Back to school--starting the day right with a Norwegian breakfast.

School has started again at my two workplaces, Gol Vaksenopplæring and Ål Kulturskule.
So far we are about 5 weeks into the school year, and it is high time for a fall vacation!
However, what did I offer to do during vacation? Work. Technically only for two days though, and it is not really teaching as per usual. I am helping out with the Integration Program on Monday and Tuesday as support for the refugee consultant who plans the entire week's activities.

Today we made a Norwegian breakfast. It turned out to be lunch because of logistics--having to buy the food and then prepare it--but it turned out tasty anyhow!
We had:

• grov brød-- Bread, the foundation of many Norwegians' diets. "Grov" is a little hard to translate, but basically it is whole-wheat bread. If not wheat per se, then it is bread that has most of its grains and thus its vitamins intact and inside the bread. This is the opposite of white bread. Often this can be a combination of grains such as rye, barley, wheat and oats.
• knekkebrød--this is not very common in the States, but it is sometimes called flatbread. Wasa is a common brand in the States, but there are many different types here.
• smør--butter. We used a combination of margarin and rapsolje (canola oil).
• ost--cheese. Norwegians eat a lot of gulost (gul--yellow, ost--cheese). The most well-known brand is Norvegia. Norwegians also sometimes call this cheese hvitost (hvit--white). I assume their color differentiations come from their comparison to...
• brunost!-- possibly the most Norwegian food ever, apart from lutefisk. This brown cheese is near and dear to every Norwegian's heart, and is most likely in every matpakke at least once a week at every school in Norway. That is just my guess, not an actual statistic.
• nøkkelost--a kind of white cheese with caraway seeds in it, one of my favorites.
• brødskive--Literally a slice of bread.  The combination of a slice of bread with something on it (pålegg) is a brødskive.
• agurk--a common topping for many a brødskive. Slice it up, put it on pretty much any other pålegg except for brunost (although I think some rebels do that as well).
• tomat--take a wild guess---tomato! Also a popular pålegg, often combined with any savory combinations of meat, cheese, or fish. Usually used sparingly.
• paprika--red bell pepper. This word technically applies to bell peppers of any kind, but Norwegian specifically use red bell pepper for putting on brødskiver.
• syltetøy-- jam! Most often raspberry (bringebær) or strawberry (jordbær).
• kaviar--this is not the kind of caviar that Americans tend to think of. This is a cheap kind of fish eggs in an aluminum tube that you can squeeze out and smear on bread. Personally this disgusts me to no end. But Norwegians like it.
• egg--another wild guess....you got it, egg!  Egg means egg. It's a miracle. Boil eggs, slice 'em up, put 'em on a brødskive.
• kjøttpålegg--meat stuffs to put on bread. This can be sliced boiled ham, turkey, chicken, salami, roast beef, pastrami, or whatever else you can think of. Except much more limited here in Norway. But more game types of salami/sausage are available, like reindeer sausage, moose sausage. These are salted and smoked most often to preserve them. They are terribly delicious but as said, very very salty. We had turkey pålegg at the school today since most of our students participating are Muslim and cannot eat ham, the most common kjøttpålegg in Norway.
• frukt--fruit. Also part of a healthful breakfast. We had bananer, epler, og druer this morning. Bananas, apples and grapes.
• melk, skummet og hel--milk, skimmed and whole (fat). Many Norwegians drink milk for breakfast, as well as during the rest of the day. Especially the dairy farmers!

That is what we ate for breakfast! However, it is an unusually large breakfast for a Norwegian to eat on a daily basis. Most Norwegians eat about 2 brødskiver, and probably vary their pålegg according to mood.

Brødskiver are open-faced, by the way. That means: take one piece of bread, and put something on it. Do not put another slice of bread on top. Eat.

