Idyll...

Fresh shrimps are sold out. Norwegians love them on a slice of bread with mayonnaise, fresh salad and dill, they squeeze some lemon on top... Removing the hard shell together with friends and family and colleagues is a Norwegian social event par excellence.

Reker (shrimps)

The trash can exclusively for disposable grills is full. In Norway the nature is everyone's. You can walk anywhere, pick berries and mushrooms, even cut down a Christmas tree... However, the biggest activity of the sommer months in the forests is grilling. And since they already recycle everything, why not recycle disposable grills in a separate trash can?

There are more cars in front of the zoo as in front of IKEA. Ingmar Kamprad tried to turn shopping into a pleasure... however, right now there is no summer offer that possibly could be more tempting as a fun day with Julius the monkey in the Kristiansand zoo. You can even spend a night in Kardemomme by (Cardamom Town), a theme park built exactly like the illustrations of Thorbjørn Egner's famous children's story When the Robbers Came to Cardamom Town. This zoo is so nice that not only people but also animals seem to have a great time there - they are populating which makes it possible for the zoo to export animals. This is actually quite unique.

Summer is on in Norway. And this is their No. 1 summer song. The everyone-knows-it-by-heart-sort of song.

Happy Easter, Monsieur Poirot!

I apologise for being absent for a while... it's been busy lately and I have to say I am very happy for it: I got a job a month ago.

Apart from this, there are some other things that have changed in the past weeks. The snow has disappeared from Kristiansand city and spring has finally arrived. For me as a Central European, winter was unbearably long, dark and cold... Anyways, before I give up my winter whinings definitively, I would like to share one last winter story that happened to me on a cold February evening.

Alphonse Mucha - Spring

We got a dinner invitation to a friend who lives in Posebyen (the old town of Kristiansand), in one of these charming little white houses I was writing about here. It was pretty cold but still I didn't understand why our host had to put three oil radiators in the middle of the living room. Well, it happened for a reason. His place didn't have any heaters on the wall. A home in Norway without any heaters. Excuse me??? Apparently there were no built in radiators in the whole house.
So if you want to rent a place in the summer time, even if it's sunny outside and the birds are chanting, you want to make sure heaters are included otherwise you'll be surprised some months later... :) What a funny thing.

I'm quite stunned actually that not everyone is fed up with winter yet. This crazy little nation of Norwegians tends to say that the last time of the year where you can go skiing is Easter time. They call it påskerenn. Indeed, "Norwegians were born with skis on their feet". Some weeks ago I started to have the impression though that this statement is craving for clarification. Norwegians were born with skis on their feet... yes. But also a crime novel in their hands.

After the lent has started, all the libraries and book stores have turned into some kind of crime novel supplies advertising Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon, Unni Lindell, Camilla Läckberg, Stig Larsson etc... Påskekrim is the name of the phenomenon and it started in 1923 when publisher Gyldendal advertised the crime novel Bergenstoget plyndret i natt (Bergen train looted in the night) of Jonatan Jerv in some daily papers with huge headlines, giving the impression that the Bergen train really had been looted in the night which scared many people having relatives and acquintances on the train.

Påskekrim in an Oslo book store

Now this is what I call marketing... Book stores really seem to make a profit out of this little local tradition. However, a crime novel would be probably the last thing that comes into my mind when I think about Easter.

The Moods of Norway-experience

Kristiansand, 3rd March, 2010 - The Norwegian fashionlabel Moods of Norway opened its biggest store in the world. The brand was not unknown in the town, it could be found in some other stores and I remember I almost purchased a pair of navy moon boots like these in December, in the middle of my deepest winter-desperation... :)

The idea of the label was born in the village of Stryn, Western Norway by Simen Staalnacke and Peder Børresen. The third founder, Stefan Dahlkvist joined the team a little later. Alone their slogan "Happy clothes for happy people" was attractive but knowing the fact that the Norwegian landscape and urban lifestyle have been inspiring them and being passionate about everything local, I couldn't wait until I finally have the chance to check out the store with my own eyes.

The proud founders

I think I haven't been to a clothes store before where the inner enterieur played such an important role. Imagine that after some steps in the forest (mushrooms, a rabbit and a huge white milk can in the shopping window), you enter a cosy hytte (= a little cottage in the middle of nowhere, the more nomadic the better. Something utterly Norwegian). The furniture is old, used and welcoming. Not antique but more like the style of the 60s or 70s, something that makes your grandma's place cosy but for some reason you don't really appreciate in your own place. And since a real hytte does not have water in it, feel free to step in the wooden outdoor toilets - however, strictly to be used as changing rooms! Wow... chapeau!

The collection is colourful and has very different pieces. Not to be offensive or anything but Norway being particularly famous for its gender equality, I wouldn't have minded seeing a bigger female collection (it's awesome as it is but still...:). There were some really nice things for the ladies and I could see some children's wear as well but for me, the most interesting part of the collection was the men's wear. I really liked the different suits (all had a nice and unexpected twist) and it was cool to see all the magenta and turquoise - black shoes with a turquoise sole - how cool is that??? Actually I might want to purchase something in these shades because I got scared I (= lover of sober colours, greys, blacks etc.) may radiate the message toward the world that I am not a happy person... :)

Oh, and I wanted to save the best for last. The key piece of the store (that I think expresses the whole Moods of Norway-philosophy) is a huge pink tractor in the middle of the store. It's also the sign of the label that appears on many of the pieces of the collection - I usually don't like wearing the sign of a label (why should I advertise them for free???) but this tractor thing is sooo far out there that I can't help loving it.

