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Wednesday, December 19, 2012

We Got the White Stuff, Baby



Winter has arrived in Norway, or shall I say, has been dumped on Norway. And in a town that already has the tendency to look like the perfect storybook version of Santa’s village, Stavanger in snow is almost too much to take. Like cotton candy mixed into a can of Duncan Hines frosting, what started out as pretty darn sweet runs the risk of becoming cloying. On one pre-Christmas evening walk home, I actually felt like lying down in the snow and screaming, “I can’t take it! Enough with the white clapboard houses and twinkly fairy lights and perfect snow-capped mountains!” Honestly the sheer perfection of living in this Ikea Christmas catalog can make your whole world seem strangely artificial.

Now being Canadian, I know my snow from my snow. And I can wholeheartedly say that I feel differently about the snow here than I ever did in Canada. It doesn’t look any different falling from the sky, and it still makes that luscious crunch under my boots after a proper heavy snow. But there is something about only 6 hours of daylight that transforms a place. In this neck of the woods, dusk begins at 3 pm, and if I position my computer in front of our living room windows on a clear day, I have a front row seat as the sun goes down and the light fades. Twilight is a 2 hour affair here. The white streets and houses gradually become one big blanket and single candles are placed in perfectly rectangular windows. White Christmas lights that delicately circle trees and shrubs start to shine. Window curtains are left open and if you wander the winding streets of Gamle Stavanger (“Old Stavanger”) after dark, no one seems to mind you staring in at their immaculately arranged dinner party. And why would they? Life looks pretty good from the inside of Magnus and Ingrid’s gingerbread house. It’s as if they have given up hope that they can be part of the frosty outside world, so we are cordially invited in.

If this is starting to sound like a love letter to my newly adopted country, let me, for the sake of authenticity, paint a more balanced picture. As anyone who has made it through a winter in a snow-afflicted city can attest, there is a serious downside to all this white stuff. Stavanger is no exception. I have decided to keep my “Yak Trax” ice grips on my running shoes this winter, and the relatively stylish boots that were perfectly acceptable for the generally slushy streets of Toronto have been abandoned in favour of their more heavy duty ( and uglier) cousins. In Stavanger, the hilly topography combined with the smooth stone streets would make short work of even your most adept mountain goat. Sitting in a cafe I  watch as shoppers in less dependable footwear  slide, conveyor-belt like, down a vertical 10 meter stretch of cobblestone street, arms outstretched and mouth in a perfectly petrified “O”. I shake my head and stare down at my coffee. Tourists. Never see pictures of THAT in the Ikea catalog.

Of course, I am convinced that this is all one massive ice-induced conspiracy. And it goes deep, my friends, to the seamy underbelly of this crime-ridden town. But Norway has a reputation for being so upright, uncorrupt and law-abiding, you say. Ha! What does the UN know anyway? This place is filled to the brim with chiropractors, physiotherapists, pharmacies and clinics for something called a naprapath. Never heard of it? Neither had I. Apparently they are the chiropractors of soft and connective tissues. Sounds like a nice bit of massage, but is probably painful as hell when you have fallen smack on your back while carrying two tons of Christmas presents and there is an evil Canadian woman in ugly boots snickering at you from a coffee bar window. Still, someone has got to keep these therapists in business. And I am beginning to see the connection. Maybe Magnus and Ingrid have a vested interest in all these practitioners?

Whatever the story, the snow seems to have brought out the best and worst of Stavanger, and Yak Trax on, I am ready to ride it out.   These sneaky Norwegian naprapaths may have the UN fooled, but they haven’t got me yet .You are pretty Stavanger, but you sure are deadly.

 I wonder if Ikea sells crampons?

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Let's Jule It Up, People!


Jule: Norwegian word for Christmas. Pronounced “Yool-a”.
Skål: Cheers! Pronounced “Skol”.

It began slowly. A festive looking product here, a bright red display there. This being my first Christmas out of Canada in 5 years, I was slightly intrigued by the Jule chocolates and pepperkaken (gingerbread). It gave me some degree of comfort to know that these familiar items would be available for my enjoyment as the season approached, even though I can’t remember the last time I ate gingerbread unless it was forced on me by a well-meaning Christmas fanatic.

 I have never really counted myself as one of them. The Christmas fanatics. The people who get nosebleed-level excitement at the mere thought of the office Secret Santa draw. They have jingle-bell earrings and hum along to Christmas tunes in the shopping mall whilst their kids belt the crap out of each other on Santa’s lap. I am sure there is some gene I am missing, but I just cannot get that into it. Probably spending the majority of my youth working in retail has something to do with it. Once you have seen the crazed look of desperation on the face of the last minute shopper banging on your store window at 5.30 on Christmas Eve, it pretty much destroys any thought you have that this holiday is anything more than a very useful marketing ploy. But I digress.

It seems that the majority of Norwegians could not disagree with me more on this point. These are the people who helicopter in a Christmas tree and deposit it at the peak of the highest suspension bridge in the region. Fast and furious, the Jule products have been hitting the shelves. Bags of “pinnekjøtt”, a traditional dish of salted and dried mutton rib that wouldn’t look out of place in a Flintstones cartoon take pride of place in the grocery aisles. I can barely keep up with the variety of pre-packaged Christmas goodies, the most infuriating of these being the rather innocuous sounding, “Jule Brus”.