The brødskive is also used for lunch, when Norwegians take their matpakke (2 brødskiver wrapped in wax paper or a matboks, lunchbox) to work or school.  From an American perspective, this is incredibly pitiful, but it is Norwegian tradition and Not To Be Mocked. Also, one might note the increasing rate of obesity in the States as compared with Norway. Combining two kinds of pålegg, such as meat + cheese, is often considered unnecessary luxury.

Since Norwegians eat two open-faced slices of bread with pålegg, they usually have a piece of wax paper in between (mellomleggspapir) so the cheese doesn't stick to the other piece of bread, nor make the neighboring piece of bread smell like brunost when the other slice of bread has gulost. Complicated matters here.

After the breakfast, the students listened to a specialist who talked about kosthold (diet), and trening/fysisk aktivitet (exercise and physical activity). It was very interesting and motivating. I hope that many of the more sedantary students can get started with at least a walk in the evening and improve their diets a bit. Now that it is fall, it is lovely weather for an evening walk!

Trip to Norwegian parlament with Gol Adult Learning Center

In June our school (my workplace) went on a field trip to Stortinget, the Norwegian parlament.  We got to see a meeting going on, during which they were discussing the pros and cons of disabled kids attending special schools, or attending regular public school.

We were shown around by Trond Helleland, a representative from the Right party (Høyre). He is from Ål and was our contact and guide at Stortinget. After viewing the meeting, Trond led us into another similar room where everyone could ask him questions and pretend they were members of parlament.

Trond with one of my students from 2011.

After our trip to Stortinget, everyone split up in groups for a bit of free time in "hovedstaden", the capital. A lot of students used this time to eat at restaurants or go shopping for ethnic things (food, clothing) that they can't get back "home" in Hallingdal.

One of my students giving the golden man a few coins.

Later everyone met up again and we took buses to Vigelandsparken, the park which is home to Gustav Vigeland's huge granite and bronze sculptures. In the picture below we are blocking a huge fountain sculpture.

Many of the students from Somalia in Vigelandsparken.

It was a great trip--good weather, and educational. It seemed that everyone got at least something out of it, whether or not they understood everything that was said.  Stortinget offers free tours to visitors/tourists in Norwegian or English.



Syttende Mai! Seventeenth of May!

I didn't get to see the final episode of "Farmen" because my husband and I had something much more fun to do. We went to New York City and Maryland for a week in May to celebrate my father's (insert secret big round number here) birthday. It was a happy coincidence of timing that the Norwegian constitution day is May 17th, which fell on a Tuesday, which meant we got Monday off as well. Including the weekend and a few vacation days, both of us managed to get away for a whole week which was quite wonderful.

It was a very special trip, with three days first in New York and the rest of our time in Maryland. It was my husband's first time in NYC so that was kind of exciting and fun to see how he reacted to Times Square and the subway. For a farmer boy he did pretty well, although I tend to navigate through the subway stations and busy streets for us both.

Ola Magne at Times Square

I insisted on seeing a Broadway show while we were there, which is one of my passions. We saw Billy Eliot, a good show for both of us since it involved dancing (for me) and a boy plus politics (for my husband).

In January 2007 I took a class in college called Theatre in New York. It was just that--living in New York for a month and seeing 19 shows, probably about 11 of which were Broadway, some off-Broadway as well. It was a great experience and I loved getting a chance to live in the city for a limited time, without having to commit to moving there. It was nice to get back there. However, it was nice to leave again as well. It was very busy and exhausting compared to little Torpo. :-D There are however several trees in New York, as you can see in the picture below. I heard that there is even a park...centrally located...but we didn't go there this time around.

Me before getting on the ferry to Liberty Island.

We saw the Statue of Liberty, of course, since neither of us had seen it before. It was fun taking the ferry in, although it was very foggy! We almost couldn't see the Statue until we were at the Island.

We took pictures of us reading our local newspaper (Hallingdølen) in an attempt to get our picture published on the back page, but have been unsucessful so far. The paper tends to favor cute kids and animals. I guess we are neither.

Me posing for the camera...not really reading the newspaper.