The pink tractor

I think a pink tractor is kind of a slap on the face of all the fashion snobs in Milan or Paris making people unhappy (cf. slogan of Moods of Norway) with their statements.

Or wait... not a slap. A snowball. Yes, I think it's rather a snowball into their face. That's more like Moods of Norway.

What is Norway like?

Kastrup Airport, Copenhagen, Denmark. December, 2010.

We have just arrived in Copenhagen. There are still a couple of hours until our connection flight to Kristiansand is leaving. We decide to kill the time in the inner town of Copenhagen. We want to take the train and are standing in the queue in front of the automatic ticket machine. Three out of the five machines are not working.

There is a Danish boy behind us. He seems to be in a hurry... he is checking his watch every 10 seconds. He tells us he wants to go to Helsingor. A train to Helsingør leaves nearly every 15 minutes. We offer him to go first. He refuses it kindly, looks at the automats not working and adds somewhat painfully: "It's not perfect, it's not Norway."

This is what Norway is like. Perfect.

Or... isn't it?

Klien, Erica Giovanna: Locomotive. 1926.

Eurovision 2011

After Belarus-born Alexander Rybak's winning Fairytale of 2009, Norwegians put their trust into Stella Mwangi, a 24-year-old Kenyan girl, winning the national final on 12th February in Oslo. It's not completely unheard that a country wins twice or three times in years so close to each other but we will see. The song contest will take place in Düsseldorf, Germany in the middle of May.

Good luck, Norway! Voila, the song:

Excuse me... could you repeat it?

If we are talking about learning a new language, there is one sad fact we had better accept: there are lucky people and there are less lucky ones. Kató Lomb, the famous Hungarian polyglott who had learnt 17 languages without having spent a longer periode of time in a foreign country, claimed that she did not believe in such thing as a language talent. Well, I would feel quite a bit uncomfortable to write down that I disagree with a person of her grandeur, but I do dare to put down that I guess we all can feel (or could at least in high school) that certain people have fewer (or, if you want, more) difficulties at reaching the perfect score at a grammar test than the average.

I have been in Norway for a little bit over six months now and I am quite happy with what I know in Norwegian so far. In this entry I would like to write a little bit about what I think we can do in order to be more successful at acquiring a language. (The tips are maybe easier for those who are lucky enough to spend some time among native speakers but of course I hope everyone can benefit from them.)

1. Forget the 'pronounciation doesn't matter'-attitude. Why should you? The answer is easy: because it does matter. You might hear here and there that having a foreign accent sounds cute (I was told once that German spoken with French accent is erotic for German ears...), but in my eyes such a compliment is definitively to be avoided on the long run. It's tiring to listen to someone who is not easy to understand and (to be honest) it's hard to take someone with a harsh accent seriously...

2. Turn on the television. It has thousands of benefits... I often play this game: take a piece of paper and try to write down as many new words that you hear on the TV as possible - within (for example) 10 minutes. Try to watch different shows, this way you can have a great little vocabulary about numerous domains.

Houndstooth pattern is called hundetannsmønster in Norwegian. Not an important word, but who knows... I might need it one day. Something I've learnt from the television. The painting of Pete Nawara.

3. Listen to music. Local music is a great topic of conversation with the locals. Music is great to learn some new words, however, it might not be this helpful with the intonation (because of the singing).

4. Go to the library. There are so many things I can be grateful for, thing that only happened because I go to the city library every once in a while... I bought used books on sale, I found CDs and DVDs I have always been interested at and I got a member of a French club. I remember having asked a lady in the library not so long after I arrived in Kristiansand about the most widely read children's book authors in Norway. I got a few names and started immediately to read shorter stories. I think if you read something that the locals heard as bedtime stories from their mums back in the days... it's a bit like sharing a common secret... having a piece of them. I might be wrong but I do think it's a good way to get to know them better, to get closer to them.

This is where the magic happens - The main library in Kristiansand

5. Try to find the logic. If you already know a language that is somehow related to the language you want to acquire, don't hesitate to take a closer look to that relationship! Just one example: what is z in German, is often t in Norwegian (bezahlen - å betale; Zahn - tann). Since I speak German and German and Norwegian are not far away from each other, this little game became almost like a habit and it's as much fun as a riddle!
Let's make an exam now: Look at the words 'night', 'milk' and 'eight' in French (nuit, lait, huit), Spanish (noche, leche, ocho) and Italian (notte, latte, otto). Can you see it?

6. Pay attention to the differences. Let's take the word 'book'. In French: le livre (masculin). In German: das Buch (neuter). With this knowledge in my pocket I was almost 100% sure that 'book' in Norwegian is neuter, or, if for some weird reason not, than masculin. Well, guess what: in Norwegian the word bok is feminin... All I want to say with this is that you should watch out for the differences between the new language and a/the language you already know.


7. Avoid people from your own country. It might be funny to read this but there is some truth in it. In the beginning it's easier to be among your fellow countrymen but the language learning process is much slowlier this way...

You might feel like this at the beginning, but being with locals is worth gold if you want to learn a language.

 8. Look at every situation as a potential source of learning. Don't underestimate anything, you can learn something new even through buying a hot dog or asking the way.

9. Challange yourself. I think it's a great thing if after a while you are already capable to read and understand the articles about the latest plastic surgery of Donatella Versace in the tabloids, but how about you go one step further and challange yourself with something more difficult? Don't underestimate yourself, don't be afraid of trying something that you think you are not good enough for.

