Christmas Traditions

Norwegians traditionally put up their Christmas tree on December 23rd.  When we lived there, it was hard for me to get into the Christmas spirit without the tree dominating our living room the entire month of December.  Once the tree is up, they delight in setting it in the center of the room, joining hands, then dancing around it, singing traditional songs.  Since there were only three of us in our house, we skipped that tradition, as well as the one where real candles burn on the tree.

  

The Norwegian Christmas Eve is well scripted, and I dare say, there are not many variations on the theme. Men and boys wear suits and ties, women and girls wear their finest, fanciest dresses. It is the height of formality and it would be a serious sign of disrespect to be in anything less.

Every church has a Christmas Eve service, sometime between one and three in the afternoon. Stores close by one o’clock so as not to compete with church attendance.  The big Christmas dinner follows immediately afterwards.

In our part of Norway, everyone eats the same traditional meal of steamed lamb ribs, sausages, boiled root vegetables and sauerkraut (there wasn’t a green thing on the plate).  Rice pudding is served afterwards.  Whoever gets dished up the one almond hiding in the pudding gets a special prize (usually a marzipan candy pig). That tradition goes way back.

After dinner, the gifts start flowing. There is a bit of a mad dash in the daytime to drop off gifts to different houses because no one opens any gift from anyone until after dinner. To me, it was weird they don’t open it in front of the person who gave it to them, but they don’t.  

Most parents give just one gift to each family member so everyone watches as each gift is being opened.  Since big gatherings are common that night, it’s a long evening. After a few hours, there is a break for coffee and dessert, then back to the gifts. At some point, Julenissen comes knocking on the door with a bag of little treats for “all the good boys and girls.” The Norwegian Santa wears a Halloween type face mask, along with his red and white suit, so he’s far from believable.

We held to some of our own American traditions so I was a bit worried the Christmas police might show up at our house the next morning since we waited to open our gifts until then, and there were not one, but ten gifts with Kaleb’s name on them.  It’s how we Americans do the “merry” part of Christmas.  

Christmas Decorations

Christmas decorations in the stores and homes of Norway are fairly simple.  Hearts are the main symbol of the Christmas season (to me, it felt way too much like Valentine’s Day, though).  Hearts represent God’s love so they put hearts on everything.  The dominate colors of Christmas are red and white but green is no where to be found on any holiday decorations. They don’t have snowmen decorations, and I never did see a nativity scene for sale in any of the stores, which I thought was odd. However, I did see a few angels and more than a few Julenissen (the Norwegian version of Santa). 

Some of the stores decorate in purple and silver, as purple is the official color of Advent.  Many people wear purple all month long, and at no other time of the year.  Purple clothes are definitely confined to December, which I also thought was a little odd.   

Linens of all kinds are huge in Norway year round, but at Christmas, people go all out using special Christmas linens to decorate.  Everyone even changes their kitchen curtains to some kind of Christmas fabric that usually matches their tablecloth or placemats.  Some people even have bedspreads just for the holiday. 

Tradition is that the first Sunday of Advent (four Sundays before Christmas), the lights go up – whether they are on the eves of houses (considered a bit excessive by some) or just electric candles in the windows (the norm.)  Many people also hang big paper stars in their windows.  The stars have holes in them so the tiny light bulb inside shines through, which is my favorite decoration.  Overall, I feel the Norwegian Christmas light displays are pretty lame though, compared to what we are used to in America.  Many people act so thrilled over having even just one extra light burning in the window.  I don’t understand that.

While we were living in Norway, a friend sent me an email with photos attached of Christmas trees from around the world.  Most of them were on the scale of the Rockerfeller Center in New York City with an explosion of light and color.  Not surprisingly, none of the photos were of trees from Norway.  We attended our town’s Christmas tree lighting ceremony and honestly, the tree was at least twenty feet tall and there were maybe thirty lights on the whole thing.  For one strand of very basic white lights, the whole town showed up to applaud the moment when someone flipped the switch.  It was pretty pathetic and hard not to laugh out loud.  I’m not sure, but I think the Norwegian word for “excess” is “American.”

