WEEK 16 & 17 IN OSLO - ALEX

 January 27 to February 9 - More Sunlight

I talked a little about this the other week, but it is becoming quite noticeable that the days are getting longer. When I was in the US a couple of weeks ago I realized that it had been two months since I had seen the sun that high in the sky. Now there are a couple hours each day where the sun is higher in the sky and the shadows aren't quite as long. This phenomena has eliminated my 11AM bouts of anxiety where my mind, and all the typical lower 48 context clues, was telling myself that the sun was setting. As of February 9 sunrise is at 8:10 and sunset is at 4:53. With each passing week we are getting between 30 to 40 minutes of additional sunlight making this transition feel very noticeable.

Miscellaneous photos from my near daily trips to Nordmarka the past 2 weeks.

Language

We are continuing to work on our language skills and have made improvements through in-person practice and books. Initially we were checking out different books from the library, but not having the same book each time or being able to write in them got old. Morgan found some good textbooks from a local university that we just purchased and have been having fun doing some lessons and we both feel that we are improving. We also have a point system to score our in-person Norwegian language experiences that we have used since we first moved. We’re not keeping an official tally, but have noticed that we are beginning to accumulate more and more 1 point scores.

·         1 Point for keeping everything in Norwegian

·         ½ point for having part of the conversation in Norwegian

·         0 points for not trying or speaking so poorly that you immediately give up

Lottery Winner!

Norway has a recycling program that is similar to that of some US states where you pay a deposit when you checkout, anywhere from 1 to 3 kroner (10 to 30 cents) and if you return the recyclable plastic you get your deposit back. They can be returned at any grocery store and we use the credit when we check out. A fun wrinkle to the recycling program is a lottery component that acts like a 50/50 raffle. A portion is donated to the Red Cross and the rest is paid out at random. I don’t play the lottery very often, but when Morgan and I did the other week we won! It wasn’t the smallest possible payout, 50 kroner, but it was quite the thrill.

Our first and likely last winning lottery ticket for 50 kroner.

Alex’s New Hobbies

With my extra free time I have taken up some new hobbies, knitting and baking. Knitting is completely new to me and is something I have been working on for the last 6 weeks or so. I successfully completed my first project, a headband, which is about as easy as it gets. It’s full of dropped stitches and other mistakes that I am not competent enough to identify, but Morgan has done a great job of complimenting my work and giving me the confidence to wear it in public. Her encouragement has convinced me to continue knitting and I have started working on a scarf for her. I probably won’t ever make my own sweaters, but it has been a fun skill to pick up. Morgan is also knitting and is currently about half way through a baby blanket for one of our friends. She is joking that it will be ready by their 18th birthday and although that is hyperbolic it has been more time consuming then she bargained for. Nonetheless, it is a good winter activity and culturally appropriate considering Norwegian’s knit at one of the highest rates in the world.

Proudly wearing my headband in “public”.

I have also added baking to my kitchen repertoire. I started with simple recipes for banana bread and chocolate chip cookies, but have since graduated to bread baking, which has been more of a challenge. I am working with sourdough starter and have found the online bread baking community to be a little pretentious. After some more work and research then I was hoping I think I have found a good, straight forward recipe and have made a couple loaves at this point. The first loaf left a little to be desired, but the subsequent loaves have been much better. At this point I’m thinking that I’ll make a fresh loaf once or twice a week.

Skiing, Skiing, and More Skiing

I don’t know if it is true or not, but we have been told that this was the warmest January on record. Despite the warm weather and occasional rain showers, winter is still hanging on. The last two weeks have included more skiing and visits to the forest’s cafeterias. The other Sunday, we took a winter-only bus that shuttles people to one of two trailheads deep in the forest that aren’t accessible via public transportation. The bus ride was an hour and half and dropped us off at Ringkollen. We had superb conditions as we skied back to Oslo including a couple miles along a series of frozen lakes.

Photos of our ski from Ringkollen back to Oslo, including an obligatory bolle stop at Lovlia. We’ve had better hot chocolate and bolle at most of the huts in Nordmarka.

The following night we skied out to our favorite cabin, Kobberhaughytta, with two of our German friends for some pizza. On one or two nights during the week they open the restaurant for a pizza dinner and just like when we went in the fall the experience did not disappoint. The dining room was full and skiing by headlamp through a light snowfall on the way back was magical.

The headlamps of our friends during our night ski for pizza at Kobberhaughytta.

This past weekend, Morgan and 50 of her coworkers had a ski weekend at a cabin a couple hours outside of Oslo. She had a great time socializing and staying up late singing karaoke. The ski trip is an annual tradition and one of a few company sponsored trips that they put on throughout the year. Most Norwegian companies own cabins throughout the country, either in the mountains or near the ocean, and they grant their employees free or highly subsidized access. Typically this weekend is held at NGI’s cabin, but this year there was so much interest that they had to find larger accommodations.

I stayed in Oslo while Morgan was gone and skied with a group of Norwegians. At the end of January we met up with and skied with a local Norwegian couple that we were put in contact with through a mutual Seattle connection. We didn’t embarrass ourselves and I was invited back with some of his Norwegian friends to do a trial run of a race we are all participating in at the beginning of March. Everyone else had only lived in Oslo for the last couple of years, so thanks to my unemployment I was the most familiar with the Nordmarka trails. Knowing the trail system and being fast enough to lead four Norwegians on skis was a particularly proud experience for me.

Top: Me and my Norwegian ski partners stopping for a quick break.

Bottom: Morgan and a couple of her colleagues during the NGI ski trip.

Oslo Exploring

Over the past two weeks we have also done some city touring. We went to the oldest part of Oslo where a castle, Akershus Slott, from the late 13th century still stands. It has been refurbished a few times in the years since. Depending on the part of the castle and if it’s used for official royal business today it is either from the 1600s, when Norway was a Danish colony, or early 1900s, after Norway finally gained independence. Compared to the older castles in Denmark and Sweden it is quite modest, but that is probably due to Norway’s long history of being under the rule of both of those countries for the majority of the last 700 years.

Photos of us at Akershus Slott.

We also toured Freia, one of Norway’s largest chocolate/candy producers, with a group of other PhD and Postdocs currently at NGI. Morgan is one of around 20 academics from around the world that are either temporarily doing research or are actively getting their PhD through NGI in Oslo. One of them organized a tour of Freia’s Oslo factory and it was a very fun trip. If I had to guess I would say that the target demo is a 10 year old’s birthday party, which was perfectly fine for our group. We spent close to an hour making our own chocolate bar in addition to watching the automated assembly line and learning a bit of the history of chocolate in Europe. We also got enough free chocolate to more than cover the cost of our tickets.

Clockwise from top: Our group of academics and plus 1s before our short walk through the factory. Morgan working her way through the Freia obstacle course where we were instructed not to let our feet touch the floor. The chocolate bar wrappers we designed and wrapped our custom chocolate bars in, our two bars are at the top, Morgan next to some of the group’s custom bars.