Easter or Påske in Norwegian

The Norwegians typically celebrate Easter Week at their cabins skiing. There are quite a few traditions including Lamb Leg dinner, special Easter candies, skiing and watching or reading mysterious stories. Yes- mysterious stories are an Easter tradition. They show them on TV and have them on the radio - they also have them on the sides of the milk carton.

Milk Carton Mysteries

We on the other hand we plan to have no mysterious stories or skiing just good Italian sightseeing, food and wine. And we get to see the Pope- not once but twice while in Rome. We are pretty excited for that. I told one of my students parents I was going to Italy and he told me that the skiing conditions wouldn't be very good! He was joking but kinda serious too! We have lovely friends watching the dogs and house which makes going away that much easier for us! Hope you have a great Easter! Look for pictures (from Jason's new toy) after Easter!

Looking forward to seeing Rome and Florence in all their glory!

Lemon Steamed Pudding

Today I decided to stretch myself and try something harder then the average baking. So I choose to make Lemon Steamed Pudding. Here is an almost identical version of the recipe. The book I used was written by Tom Colicchio's pastry chef mentioned in the article - Karen DeMasco. But her version calls for 4 eggs, keeping the foil on for the whole cooking time and has a lot more directions. Don't be fooled by Tom's description of this recipe being "foolproof". I admit it wasn't too hard but foolproof is an awfully strong word.

Into the water bath they go

Fresh out of the oven, cooling in the water bath

I didn't have a roasting pan with high sides so the foil cover stuck to the top of the puddings. After letting them cool I turned out my first one on to a plate- disaster! The top is supposed to be a really pretty set lemon curd- but mine ran all over the plate. But it still tasted really good- very lemony but really good! I let them cool even longer and tried to turn another one out....and Success!! It is not quite as pretty as in the picture in the book but pretty good for my first attempt. I also made Candied Lemons- I thought they would be firm but they aren't but they are still pretty good.

Success!!

Cooling the candied lemons- yes that is snow in place of an ice bath :)

We leave for Italy in 3 days! And sadly it snowed again this morning....

Weekends

Notice the new blog background? I am trying to be hopeful about Spring! It has been warm, in the 40's, with rain so hopefully no more snow and the rain will continue to melt the snow away! The snow drops flowers have even started peaking up from under the snow in the yard.

As I may have mentioned before, nothing is open in Norway on Sunday except for restaurants, gas stations, the garden store and a select few small grocery stores. By law the grocery store has to be under a certain square footage to be open on Sunday. Recently, the small grocery store up the street started having Sunday hours but not in their own store (since it is too large) but they have rented the space next door (which used to be a 7-11) and it is only open on Sundays. It is impressive to us that they can make enough money on Sundays in a tiny space that they can justify renting the space for only Sunday hours.

We have adjusted to not shopping etc on Sundays and actually kinda like it. What we don't like though is shopping on Saturdays! Since nothing is open on Sunday all Norwegians must shop on Saturday which means all stores feel like Wal-Mart on Black Friday to us. I am sure it is not really that bad but we are used less people now so it feels pretty claustrophobic.

Another great weekend custom here is "Saturday sweets." Most kids are not allowed candy or soda any day of the week but Saturdays. For some kids this means real candy but some kids have even more restrictive parents and they only get sweet things like raisins and yogurt (no I am not kidding). We were at the grocery story on Saturday and saw two little boys about 4 and 6 pushing their small cart with candy in it- well they started arguing and a tussle ensued knocking the cart and littlest one over. Dad promptly reached into the cart and removed all the treats and put them back on the shelf - tears ensued - but it as a great example of Norwegian parenting that we LOVE!

Just looked out the window.....it's snowing.....hmmm!

3 Feet of Snow = Caramel Apple Oatmeal Cookies

After a week of rain and warmer temperatures old man Winter decided to rear his ugly head. It has basically snowed non-stop for 5 days. We estimate we have gotten about 3 feet of snow. Fun stuff- we were just getting ready for Spring and then this! The snow pile at the end of our drive is taller then Jason and we are almost out of places to put the snow from the driveway. But they are predicting heavy rain staring tomorrow- that should do the trick.

Yes the snow is up to Dopler's belly in our backyard!

The dogs really do love the snow! It continues to amaze us...

So with the snow falling heavy and relentless I decided to do some baking. I went with Caramel Apple Oatmeal Cookies - here is the recipe. They were good but I think they could have been better. The dried apple rings in Norway were a little crispier then I think the recipe wanted. They were a nice change of pace though.

Copenhagen

I was asked to chaperone, along with another teacher, our annual year 11 trip abroad. This year the trip was to Copenhagen. Our year 11 has only 7 students but only 5 could go on the trip so it was a pretty manageable number between the two of us. We were a bit worried about how they might behave but they really surprised us and were great while we were away. I was also quite pleased that the school payed for my trip, food and payed me a nice fee to go - it was a definite win- win for me!