10. Change is gold. Don't always watch to the same TV show, don't always listen to the radio program with the same guy, don't always read just one magazine. It's important to listen to both men and women, young and old, perfect speaking TV hosts, farmers living in villages, 'too cool for school' teenagers using slang... etc. This will make your vocabulary and language skills in general sooo much more versatile!

11. Paraphrase. This is a fancy expression for describing a term with different words. If a word is missing,try not to look for the English equivalent. Explaining a word is a bigger effort but don't break the communication and you avoid by it the automatic switch to English.

It's worth trying hard!

+1. And last but not least: Don't forget to give yourself compliments. Don't overdo it, though. You don't need to buy yourself a Maserati right on the first day when you survived in the post office without switching to English. But never forget that learning a new language needs a lot of effort and endurance and even if you are struggling in the beginning, keep in mind that most people appreciate very much if they hear a foreigner try hard to speak their language.

Don't give up and keep on telling yourself as a mantra: Discere non est vitiosum, sed ignorare. (Ignorance is shameful, learning is not.)

Lykke til! (Good luck!)

The official 2011 press photos of the Norwegian royal family

New official photos were published of the Norwegian royal family in the end of January on their homepage. The amazing photos are available as posters in the current issue of Norway's biggest weekly magazine Se og Hør. The shots were taken by noted Norwegian photographer Sølve Sundsbø.

Check out this and other pictures of the photo shoot here (by clicking neste bilde). Beautiful! What do you think?

Top 5 interesting facts - Kristiansand

We got a letter in the mail approximately 3 weeks ago. It was an invitation to the city hall in Kristiansand for all the people who moved to Kristiansand for some cake and coffee where all the new citizens could meet each other. I think it was a really nice gesture! The mayor presented his city in a very nice, 'mayorlike' way - he talked business, culture, education... He didn't mention any of the following things. No wonder... mayors don't talk about lead paint and monkeys. Luckily, bloggers do! Enjoy these interesting pieces of information that I've learnt about Kristiansand since I came here 6 months ago!

1. The centre of Kristiansand is called Kvadraturen - a name due to the quadratic structure of the inner town (that can be seen here). The city was founded in 1641, under the Union of Denmark and Norway by king Christian IV. The quadratic structure was a signature city plan of the king. The charm of Kvadraturen in Kristiansand is in a big extent due to the wooden houses painted entirely in white - buildings that characterize several streets of the neighbourhood. However, white has not always been the dominating colour. In the old days, white was the sign of being well-off. Paint was not something everyone could afford so people just tried to paint white at least one side of their house. Houses entirely white only started to be more common after the introduction of the lead-based paint.

White houses in the centre of Kristiansand

2. Kristiansand is the birthtown of the woman that will be the next dronning (queen) of Norway, Mette Marit. She and Crown Prince Haakon (the son of King Harald and Queen Sonja) got married in 2001 and are now a happy (and very popular) family with their children, 7-year-old Ingrid Alexandra (who will be one day the Queen of Norway), 5-year-old Sverre Magnus and 14-year old Marius, a son from Mette Marit's previous relationship.

31 August, 2010 - Mette Marit and Haakon in Grimstad, after the opening ceremony of the new campus of the University of Agder (The first royalties I've seen so far! The photo was taken by my friend Pauline - merci!)

3. Kristiansand (and the Sørlandet region) is traditionally considered to be the most conservative region in the country where people are the most religious in the country, the so-called bible belt (Bibelbeltet) of Norway.


4. Kristiansand is the place in the world with the biggest Beat Art collection outside of the US. The collection is to be seen on the walls of the University of Agder and the Cathedral High School and was donated to the university by Reidar Wennesland, a doctor from Kristiansand who was a personal acquintance to many of the Beat artists. The Beat art was the not main stream art of the US in the 50s, rebelling againt the ideals of the US society of the time. I think having Jay de Feo's two roses on the wall of your classroom is pretty major! :)

One of the pieces of the precious collection - Jay de Feo's The Wise and Foolish Virgins (Kristiansand Cathedral School)

5. The Kristiansand Dyreparken (zoo) with its 650 000 visitors per year is an important tourist attraction for the entire country. The best known inhabitant and mascot of the amusement and animal park is Julius, a male chimpanzee. Abandoned by his parents in his young years, he got to live with a human family and developed different skills - he learnt for example to drive a car and started to make paintings...

Julius

"Don't think you are anything special."

I sometimes have the impression that there is nothing you can not learn from books these days. After Dale Carnegie's works, there have been published a great number of different self help books about issues like how to be happy... how to be more efficient in school... how to become a better story teller... how to spare money... and how to act in a different culture than yours. I think books from this last category have a dubious character - it definitely has a certain charm to discover the intercultural differences yourself but in given situations a list with things to pay attention to on it, can be lifesaving...
I don't want to get into all my personal culture schocks that I have experienced since July (I might want to do it later) but there is one thing I was thinking about a lot lately. It's a bunch of rules (I would say 'unwritten' but they are very much 'written', indeed) that were put down by Danish-Norwegian author Aksel Sandelmose in a 1933 novel. The rules are the following:

1. Don't think you're anything special.
2. Don't think you're as much as us.
3. Don't think you're wiser than us.
4. Don't convince yourself that you're better than us.
5. Don't think you know more than us.
6. Don't think you are more than us.
7. Don't think you are good at anything.
8. Don't laugh at us.
9. Don't think anyone cares about you.
10. Don't think you can teach us anything.