We also went to the Hard Rock Cafe for drinks, saw the World Trade Center site where they are rebuilding the Twin Towers, and Wall Street (the street...really not that impressive). I also spent a long time in Macy's only to find one shirt.

Wall Street.

Before we left, we celebrated Syttende Mai! We went to the Sjømannskirke (Seaman's church, which was established in many cities of port for Norwegain sailors to keep connections and their faith) to attend the service there. It was full of Norwegians, both natives and American-Norwegians. Most everyone was dressed in bunad (the traditional costumes of Norway) or nice clothes like dresses and suits. The Lutheran service was entirely in Norwegian by a female Norwegian minister. There was a lot of singing and music, including live trumpeters.

After the service they served pølser, Solo brus, and bløtkake! It couldn't have been more Norwegian! Pølser are the Norwegian kind of hot dogs known as wienerpølse, long and skinny, that stick out of the hot dog bun most inconveniently. Brus is soda, more specifically Solo is a type of orange soda--the best I have ever tasted! It tastes like actual oranges and has relatively low amounts of sugar. Bløtkake is the kind of cake they serve for special occasions, which has two or three layers of "sugar-cake" and are sandwiched with whipped cream, and often various other ingredients like fruit or nuts.

People wearing bunads eating pølser and drinking Solo brus.

After the service we had to go check out of our hotel and catch our train to Maryland, so we weren't able to attend the 17.mai parade that happened afterward. We took a train from NYC 2.5 hours to the station nearby my aunt's house. She picked us up and we stayed with her for one night, then moved to the area where my dad lives. We got to stay in our own "guest house" which was very nice.

Ola Magne, me, my aunt and my father

We had a really nice time, with more or less great weather. We went to Gettysburg to learn about the Civil War--very interesting. Getting caught in a thunderstorm out on the battlefield was one fantastic experience that made me happy to be alive afterward. We had to run to a big monument to seek shelter along with a high school class that didn't seem to mind the rain too much. I was personally more concerned about the lightning.

We also went to a couple other local museums about the Civil War, as per my request, including one about medicine during the Civil War in Frederick (horrific but very groundbreaking for modern medicine in warfare), and another museum at Monocacy Battlefield. This guy was really excited about the Civil War. He told us everything we could ever possibly need to know, or want to know, or not even really need to know, about the costumes (ahem, uniforms) worn since the Civil War until today. However, he talked so fast that I only understood about a third of what he said.

A very excited guy.

The birthday party for my dad was a very special occasion. All of his numerous siblings were present, and some had come from great distances. It was great to see all of them and get to know them better. We got to look at old pictures of the family and it was so fun to see what they all looked like as children. I hope to visit some of my aunts, uncles and cousins in the future.

Looking at old pictures with family.

Getting even more rustic...

Well, it's the last week of Farmen (see previous blog entry!) so things are getting exciting. My husband and I are gearing up for finale-week, but unfortunately we won't be able to see the finale! Does anyone want to record it for us?

This weekend was pretty calm but full of housework, along with making food from scratch: black bean soup, brownies and lasagne. I figure that whatever proper food you can't buy in the stores here must be made by hand at home! I use the Moosewood Restaurant cookbooks a lot, along with The Enchanted Broccoli Forest and other Molly Katzen cookbooks. Thank the powers that be for that woman! The internet is also great for when you can't remember what 350 degrees Fahrenheit is in Celcius. (Answer: approximately 175-180 C.)

I've also been enjoying our "new" hytte this weekend. We are renting it for the year from some local people who own it and don't need it, so they rent it out. It is only big enough for two people (and maybe a cat or two). It is called "Raudbrekk". I asked my husband what that means, but he doesn't really know. Any ideas? The hytte (cabin) has two rooms: one "living room" with a combined kitchen, a table with benches, two chairs and a wood-burning oven/stove, and a bedroom with a built-in bed. There is an outhouse with a toilet, which actually has a real toilet seat! Luxury! So far we've stayed there only two weekends, and we come back home to shower, etc. It is only about 10 minutes' drive, so it's no crisis if you forget something or have to rush home to feed the cat.