Christmas Preparations

When I was growing up, spring cleaning was a ritual that happened before Easter, but in Norway, the big time cleaning happens before Christmas.  Everyone goes crazy cleaning all their nooks and crannies so the house looks spotless for the holidays. 

All the women I know in Norway just love Christmas.  They love the lights, candles, decorations, special foods, visits and traditions.   The Good Teacher Inga thinks the reason people busy themselves so much with cleaning and baking is because it gives them something to do while they wait out the darkest month of the year.  She said part of the excitement of Christmas is knowing that the sun is about to turn a corner and the short days are soon behind them.   

All kinds of delicacies and culinary treats dominate the stores and homes in December.  My son, Kaleb, and I got hooked on “Julebrus” (Christmas pop), even though we aren’t pop drinkers, but it’s nothing like pop in America.  Special cookies, breads, soups and candies also become available during Advent.  They even sell a Christmas beer, which goes well with the special sausages and different kinds of meats only available during the holidays.  Lamb is cured in a unique way for Christmas and every Norwegian I knew licked their lips just thinking about eating it for Christmas Eve dinner.  Spekkekjøtt, a dried and heavily salted leg of lamb, is also available only at Christmas and my husband waits all year for it.  Lucky for him a Norwegian specialty store in Seattle sells it.  He drives down like a giddy little boy every year to get it, but I make him keep it and eat it in the garage because it stinks up the house.

Christmas in Norway is more like Thanksgiving in America, since it’s primarily about food and fellowship (minus the thankfulness.) Gift giving has never been a big part of Christmas in Norway, until just recently.  It took a few years after I married my very Norwegian husband, to fully understand just why he never bought me Christmas gifts.  It wasn’t a case of neglect, he said, he is just a product of his culture and heritage.  He never got gifts at Christmas when he was growing up, so he doesn’t see the point of doing gifts now as an adult. I have adapted and now buy my own presents, but should the man ever be denied his spekkekjøtt, that, I believe, would be neglect. 

Advent

There is big excitement in Norway when Advent starts.  I spent my whole life without knowing what “Advent” meant, so the tradition was new for me. 

Advent is huge in Norway as it begins the countdown to Christmas.  The candles that get lit on the four Sundays before Christmas “light the way” in anticipation of the birth of Jesus.  It’s all very symbolic and special. I’m glad we got to go through it in Norway where the whole country celebrates it, even if they aren’t professing Christians.

Norway is a Christian nation in word only.  They all believe in the Bible and that Jesus is God’s son and he died on the cross and rose again, but they brush it off with, “We just don’t take it personal.”   Advent is not so much about religion as it is tradition.  There’s not a house in the land that doesn’t have some kind of light in their window for Advent – either a lighted star, or an electric set of candles that sit on an upside down V.  Many houses have lights shining in every window and they all get turned on the first day of Advent. 

It’s so funny how much conformity there is in Norway – no one would dare turn on their lights BEFORE the first Sunday in Advent because, “You just don’t do that.”  (That’s a phrase I often heard about many things.)  There’s a lot of pride in everyone doing things properly, and no one “over does it” with Christmas lights like some American’s do.  Everyone uses only white lights, too.  I guess colored ones are a bit too gaudy by Norwegian standards.

The calendar fills up during Advent as it’s by far the busiest season.  The State Church and schools send out flyers with all the different events going on in December.  Kaleb’s school held a special kick-off party the first day of Advent with the lighting of the school’s Christmas tree at five o’clock on a Sunday.  The school band played a few Christmas songs, the drill team performed a little march to one of the tunes, and after a quick speech, the lights came on the tree and everyone cheered.  They handed out gingersnap cookies, tangerines and hot Glogg (a very tasty Scandinavian Christmas drink).  All of this took place outside on the school playground in below freezing temperatures. 

I’m so impressed by the hardiness the Norwegians have against the elements of nature, and I’m sure had it been raining or snowing, the show would have still gone on to a packed house.  It’s funny, they seem to have God in a box, but they sure don’t want to be.

(PS the photo is of a Norwegian "minimalist" nativity scene. Very funny, ha ha.)