Don't think you are anything special. YOU. Capisci? - Thank-you for these rules, Aksel Sandemose

After I was first confronted with the rules, I didn't really know what to think. Bragging is not cool, obviously, but I think there is a gyllen middelvei (happy middle way) between for example rule no.1 and being big-headed. However, whenever I was asking my Norwegian aquintances about the importance the Janteloven (because this is what it's called, Jante Law in English), everyone was unanimous about how important it was in society. No wonder, it appears in the upbringing of children from very early on.

In fact, the Jante Law is that important that in 1994 (which was the year of the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway), author Inge Eidsvåg introduced the three main Norwegian values that characterizes the life of Norwegians maybe the most and one of them (among equality and respect of nature) was moderation - a notion that includes Janteloven as well. The 'law' has the strongest position in Norway and Denmark (I don't know so much about other countries in Scandinavia, but for the Icelanders I was talking to about this, was the Jante Law completely unknown).

I think these rules are in many ways not very conform with what the 21st century craves from a person so I was not particularly surprised to hear that a so-called Anti-Janti (Anti-Janteloven) exists stating the exact opposite rules - it is hanging on the wall in many Scandinacian homes as a trial to break free, as a rebellion against this hommage to sweet mediocrity.

I think it definitely pays up to think sometimes that you are something special. (Anne Geddes meets van Gogh)

So for those planning to come to Norway or Denmark without wanting to purchase a cultural guide to Scandinavia - get prepared! And not just because this is what you have to expect from the Norwegians. Also (and more importantly) because this is how you have to act yourself. When in Rome... do as the Romans do.

What now, Maria Amelie?

I think I mentioned earlier on my blog that I made a short trip to my home country Hungary before Christmas. We flew through Kastrup airport, Copenhagen and while waiting for the flight to Norway, I got myself a Dagbladet (one of Norway's biggest tabloids) and found out that the Norwegian of the year 2010 had been chosen: 25-year-old Maria Amelie.

Maria Amelie

Årets nordmann (Norwegian of the Year) is a prize that was founded in 2007 by weekly Ny Tid (New Time). According to the magazine, the idea of the prize was born after an email received by the editors saying that only 'ethnic Norwegians' can be Norwegians, those having any different background, can never be Norwegians, not even if they have Norwegian citizenship. There are four people (four women, actually) who got the award so far and two out of the four were not born in Norway...

Maria Amelie (née Madina Salamova) was born in the former Soviet Union (in the Kaukasus, North-Ossetia) and came to Norway as a teenager in 2002 with her parents as an illegal immigrant. The family failed to get a residence permit, however, they decided to continue their stay in the country without any documents. Daughter Maria Amelie was everything but lazy in these eight years: she picked up a fluent Norwegian, got several jobs and even got an MA from the university of Trondheim and was involved in organizing different festivals as a volunteer. In September 2010 she went high profile and her first book Ulovlig norsk ('Illegally Norwegian') got published where she described her life as an illegal in the country with the aim to open people's eyes and draw the attention to the often hopeless situation of immigrants living in Norway without any papers.

Maria Amelie, reading from her book Ulovlig norsk

13th January 2011, Maria Amelie got arrested after her lecture at the Nansenskole in Lillehammer (Nansen School, Norwegian Humanitarian Academy - named after Norwegian humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen). By the way, 2011 is Nansen-year in Norway... She is accused of working black, using false identity and being in the country for a long time, despite the fact that there is nothing in Russia that she needs to be protected from.

Already on the very same evening, people went out to the streets to protest against the laws that allow this to happen and trying to find the ways for the young author to stay in the country or at least to come back as soon as possible. However, it can take up to several years, given the fact that she doesn't have any papers to live legally in Russia, either. A group on Facebook has been established to set her free, 'liked' by over 88 000 people just within a few days.

Friday evening, Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg declared on a television interview: laws apply to everyone equally. Maria Amelie is at the moment in Trandum refugee center near Oslo... waiting for being sent back "home" to Russia. It can happen any time.

Cold. Colder. Norway.

Despite the fact that my sixth month here in Kristiansand started a couple of days ago, there are some issues that I have simply failed so far to get used to. What might these be? Surprise, surprise... here comes the weather monster! But instead of complaining about it (which, I admit, I am very good at...), I decided to collect some of the things that help us to resist the challenges of the Norwegian winter (e. g. walking on the streets...) and that I have first experienced here, in Norway!

1. Selskinn (seal skin)
The ultimate winter boots in Norway can be seen here. However, there is more...
I don't think I would ever encourage someone to wear seal, I am more green than that. I'm sure though that the fact that sealskin has a major role in the traditional Inuit clothing, is for a reason... I was pretty surprised when I first saw a pair of sealskin boots on the streets of Kristiansand, and later on it turned out from a conversation with a salesperson in a shoe store that the boots made entirely of seal skin by the Norwegian brand Topaz is warm, long-lasting and very popular among Norwegians! And I have to say, the red shoelaces are a real fashion statement!

www.topaz.no

2. Wear ull (wool)!
A knitted woolen pullover can turn being outside even on the coldest day into a doable mission! I have already written about wool in Norway here where you can read about the Mariusgenser (Marius pullover). Another important notion in terms of classical Norwegian knitting is the Setesdalgenser (Setesdal pullover) that has a rich tradition and if you imagine a Russian wearing a fury ushanka and a German wearing leather pants, than you definitely want to imagine a Norwegian wearing a setesdalsgenser!