Having found this item amongst  the colourfully decorated Christmas wines and the normal selections of beer and hard cider, I was swayed by the brightly coloured red-liquid inside. “ I am gonna try THIS!” I declared to Scottish partner, who took one look at it, scrunched his nose and went back to comparing the prices on the tins of cider. He’d be sorry. On Jule Brus’s label there was a jolly drawing of an elf -type creature looking mildly inebriated which seemed like the best reason of all to buy an alcoholic product. If it works for the most-trusted of Santa’s helpers, then old Grinchy over here needs to give it a try.

Taking it home I decide that I need to choose just the right moment to open this greatest of Norwegian Christmas treats. Red alcohol, what will they think of next?

Jule Brus sits in my fridge for a week. Dinners and a Saturday evening go by, and finally by Sunday I am ready for a taste of Norway’s finest festive brew. I take a swig. The sugar nearly knocks my front teeth out.

Cream soda. Give me a break.

As it turns out, “brus” does not mean “brew” as would make sense to most English speakers, it actually means “soda”. And apparently just because some sort of liquid is stored in a bottle in the alcohol section of the supermarket does NOT mean it will get you loaded. Also, always bring a dictionary to the liquor store.

I hurtle into the bathroom and grab my toothbrush, looking forward to removing the saccharine taste of the brus. As I glance around the apartment and out the window I realize there is so much more to a Norwegian Christmas than disappointing red pop and left-over lamb bones. The Christmas loo paper I purchased thinking it was just the normal white stuff really does add a touch of class to any toilet situation. And the choo-choo train and candy cane Christmas lights that decorate the booze palaces in town make it so much easier to find your way home after a night of too much Yule-tide cheer. Not so bad, really.

Merry Christmas, Norway. You may well make a fanatic of me yet.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

The Real Housewife of Stavanger



One of my biggest concerns when I decided to move to Norway was giving up my job. Many years ago, I dabbled in the “ladies who lunch” lifestyle, now glamourized to the hilt in all sorts of lame TV shows that I secretly like to watch. Why so many of us are interested in following Barbies who are very busy doing nothing is beyond me, but it seems I am not alone in this guilty pleasure. Not that I ever aimed to follow in their footsteps, but when you have no work visa you are pretty limited in what you can get up to during day time hours. However, having been placed in this position at least once before, I figured I had the skills to carve out something useful for myself beyond trips to the nail bar and drinking myself into a stupor on Aquavit.

Which begs the question, what exactly is it that I DO all day? Let’s examine a typical day in the life.

6 AM. Alarm goes off and Scottish partner drags himself out of bed. Since this is autumn, it’s still pitch black dark outside and won’t get light for at least another 2 hours, or possibly in June sometime. No point in trying to continue to sleep, pretty soon there will be practically no daylight hours at all so had better get used to roaming around in the dark now.

7 AM. Partner goes off to work and coffee in hand, I sit and stare at BBC World News. Boy, there is a lot happening in the world. Like, serious stuff. Nothing happens in Norway.

7.30 AM I start the morning clean up. I seriously love to clean. Dishes, bathrooms, laundry, I adore it all. No, I am not being facetious. And no, I cannot come to your house on Wednesdays to clean your bathroom.

8.30 AM Get ready for yoga class. I have figured out from the schedule which instructor teaches in English at my yoga studio which is helpfully called “Yoga Yoga”. Can’t miss Belinda’s class.

9.15 AM Arrive at Yoga Yoga studio. Where is Belinda? There is a woman here who is attempting to speak to me in something that sounds like Norwegian. I catch a few words and nod enthusiastically as I hand over my membership card. I tell her I am new here so my Norwegian is not great. She smiles sympathetically and responds in perfect English. “Oh, well I teach my class in Swedish, anyway. Do you think you can follow?” Nod again. Gulp.

9.35 AM Swedish instructor switches to English after she realizes I am still in savasana position while everyone else is in downward dog.

11 AM  Finish class and head to store to pick up some groceries. No major hurdles here as I have learned  that “wienerpølse” is a hotdog, “svin” is pork and “skinke” is ham. That pretty much covers the bulk of Scottish cuisine so I am stocked up for the day.

1 PM I have been charged with mailing my partner’s remnants of the British driver’s license for disposal and renewal. Instruction numero uno: Send it registered mail and get a tracking number. Alrighty. I head to the Posten with purpose. As I enter, I scan for my appropriate queue and take a number. My turn comes and I pass the envelope with cut up pieces of license to the clerk. She squints at the address.

 “What country?” she asks. I point to the last line of the address.

“UK”, I respond. “United Kingdom?”

 “You write “England” here.” she says, and points to the line under the city, Swansea.

I look quizzically at her across the desk. “But Swansea is in Wales.”

“You write ENGLAND here.”

O.K. England it is. I will inform Welsh Wales.

2 PM At this point in the reality show, the housewife usually goes shopping and buys herself “somethin’ perdy” which she will then spend the rest of the episode justifying to her long suffering mega-rich beau. I too decide that shopping is necessary, but I end up scouring the shops for a pair of gigantic, waterproof, fake fur-lined boots so I don’t lose a toe from frostbite this winter. The glamour never stops.

3.30PM  Norwegian lesson. As my attempts at finding a language exchange in Stavanger have so far been unsuccessful, I have settled on an online lesson based on a textbook called, “På Vei”. As a rough translation I think this means, “Why bother when we speak English?”

4.30 PM That pretty much takes me to where I am now. By far my favourite part of the day is when I get to sit at a computer and write about (read: exaggerate) the minutiae of my day. It may not pay anything yet, but it beats having to flog a cheesy perfume line on QVC like the real housewives of New Jersey or Milwaukee or Red Deer. And until that work visa comes through, it’s enough.