I wasn't too sure about the idea of paying money for the use of a place without electricity and water...but it's not as bad as it sounds. Even though the cabin is very rustic, it is nice to be somewhere without distractions. However, I brought a smidgen of modern times into the place with my Ipod and small speakers for listening to tunes. It's a great place to learn tunes on hardanger fiddle without anyone to listen in!

There is a bunsen-burner type thing for cooking and boiling water, so you can do the dishes and wash your face/hands, and there are paraffin lamps for reading which have an absolutely lovely golden color and warmth to their light.

Today I brought our cat Pus along, and he seemed to like it. He sniffed around and then settled down with some food and water, then rested on one of the rugs. We went outside for a while and he sniffed around and was very interested in the birds making angry, hissing noises (probably protecting their nests). He didn't try to run away, so that was a plus. He wasn't fond of the car ride, but maybe he will get used to it after more visits in the future. Fortunately it's not far from our house just in case he tries to find his way home sometime...

Now it's time for the Norwegian reality TV show Farmen again! It started last week and so far one person (of 14) has left the farm. There is a girl from Geilo in Hallingdal, so we are rooting for her. This week she is storbonde, the big farmer (the head farmer). The storbonde is in charge of the weekly assignments and makes sure that everyone is working and things are going well on the farm. This year there are a lot of nordlendinger, people from Northern Norway, plus one Same (a Sami person). He seems like a luring, a trickster or a clever person. Two years ago a Sami person won Farmen, so we will be watching this guy to see what happens.

I like watching Farmen because it gives me and my husband ideas for what we can do on our mini-farm (småbruk), as well as a sigh of relief for all the things we don't have to do since it's not a full-fledged farm. In addition it makes me grateful for things like grocery stores, hot showers, shampoo, and dinners with meat and vegetables. It also makes me look forward to summer, sitting outside in the sun, jumping in ice cold lakes (bading), and petting baby bunnies!

My husband has been getting more interested in raising rabbits for meat, so he bought a male rabbit this week to mate with our other female rabbits. We have four females, so if all goes well (from the male rabbit's side of things) then we should have about somewhere in between 4-40 baby bunnies in about 28 days. Sometimes it is hard to know whether "it took" so each female usually get 2-3 times together with the male. My husband is an educated butcher and meat-cutter, so that is why he is interested in selling the rabbit meat.

Fortunately the baby bunnies will arrive right about when the snow is starting to melt, and grass will start growing in May, so there will be a lot of free food for them outside. We are going to make cages that you can move around so that they will eat the grass and their droppings will fertilize the ground.

At the end of this week, I will be dancing in a performance of Alice in Wonderland put on by Ål Kulturskole (Cultural school), which features the dance and theatre students this time. There will be two performances, one on Saturday and one on Sunday. In addition we are excited to have visitors on Sunday from my husband's American relative and her aunt from Austria.

Check out this link: http://aalkulturskule.no/

Hvis du snakker norsk og bor i Hallingdal, må du gjerne komme på forestillingen!!

If you speak Norwegian and live in Hallingdal, you are most welcome to attend the performance!

evidence of spring

I'm on a roll with two blog posts in one week!

I just had to show off some pictures that prove spring is around the corner (at least for this week). I went skiing on Wednesday and took some pictures of the mountains nearby our house. It takes about 10 minutes to drive there. The weather has been beautiful this week, from +8 to -5 degrees Celsius, usually cooling off at night.

To the left are some tracks by a wild hare. In the picture below you can see the cross-country ski tracks.

I also want you all to welcome the newest member of our family:

Frøya!

She was born in late September and is now five months old!

We apologize for keeping her a secret, but we wanted to make sure she was healthy and would be a permanent part of our family. We are so happy to have been blessed by her and are having so much fun with her.