Setesdalsgenser

3. Spikes
It became clear already in November that when in Norway, cold is not necessarily our No. 1 enemy... I sometimes tend to have the impression that Norwegians (at least in Kristiansand) have somewhat given up the fight against mother nature and don't seem to mind that walking on the streets is very dangerous on certain days because of the thick and shiny ice cover. However, if the streets have not been made rough enough, you can make your shoes rough - by attaching a sole with spikes on them. The same applies for your bikes - if you want to use it in the winter, too (like many Norwegians do) switch to piggdekk (spike tires). It can be lifesaving. However, you had better remove it after the ice has melted... otherwise you will experience how it is for a train on the concrete. ;)

An ice trooper from 1948... :)

4. Cross country skiing
Skiing is a sport that is as Norwegian as it gets. 'Slalom' is a Norwegian word (slalåm) and they even have a city called Skien. I might be wrong but I see a connection between the name and the sport... Cross country skiing is even more popular in the country than alpine skiing ('skiing' in Norwegians is called gå på ski, literally 'walking on skis'). Norway is the most successful nation at cross country skiing in the history of the sport on the Winter Olympics. It's not just an excellent exercise but can be used as an efficient way of transportation. On a proper winter day, you can see people cross country skiing even in the inner town of Kristiansand!

Norway's Petter Northug - No. 2 on the ranking of the International Ski Federation

5. Try to make the most out of it
In the end, you can't make it go faster, so try to enjoy it and do things that you usually don't do in the summer time: gløgg (spicey mulled wine), roasted almonds, pepperkaker (crispy ginger biscuits), the beautiful white landscape... It's going to be over soon. And then, after the white, the hvit vinter (since, as they say, Norway has two seasons), it comes the other one... the grønn (green) vinter... :)

Hinc illæ lacrimæ...

Hence those tears...

J. Singer Sargent: The Black Brook (1908)

The semester is over. The school begins again in the first week of January with new faces. I have been here in Norway for 5 months now and I have to say I wouldn't have learnt much more than this even if I have made a trip around the world for those 5 months.
I have learnt that in the smaller places in Latvia they don't use house numbers (something I still cannot believe). I have learnt that in Mexico, on the Day of the Dead people make a crazy party with a lot of food (a special bread) and drink for their dead relatives. I have learnt that the national sport in Lithuania is basketball.
And I have learnt sooo much more about myself and people in general!
I'd like to say goodbye from this amazing, memorable semester, these amazing people I got to know in Norway and last but not least, this fantastic year... with two Scandinavian songs!

The first one is a well-known Norwegian folk melody that is sung in Swedish (by for example Agnetha Fältskog!) and in Danish, too!

Hvem kan seile foruten vind
Hvem kan ro uten årer
Hvem kan skilles fra vennen sin
Uten å felle tårer

Jeg kan seile foruten vind
Jeg kan ro uten årer
Men ei skilles fra vennen min
Uten å felle tårer...

And in English (from this page):

Who can sail without the wind
Who without oars can row
Who can leave a best friend behind
Without tears falling as you go

I can sail without the wind
Without oars I can row
But I cannot leave a best friend behind
Without tears falling as I go...

And... it might be as cheesy as it gets... but only because Nyttårsaften (New Year's Eve) is coming soon... and we just have mentioned the gorgeous Agnetha Fältskog... and this song is the non plus ultra of all New Year-songs in Scandinavia...

Thank you, guys! Godt nyttår! Happy new year!

God Jul!

I know it's has been a couple of days since the forth Sunday and even Christmas Eve is over. But borte bra, hjemme best (home, sweet home, literally 'everywhere is good but it's best at home'), I flew back to Hungary for a few days and didn't have the opportunity to post the forth verse (after the first, second and third) of Inger Hagerup's Adventslysene ('Advent lights'; one of the most known Advent poems of the Norwegian literature).

Vi tenner fire lys i kveld
og lar dem brenne ned
for lengsel, glede, håp og fred,
men mest allikevel
for fred på denne lille jord
der menneskene bor.

We light four candles tonight
and let them burn down entirely
for longing, happiness, hope and peace
but most importantly for peace
for peace on this little Earth
where we, people are living.

I was writing mainly about holiday food and some other little pieces of information concerning Christmas but there are so many other things I could have told you about this wonderful time of the year... about carpenters called Andersen... about mice celebrating Christmas... I guess it will all remain for next year. I want to post though one last song that is very popular with children in Norway.

The cover of the first edition of Margrethe Munthe's book with the Christmas song På låven sitter nissen

The protagnist is the julenisse (this is how they call Santa Claus in Norway) who doesn't want to share his julegrøt (rice pudding served with raisins, sugar and cinnamon - a very popular Advent lunch or dessert with Norwegians) with the mice dancing around him.

I wish us all - just like Inger Hagerup - a merry Christmas with longing, happiness, hope and peace... God Jul til alle!

Julemat - Christmas food in Norway 2.

