luckily we had enough half finished rolls at home to avoid shelling out for that. The painting took us three evenings to complete and looks pretty good. Unexpectedly, the landlady paid for our paint and supplies after the fact (should have bought that tape!) so that made the ridiculous task slightly easier to swallow.

Almost forgot the funny story. We painted the room in two sections so we could move the furniture accordingly. Last night we were moving it all back. The ottoman seemed much heavier then I remembered and after we put it down and turned to get the next thing I saw a huge black cat out of the corner of my eye. I screamed and we tried to chase it but it was gone... somewhere in our house. After searching for 20 minutes we finally found it under a table in our TV room. After a sealing off all escape routes and opening the front door I attempted to "shoo" it out- it was having none of that. It was unhappy that I found it and was bothering it. After a few attempts it finally ran out of the house. I guess it snuck in our back door which I leave open and found a nice napping spot while we painted. Dopler and Stretch would have made quick work of finding that cat....it was lucky.

In better news - we sold our car! Thank god! The couple we sold it to are great- they are being really flexible with the pick up date and are transferring the money into our bank account in advance. What? That would never happen in the US. We also learned this week that we have been driving on the expired car title for oh 2 years. Nobody told us we had to transfer the title to us or how to do that. We actually didn't even know we needed to have the title in the car at all times it just happened to be there. Car title is a good Norwegian word- it literally translates as "wagon card".

We have also started saying good-byes. It is weird to think we will most likely never be back to Trondheim or even Norway. We have meet some really nice people and learned a lot from them- they will be missed. We have started to plan our final week of packing, loading, cleaning and dinners out. I have baked my last item in Norway. Today was M&M cookies since we have about 40 packs of M&M's left. Here is the recipe - I made them much smaller then the recipe calls for and cooked them for only 10 minutes to get the best consistency. But sadly I used the last of the sugar and vanilla so baking is over for now. Only 8 days left.

Boller

Norwegian Boller is a hard one to explain -- it is almost a sweet dinner roll. It is a staple in many households here, you can buy them fresh at most grocery stores and by the bag. They come plain, with raisins or our favorite with chocolate chips. We really enjoy them and I wanted to attempt to make them before we left so I could recreate that piece of Norway for us in the States. I have been looking for an authentic recipe for a while and I finally found a recipe in English. I did have a few technical difficulties. Number one - during the first rise the dough overflowed the bowl- opps! Number two - when I was rolling them into balls - I ran out of flour and they became a sticky mess - luckily I found some whole wheat flour that I used to correct that. After some nervous anticipation we tried them out and.....they were excellent! I am so excited that they came out well and I will be able to take this bit of Norway with us! Maybe you will be lucky enough to try these one day when we get back the States!

Sixteen days and counting.....

Stokkøya

With just three weeks left in Norway I decided it was time to venture to the ocean. You might be saying to yourselves- don't you live on the ocean? No, we live on the Trondheim fjord which is not the ocean. The real ocean is due west. I convinced Jason it would be fun and we headed out Saturday morning. First we had to take a ferry across the fjord. Ferries are always pretty neat- this one takes about 25 minutes to cross. Then we drove for about two and half hours (about 80 miles) on curvy, hilly and narrow roads to Stokkøya. It is a little island with one little town and a proper sandy beach. Here is a map. Back to the roads for a second. The scenery all along the way was breathtaking (as always) but some of the roads were downright scary. There is one stretch that is along a shear drop cliff with blind corners and the road is absolutely not wide enough for two cars.....talk about fun!

Once we got to Stokkøya we put our hand in the ocean (officially the Norwegian Sea) - that was enough water for us. The water temperature is about 60F- brrr! The day itself was really pretty- sunny and "warm" but I was still in jeans and a long sleeve top. But of course the Norwegians were sunbathing and in the water!

Lunch!

We had a nice lunch at the beach of fresh mussels direct from the ocean and chicken. Then we hiked around a bit and played with the camera. The area has some cabins that were pretty neat- we think they were helicoptered in since the hillside was too steep and rocky for any kind of trucks. All the cabins had grass roofs! After our jaunt we headed home and back on the Norwegian ferry for one last time. It was a great final trip for us. It reminded us both how amazingly beautiful it is here at every turn.

Check out the sandy beach and grass roof cabins!

The countdown continues- 19 days left. We have yet to sell the car- we are hopeful we might have that sorted by the end of the week!

Local Festivals

Two festivals started this week in Trondheim. The first is the largest and it is called St Olav's Festival. It honors St. Olav who was a Norwegian king and the Patron Saint of Norway. The festival is centered around Nidaros Cathedral here in town which is also the northernmost Gothic cathedral. Interestingly people complete religious pilgrimages here to the cathedral during this week to honor St Olav. The festival itself is focused on medieval times so there is jousting and things like that. I checked out the medieval market and just wandered a bit which was nice since the weather was cooperating.

Nidaros Cathedral

West Facade of Nidaros - the wreath is around St James the Patron Saint of Pilgrims

Headstone in the Cathedral graveyard....very traditional names!

Stone carving demonstration in the Medieval Market

At the same time was the Trondelog Food Festival. It is about 2 blocks worth of tents selling various food products and in many tents you can taste things. It is interesting but not great since it tends to be crowded and Norwegians aren't really "courteous". Most of the food is centered around smoked sausages, cheese, breads, fish and vegetables. Some things are really strange or come from one farm. Others are things (and brands) I can get at the supermarket. It was a nice day in the Norwegian sunshine!

Dried Cod

In other news- we have 27 days left in Norway. We had two sweet friends help us post an internet ad to sell our car today (after we feed them migas and breakfast potatoes for brunch- yumm!) and we already have someone coming to look at it tonight! We also think we have a home for our all dogs beds -to a man with 5 rottweilers! And we were also able to sell our ski's and a few other things to some friends at a good price. Things are starting to come together!