Pretty soon we can take her to go get spayed. Yes, Frøya is...a little girl cat. :-D

Here are some pictures from when she was little until now.

She has grown quite a bit since we got her, and now eats about three bowls of food everyday!

She gets along well with our other cat, Jackson, who is about three years old. They like to fight and play together, and take naps on their sheepskins on chairs next to one another.

Spring is on its way! (I hope.)

Wow! It's been almost a entire year since I updated! I really didn't think it had been that long, which goes to show how quickly time flies (whether you're having fun, or just working really, really hard).

The reason for my blog post is that this week I have vinterferie, winter vacation, usually the next to last, or last week, of February. This year winter vacation occurs a bit later than usual because Påske, Easter, is later than usual. Anyhow, it was indeed time for a vacation! I am very fortunate as a teacher to have extra vacations, but I do feel that I have earned them. The time between December and March seems to drag on, with the grey weather, the negative degrees (in Celsius), dry skin, and general lack of joy and moisture in the air.

February does tend to perk up winter for me though, due to its many significant dates. The first is when my husband and I met for the first time (Feb. 3rd, or the first weekend in February--we haven't quite figured out how to count this date yet), with it being 2007, four years ago!

The next highlight date in February is Valentines Day, which tends to sneak up on us. This year I introduced Platonic love in the workplace to my co-workers through Red Velvet cupcakes decorated with creamcheese frosting, pink and white heart sprinkles and silver balls, along with handmade (i.e. computer designed and printed) Valentines. Quote from my co-worker: "So, you'll be working here a long time, right?" Hopefully "baking skills" on my CV will be considered with my academic qualifications...

Valentine's Day isn't very big here in Norway, although it is gaining more and more commercial publicity. However, since Christmas wasn't so long ago, and our birthdays are at the end of February, my husband and I got each other small gifts and kept it real.

On February 27th I turned 28 years old, and the day after my husband turned 24. We had a lovely birthday celebration at his parents' house with bløtkake and lapper! Bløtkake means "wet cake" literally translated, which is because it has lots of whipped cream, and sometimes has different kinds of jam or fruit between the layers of cake and cream. It is also called marsipankake if it has a layer of marzipan on top, but usually the contents of the cake are the same. Lapper are like small pancakes, usually made with kulturmelk, buttermilk. I will try to put up some recipes or links soon.

On the weekend of my birthday I went to a swing dance workshop in Oslo, called Winter Jump. http://www.winterjump.com I have been an avid swing dancer since I was about 14 years old, growing up in San Diego, which has a very active swing dance community. I used to dance about three times a week, up to five times a week during the summertime! My swing dancing has been severely limited since moving to Hallingdal! So I try to take opportunities like workshops and festivals to keep my swing dancing somewhat at the same level (å holde det ved like), if not improving. The workshops were very good; I took a Balboa class with instructors Dan Guest and Gemma Barson from England. They were very down to earth and taught a natural, logical approach to dancing Balboa. Their main points were to keep it relaxed, don't force the dance, and try to make it feel nice, because if it feels nice, it will look nice as well. At least that's what I got out of it. I thought it really helped because frankly prior to the workshop, I never got the idea that Bal was a relaxed dance! I have mostly seen it danced to faster tempos, which I suppose only actually works well if you are relaxed. It's akin to trying to play a really fast scale/run on violin--it doesn't work if you freeze up and have a lot of tension. But if you have practiced it slowly and relaxed, and worked up to the faster tempos, then it will work just as well if you are relaxed at a faster tempo.

So, apart from anniversaries and birthdays and swing dancing, I have been working my tail to the bone. There was a fire at my workplace in January, so that has affected the semester to a huge extent. I started teaching a new class of students who are beginners in Norwegian, so their introduction to the language has been influenced by the words "fire, fire extinguisher, fire blanket, water, burn, burning, burned, the school is closed, the school is partially open again" and other such phrases that normally don't enter the curriculum of Beginning Norwegian for Immigrants in the first semester! They have been real troopers through it all. We have switched rooms at least 5 times. It has been a very frustrating semester for everyone, with other conflicts at the school between certain students and leadership as well, so the faculty is happy to now move on and get on with educating.