The reason why I love Christmas cakes is that very often there is a whole story behind them. Let's take for example Germany's Stollen. It's a very rich sweet bread filled with different nuts, dried and candied fruits and marsipan, covered with the mix of butter and powdered sugar. In the old days, when people started to make this kind of cake, the rules of religious fastening were much more respected than today. During the Advent time, it was prohibited to eat anything of animal origin, eventhough Stollen tasted much better with the butter on top. According to the legends, Germans had sent a commitee to the pope with a little sample of Stollen - with and without the buttery frosting. After the pope had tried both and constated that the cake tasted much better with butter on top, the Germans had got a permission to make and consume Stollen with butter and sugar on top even during the Advent period.
Well, I doubt that I can tell something like that about all the numerous Norwegian Christmas cakes and cookies, but after last time's Christmas Eve dinner review, I decided to dedicate another entry to Christmas baking.
Let's start with the one that is (in my opinion) maybe the most remarkable. It is called kransekake, meaning 'wreath cake':

Kransekake

They usually consider this cake as something traditional Norwegian but the Danish had a very similar recipe already before their Northern neighbours (the Danes often form a horn out of the rings that they fill with candy - it's called overflødighedshorn in Danish, meaning the Horn of Plenty). The kransekake is not only a Christmas cake - they make it for numerous important occasions: weddings, birthdays, May 17 (the national day of Norway)... As you can probably see, it takes a lot of time and effort to make a cake like this. Traditionally it has 18 rings (this is supposed to bring luck for the bride and the groom on their wedding day) and you have to bake and decorate each ring separately. Then you want to add some ornaments like flags, flowers, candy... If you don't have the time to make it, you can also buy it deepfrozen.

According to the tradition, if Norwegians want to be well-prepared for Christmas, they need to bake not less than seven different småkaker (cookies; literally 'small cakes'). What's more, the proportions are strictly set, too. One third of the baked goods should be iron-baked, one third oven-baked and one third deepfried.

How can something be iron-baked? For the preparation of the goro they use a utensile called gorojern ('goro iron') that will give this crispy cake really nice patterns. The cake man called kakemann is a delicious cake with a hint of cardamom. The decoration is optional, however, it's common to make an icing of chocolat or edible red paint. Also krumkaker is an iron-baked dessert - you use a krumkakejern ('krumkake iron') to give it patterns and then shape it into cones while it is still warm. You can have it either plain or with whipped cream or other fillings. The sandkaker are another type of cake that (in my opinion) is craving for filling, however, they often just enjoy them plain. You need special molds that look like little baskets to give the almond-based dough this special shape.

From left to right: goro, kakemann, krumkaker, sandkaker.

I don't know the actual connection between the berlinerkrans and the German capital, but the berlinerkrans (literally: Berlin wreath) is certainly not the same thing as the Berliner (which is a jam-filled doughnut). It's quite a work to make it (due to its tricky form), but the end result is worth the struggle: many consider this as the best Christmas cookie. The smultringer is more like a doughnut (which for me is rather a Carnival food). For me, honestly, these 'fat rings' (they are baked in fat) are really nothing special. The fattigmann is (according to its name at least) a poor man's cake. I think though that a cake that has brandy and cream in it, and then cooked in fat is everything but poor! The sirupsnipper is a molasses cake that has a whole range of spices and smells so much like Christmas!

From left to right: berlinerkrans, smultringer, fattigmann, sirupsnipper.

Last but not least there is the pepperkake (ginger bread) which has an extra importance in Bergen. The second largest town in Norway has a tradition started in 1991: the children in local schools and kindergartens make gingerbread houses, churches etc. that are put together to a huge ginger bread town. The pepperkakeby of Bergen is the biggest and (according to them at least) nicest ginger bread city of the world. 

Well, the next step would be to pick seven of the småkaker mentioned above and prepare them... or just buy them hjemmelaget (home made) on a julemarked (Christmas market) that can be found everywhere in the December weekends in Norway. 

Anyways, no matter how many types of cakes you make, I wish you a beautiful preparation time for Christmas!

Tredje søndag i advent (Third Sunday of Advent)

Today is a special day in many Norwegian schools and kindergartens: 13th December is the day of Sicilian martyr St. Lucy. Even though saints play by far not an as big role in the Protestant Church as in the Catholic one, the tradition of St. Lucy's day is very vivid in Scandinavia, mainly in Sweden but also in Denmark and Norway!

St. Lucia

We got visit in the morning from a kindergarten. The children formed a luciatog (literally 'Lucia train': they were standing in a row holding each other's hand) and sung the song Sankta Lucia (you can listen to it here). This was originally a Southern Italian folk song (among others, Elvis Presley sings it in Italian) that has been translated into Norwegian. One girl has been chosen to be Lucia - she wore a wreath made out of lights on her head while the others followed her holding candles. It was charming! After the song had been finished, they gave away cakes called lussekatter. It is an S-formed bun made of yeast dough that has a very typical yellow colour because the most important ingredient is safran. (However, since safran is one of the world's most expensive spices, it's common to replace it with turmeric. I doubt that the kindergarten children gave away the safran version but it was delicious with turmeric as well.)

Lussekatter

There are many superstitious traditions in the world concerning 13th December. In Hungary, if you build a three legged chair out of wood and you step on it at midnight, you can see the whitches. In Mexico (I have just heard about it lately) it is forbidden to sew on this day.

Even if this holiday has nothing to do with Christmas, it is a quite important day in the Advent time in Scandinavia. Now that the third candle has also been lit on the Advent wreath, we can read what says one of the best-known Norwegian Advent poem written by Inger Hagerup (you can also read the first and the second Sunday's stanza on my blog).

Så tenner vi tre lys i kveld
for lengsel, håp og glede.
De står og skinner for seg selv
og oss som er tilstede.
Så tenner vi tre lys i kveld,
for lengsel, håp og glede.