Copenhagen streets

We left very early on Wednesday (March 3) and arrived in town about 9am. We found our hotel which was slightly outside the city center to prevent mischievous behavior. Once we checked in we went to explore a bit. We let the students pick lunch so we ended up at Burger King. Then we let them have some free time to shop - I wandered the city to see the sights. The downtown is a mix of modern and old so it is interesting. I saw a cool church, the Queen's residence, the opera house and a few other sights. I tried to make it out to see Copenhagen's famous Little Mermaid statue but it was to far for me to walk and make it back to get the kids. The one defining characteristic of the city is that it uses a lot of copper - much of it from Norway. It is also the cycling capital of Europe - they have bike lanes everywhere and it seems like everyone bikes- we heard something like 35% of people commute on bikes in Copenhagen each day!

The "marble church" with the domed roof and the Queen's Residence on the right

The old stock exchange with a roof made from the copper from Roros, a famous copper mine in Norway.

After we meet the kids we went to the planetarium and saw an IMAX movie about space etc - it was very uninteresting to me since it was in Danish. Danish and Norwegian are very similar so the kids mostly understood it. Later that evening we went to a great buffet type restaurant. Then next day we were off to Elsinor to see Hamlet's Castle. It was about a 45 minute train ride north then a 15 minute walk in the brutal cold to the castle. It was a nicely maintained castle but not amazing. It was the castle that Shakespeare placed the story of Hamlet but of course it was a fictional story so it is not really Hamlet's castle. After we got back into the city we let the kids shop some more while Morten and I wandered into the hippie district of Copenhagen - it was were all the protests happen each time some major political event happens in Copenhagen like the Climate Change Conference or the G20.

Hamlet's Castle

The private chapel in the castle - beautiful wood carvings covered the chapel yet they were using real candles for light - strange!

On our last day we headed slightly outside the city center to the Copenhagen International School. The kids attended a few classes while Morten and I got to learn a little about the school. The kids were dreading it but they really enjoyed it and we think it gave them an idea of what else school has to offer. The school was pretty amazing with great resources. They had 600 students from ages 4-18 and over 100 teachers. They have over 50 countries represented, a waiting list to get in and it costs roughly $20,000 a year. Unlike our school there are very few kids from the country - most are true expats many of whom are diplomatic. It was a good experience to see something different. All and all Copenhagen was nice but I don't think I got a real feel for the city since it was winter and off season. I think in the summer it would be nicer but it doesn't stand at as one of best tourist sights in Europe. But a free trip to see it was well worth it! Plus now I can say I have chaperoned a trip abroad!

The cool church in the hippie district- the steeple inspired Jules Verne for images in the book Journey to the Center of the Earth!

Winter - Oh how cold you have been...

From "Ski Day" at school this week - I learned how to backcountry cross country ski though 3 feet of loose snow!

This winter, which feels like it is drawing to an end, has been COLD. Not as cold as some places but cold for Norway. We have had two different 7-10 day spells of -25C (-13F) highs since returning from the US. Here are examples of how cold it has been:

• Our area is completely out of firewood for sale. Many people use this as a main source of heat in their homes.
• During the last cold spell, Jason's colleague found out the hard way that Trondheim was completely sold out of car batteries. Not just the type for his car but ALL batteries. I guess car batteries die when left at a certain temperature?
• We got an email today from our electric company bracing us for a very expensive bill for the last quarter (January - March). I heard from another person they are saying it may be three times more then last quarter - FYI we paid almost $1500 last quarter.....can't wait for this one! Evidently Norway has had to import more electricity then expected since most of the waterfalls they rely on in winter for hydroelectric power are frozen solid.

I did say it feels like winter is drawing to an end. We have had three days of straight rain and temperatures above 0C. Today it was a balmy 6C (42F)! That being said the snow and ice are melting like gangbusters. The picture below is on our street - even after 3 days of rain you can see there is at least 2.5 inches of ice on the side of the road....that is what happens when you don't plow. We expect another day of warm weather and heavy rain and then.....snow and more snow and more snow - they are predicting it for all next week. But my snow globe flowers are starting to peak through - so maybe Spring is almost here!

NYC Girls Night

Brandi and I headed on the train down to New York City early Friday morning. It was good we went early as the "Snowicane" struck NYC a little later in the day and trains were delayed. We arrived and got checked into the hotel - Dream Hotel which was so cool and in a great location. We wandered the city, had some lunch and did a bit of shopping. The streets were a mess- every street corner had about 8-12 inches of wet slush you had to wade through in order to cross the street! All in all the snowicane dropped 19 inches in the city in 24 hours but thankful it tapered off that evening. Later that afternoon we had a spa treatment at our hotel with a mud room (so much fun) and a wonderful relaxing massage.

The slush in the streets

The snowicane in full effect in Times Square

After our pampering we showered - Brandi tired to get all the oil from the massage out of her hair with no luck! We had a nice Italian dinner in the theater district and then we went to a Broadway show (another part of my birthday present from Jason). We saw Memphis- it was really good and had some great music. After a late night drink and dessert we headed to bed. The next morning we had a good ole American breakfast at a dinner next to our hotel then did a bit more sightseeing and shopping. I couldn't leave NYC without some pizza so we had a slice for lunch then took a hair-raising taxi ride to Penn Station where Brandi and I parted ways. I think I got pretty lucky on my travel days since the snowicane shut down JFK for almost 2 days - but my flight was on time but very very full! It was a wonderful trip - one which I would like to repeat again!

Our cool hotel room