I recognize that I am still a very new teacher and am trying my best. I seem to be one of the three teachers at the school who work fairly late, but at least I know I am earning my pay. This interview with a professor who chronicled his workweek seemed very relevant to me: http://www.philnel.com/2011/02/26/busytown8/. I think I might do the same thing.

I have gotten the impression from many people that they think teachers don't have much work to do. I can see how they might think that, but I believe that it depends on the individual teacher and their priorities. If someone enjoys skiing and the weather is nice, then he/she will probably do his/her work faster in order to go enjoy the weather instead of being cooped up in the office (if that is allowed), or perhaps do the work at home later in the evening after he/she gets back from skiing.

Anyhow, I am very happy to be teaching Norwegian. It helps me improve my own Norwegian every day, and I find that I am able to help challenge my co-workers with questions regarding grammar, which (my argument) helps them to prepare for challenging questions from their students. In return I try to help answer my colleagues' questions about computers and English. I also really like the contact with other non-Norwegians, and being able to help them with their transition to living in Norway.

Teaching fiddle is also going well. My students who started last year are now learning Ringnesen, a well-known Norwegian schottis/reinlender. They thought it sounded very difficult when they began learning it, and now they think it is getting easier and easier. The goal is for them to play at the "Bygdemønstring" on Saturday, May 28, during Den Norske Folkemusikkveka, which is a folk music festival in Ål in late May. The kids are practicing quite a bit and I am so proud of them.

Mark your calendar! http://www.folkemusikkveka.no.

playing gigs

Spelejobber--gigs

I've been up to quite a few lately. On March 27th I played with Per Olav Noss on his CD release concert at Ål Kulturhus, which was about a half hour long concert with live versions of songs from his album. He sings a genre he calls "Hallingpop", because it is pop music in Halling dialect, and has some folk music elements like fiddle and vocal tralling, and also uses some traditional Norwegian folk melodies. It is really fun to get to experiment a bit and try using folk music in a non-traditional setting.

I played for the Torpo dance on April 11th, which is mostly hallingspringar but some gammeldans as well.

Today I played in Buskerudkappleiken, which was held in Hønefoss this year. The location was a very nice cultural center. I competed in Hardingfele klasse B. There were four fiddlers who competed in that class, and I got 3rd of 4, with 93 points. I am a bit irritated with that result, but that's how it goes. I thought I played extremely well and felt very good about it myself, and got lots of compliments and positive feedback afterward.

Tomorrow I will be playing hardingfele, violin and viola in church at Ål Kyrkje, for a folk music service. They are very popular and many more poeple come to those services compared to "normal" church service. Jo Asgeir Lie has set folk melodies to liturgy which works very nicely.

On May 7 I will be playing with Per Olav for the opening of Flå Kjøpesenter, which is a new shopping center in Flå, the town that is "nederst" in Hallingdal... Directly translated, "nederst" means downward, but in this case it actually means east, i.e. toward Oslo.

I will also play quite a bit during the Norwegian folk music week, Den Norske Folkemusikkveka, in the last week of May. I will play with Hallingdal Låtelag for the concert on Friday at 3 pm to honor Kristian Øvrevollseie, a fiddler who would turn 100 years old this year, and then afterward I will go play with Per Olav Noss for an outdoor concert in Ål.

Then I will play for the springar dance class on Saturday at 10 am, most likely I will play on the Bygdemønstring concert, and possibly compete in a fiddle competition called Fanitullentevlinga.

Then it's Landskappleik time in June and I will probably play for that as well in Klasse B, but still have to register (by May 15).

It's good to play a lot, but it can be exhausting on top of a full time job.

In addition, we are going to buy a house and move in July!!! Super exciting!