We light three candles tonight

We light them for longing, hope and happiness

They stand there and light for themselves

and for us who are there

We light three candles tonight

We light them for longing, hope and happiness...

Luciafeiring - Celebration of St. Lucy's day

Julemat - Christmas food in Norway 1.

I think I would have been able to write about this topic even a month ago... It's been a couple of weeks now since grocery stores turned into some kind of Christmas food providers. The øl (beer) has become juleøl (Christmas beer), the skinke (ham) has turned into juleskinke (Christmas ham) and even marsipan has got the shape of a pig and the name julegris (Christmas pig - a pig-shaped marsipan dessert. Why exactly pig? I don't know, maybe because pork is the No.1 Christmas food in Norway). Not to mention the myriad of Christmas cakes available in the shops...

Christmas food can depend on where actually you live in Norway. However, the most common dish for Christmas is svineribbe (pork ribs) with crispy skin on top. It has been scandalous with pork this year - in many stores they were selling it for a ridiculously low price to attract customers which led to a shortage on this kind of meat and to the fact that importation is needed to provide the Christmas dinner of Norwegians.

But ok, let's say we've managed to get some in the shop. How to prepare it? Take a look at this video where Ingrid Espelid Hovig (I wrote about her earlier here) reveals the secret of a delicious svineribbe... I think it's worth taking a look at the video even if you don't know any Norwegian - the end result gir vann i munnen (makes mouth water)...

Pinnekjøtt (literally means 'meat on the stick') is the name for dried and smoked ribs of lamb which is also a very common Christmas dinner in many families. Served with potatoes, mashed cauliflower and sometimes Brussel sprouts, it's considered to be a poor man's food.

Pinnekjøtt

The dried leg of lamb is called fenelår. You can buy it "ready-cut" but since that's way too expensive, most people buy the whole leg. It's really delicious and tastes very "lamby". People eat it as a snack. This is what it looks like:

Fenelår

Another essential part of many Christmas dinners in Norway is the so called medisterpølse which is a white sausage made of pork. You can also buy the medisterkake which has the form of a meat ball.

Surprisingly, those eating fish on the 24th are a minority in Norway. The Christmas fish is mainly torsk (cod) that they cook until it gets a jelly consistency. This jelly fish (not jellyfish ha ha ha) is called lutefisk. One of my acquintances (a lady who comes from the very North of Norway but currently lives in Kristiansand) was complaining that people in Southern Norway are unable to make good lutefisk but it's so delicious in the Northern part of the country...! Well, apart from her, noone has told me anything good about the lutefisk yet. I guess I will have to make up my own mind about it.

Lutefisk

And sist men ikke minst (last but not least): since eating kalkun (turkey) on Christmas Eve is traditional in quite a few countries, there are families who have roasted turkey on their table.

Just a personal remark in the end. Growing up in a family where we always had mushroon soup and bread pudding with poppy seed for Christmas, it's interesting for me to see that the majority of people in Norway have meat on the menu. You can eat pretty much anything here: pork, lamb, turkey, fish... except maybe chicken and beef.

Which one of the dishes above would you want to try? :)

Andre søndag i advent (Second Sunday of Advent)

The snow-covered mountains, the Schwibbogen (German candle archs very popular in Norway) and Julenisse (the Scandinavian equivalent of Santa Claus who is, unlike the bishop St. Nicholas (by the way, it's his day today!), is a family man with wife and children) in the windows... Norway is a Winter Wonderland!
However, not only Norwegians can admire the beautiful trees of the Norwegian forests in their city centres but also people of London. Every year Oslo sends a huge evergreen to the largest city of Europe. It's a tradition that started in 1947 and expresses the gratitude of the Norwegian nation for the support of the British during World War II when the circumstances forced the king (King Haakon VII, the grandfather of the present king of Norway Harald V), the royal family and the Norwegian government to exile from Oslo to London. This is what Trafalgar Square looks like in Advent time:

London, 2010

Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland is another lucky city that has been given a Norwegian Christmas tree as a present every year since 1952.
We lit also the second candle on the Advent wreath, so let's see what the poem of Inger Hagerup says after the first candle.

Så tenner vi to lys i kveld,
to lys for håp og glede.
De står og skinner for seg selv
og oss som er tilstede.
Så tenner vi to lys i kveld,
to lys for håp og glede.


We light two candles tonight
We light them for hope and happiness
They stand there and light for themselves
and for us who are there
We light two candles tonight
We light them for hope and happiness...

Two more stanzas to come.

Advenio advenire adveni adventum [verb, lat.] - to arrive [eng.]

I think there are Christmas-nations and there are Easter-nations and the base of this statement is purely geographic. Let me explain. I think nothing can be compared to celebrating Christmas in a place where everything is dark, the snow reaches till our knees, people are wearing their warmest søndagstøy (Sunday clothes) and Christmas carol can be heard everywhere... No wonder that many people think that the world's most beautiful Christmas is in the Erzgebirge in Germany (which is also the place of origin of the tradition of the Christmas tree).
On the other hand celebrating Easter in a warmer place where the beautiful spring nature is already colourful and full of life, flowers are slowly opening up... I think it adds to message of Easter.

Ok, in one word: I am in Norway (which I think is a definite Christmas place) and Advent is here! The city lights have been turned on and the juletre (Christmas tree) of Kristiansand is also standing on the main square.

The main square of Kristiansand with our little Christmas market and a beautiful tree from the forests of Norway

The adventskrans (Advent wreath) is very important in Norway, regardless of whether people go to church or not. Purple (as the colour of confession) is a very common colour for the candles also in Norway. The most known Advent poem is without any doubt Adventslysene (Advent lights) written by poet Inger Hagerup that you can often hear on the TV, in schools etc... Each Sunday has its own stanza, this is the one for the first light. (Since I haven't found the English translation, I will try to to it myself.)

Så tenner vi et lys i kveld
vi tenner det for glede.
Det står og skinner for seg selv
og oss som er tilstede.
Så tenner vi et lys i kveld,
vi tenner det for glede.

We light a candle tonight
We light it for the happiness
It stands there and lights for itself
and for us who are there
We light a candle tonight
We light it for the happiness...

Inger Hagerup

To be continued...

Second thoughts about shopping

In my very first entry I was writing about how much I love going to supermarkets in a foreign country. I'm not telling I'm an expert but I think in the three and a half months I've spent in Norway I have got quite an overview about this and that concerning grocery stores. I don't know how to categorize this article, it's going to be a bit about my impressions of Norwegian eating habits, a bit about the Norwegian selection and a bit about my personal taste. Interested? Put your ten-crown-coin into the shopping cart and let's get started! ;)

P. Cézanne: Pain et œufs (Bread and Eggs, 1866)

Bread. I have to say there is a lot of bread being consumed here. Norwegians often start their day with some bread in the morning (or frukostblanding - breakfast mix of cereals or müsli) and continue with self-prepared sandwiches (tipically dark bread with slices of cheese) at around 12. The fact that they get up earlier and prepare their own lunch is a Norwegian phenomenon par excellence, is called matpakke ('lunch box', literally 'food package') and EVERYONE does it. The most popular bread among Norwegians is the so-called grovbrød (rough bread). It is a bit darker loaf, often with mixed seeds on top. You also can get the white, French-type bread that they call løff and of course the knekkebrød (thin, crispy bread). The ultimate knekkebrød-brand is without any doubt Swedish Wasa (the name stands for the Swedish ship built in the 17th century). The traditional Norwegian flat bread is called lefse. They sell it dry so you have to pour water on it and then let it rest for some time before you can put sugar and cinnamon on top (or anything you want) and make it into a roll.
After a decent matpakke lunch Norwegians rush home in the afternoon and have an early dinner around 5 pm which is often spaghetti bolognese or a deepfrozen pizza. If not ten people had told me that Grandiosa is Norway's favourite pizza, then noone. Grandiosa has a brown-haired uncle from Napoli called pizza italiana. They are really far relatives... Not to be mean or anything, all I want to say is that it's not going to be the pizza of your life but since Grandiosa is so big in Norway, it's worth giving it a try.


Fruits & Vegetables. For some reason I always thought markets doesn't exist above a certain circle of latitude and I also counted Norway into that area. However, Kristiansand has a little market on the main square that sells among others at least five types of potatoes, purple and romanesco broccoli - a thing I've never even heard about before. I did not have high expectations concerning fruits and vegetables in Norway but I never had a problem with finding what I needed. And the fact that a big percentage of fruits and especially vegetables was actually grown in Norway is pretty impressive - we are talking about a land that has an arable land of about 3% of its total area.

Frida Kahlo - Viva la Vida (1954)

Milk products. Tine is the name of the biggest Norwegian company specialized in dairies. Some of their products: 1. Milk that they promote with the modest slogan Kanskje verdens fineste melk (Maybe the world's best milk). Well, maybe. Anyway, I love the fact that you can buy here milk in 1.5 liter cartons. 2. Cheese (ost) in every possible colour (hvitost: white cheese; gulost: yellow cheese; brunost: brown cheese). Brown cheese is a Scandinavian specialty, a product that Norwegians miss when they go abroad - some sugar is added to the cheese in the process of making which gives it a slightly caramelish taste. You can decide yourself whether this is good or not in case of cheese... I'm not sure. You can also find it under the name Gudbrandsdalost - Gudbrandsdalen (Gudbrand valley) is the area in the North of Oslo. 3. Piano: you can find under this name a big variety of ready made puddings and other desserts of jelly consistency. This is not my cup of tea either but it seems to be popular served with vanilla sauce. 4. Biola: sour milk (plain or with different fruits) that is supposed to be super healthy!

Chocolate & Snacks. It's worse than a crime - it's a mistake... if you don't try Norwegian chocolate! Of course the end of the phrase after the three points doesn't belong to the famous quote of Foucher, it was added by me but there is one thing I warmly recommend - try the Norwegian milk chocolate if you can... it's really delicious (more about the topic is coming up!). The love for liquorice might not be that surprising (it's like that in the entire Scandinavia) - it is called 'Turkish pepper' here (tyrkisk pepper) and they usually have it salty and strong. You can also buy chocolate with sweet liquorice. This is not as big though as in Iceland (they are the proud inventors of this great mix) where every second chocolate plate or candy bar has liquorice in it. I don't really want to write about chips since it's quite universal but it might be interesting that they have their own brands (for example Maarud or Sørlandschips from Kristiansand) and often don't sell anything but those.

In every shop there is a candy bar where you pay per kilo. Candy is called godteri or smågodt in Norwegian.

Before I finish it for today, I want to share with you a little video that has been a hit for a while now on the Norwegian television. Tine (you know, the milk company) has made 4 nice TV-commercials. Variations on a theme: Why is important to have sufficiently calcium? Check out one of them and pay good attention to the music! ;)