Thanksgiving

Pulling off the traditional Thanksgiving meal when we lived in Norway was a bigger challenge than I anticipated. I couldn’t get all the ingredients and the largest turkey I could find was only nine pounds. If it weren’t for American friends that had earlier come for a visit, I wouldn’t have been able to make pumpkin pie. They brought canned pumpkin, vanilla and brown sugar, things not available in Norway. A Norwegian cousin also made a quick trip to Kansas for his job, so he brought me back pecans for pecan pie, otherwise that wouldn’t have been on the menu, either.




I had to buy several foil packages of spices with unknown names, then open them up like Christmas presents to see what was inside. I was looking for things like nutmeg and cloves, but ended up with several unusable powders I didn’t recognize. Unfortunately, I never found everything I needed, but I seemed to be the only one that noticed things were missing from the recipes.



My cornbread recipe has a can of creamed corn in it and is always a huge hit. I was so bummed that I couldn’t make it because not only is creamed corn not available, but I couldn’t find cornmeal anywhere. I thought I hit the jackpot one day when I bought a box of something with corn on the front, but when I got it home, I discovered it was cornstarch.



We still had much to be thankful for though, and we were glad to share our American holiday with our Norwegian relatives. As is our tradition, we went around the table and everyone said two things they were thankful for. It took some of them a while to come up with something, as giving thanks isn’t really a Norwegian thing. It was fun to watch their expressions as they tasted foods they’ve never even heard of, like stuffing and yams with marshmallows. The pumpkin pie didn’t go over too well, (they all said it must be an acquired taste) but we were glad for that - all the more for us.



Except for eating turkey and pumpkin pie, it didn’t feel much like our traditional Thanksgiving back home because both Kaleb and I had to go to school that day and the day after. The night before, when I baked the pies, I stuck the knife in to see if they were done. I let Kaleb lick the knife and with a dreamy lilt in his voice, he said, “Ahhhh, it tastes like home.” And I guess that is what was missing on that Thanksgiving Day. Thanksgiving is an all American holiday that plays out best at home.

Sizes

 

They have a saying in Norway that, “Everything is bigger in America,” and while that may be true, from my perspective, things are just smaller in Norway.  The roads in Norway are very narrow, and often have only one lane.  Every so many meters there will be a little bulb-out spot where one car needs to go when encountering another car so they can pass each other.  Often times that means someone has to back up to reach it.

Cities are much smaller in Norway and to my knowledge, there’s not a single “McMansion” or “Starter Castle” in the whole land.  Houses are all very moderately sized and when Norwegians have come to visit us in America, they just laugh at the lavish homes we have here.  They also laugh when we arrive at the airport with our many large pieces of “American luggage” as Norwegians usually just travel with one small carry-on bag, even if they are crossing continents.  Cars are smaller in Norway, as are parking places, so I was always challenged to find a spot big enough for our American made “mini” van. 

I do see a lot of wisdom in the smallness of things, though.  The washing machines are much smaller and as a result, don’t hold as many clothes, therefore, I had to do laundry more often, and as a result, needed less clothes, which was good because the closets are smaller and don’t hold much. 

The refrigerators are smaller and that’s good because I never lost track of anything in them which  saved us money on our grocery bill, which was otherwise HUGE.  

The size of products available in the store is much smaller than in America.  (Oh, how Norway needs a Costco to really shake things up.)  Mayonnaise comes in a tube the size of toothpaste and the largest container of flour or sugar in the whole land never exceeds a kilo (about two pounds).  At first I was frustrated by this, but one time when I needed to take the bus home after grocery shopping, I realized why everything was so micro sized.  Many people don’t have cars, so walking or taking public transportation is their only option.  Groceries are heavy.

I buy Oxi-clean at Costco in a two gallon bucket but in Norway it comes in a container the size of yogurt.  Cookies also come in a much smaller pack but that actually worked to my advantage because when I got stressed out and ate a whole package – it wasn’t nearly the same number of calories.  I guess that’s why the people in Norway are smaller, too.

Fall Festival

Norwegian schools take a week long break about every six weeks of classes.  Since the school year starts in the middle of August (and goes until the end of June), that means the Fall Break happens in early October.  All the schools have a little “Høstfest” (Fall Festival) right before the break.  It was no different in my Norwegian class. 

The teachers of the Aalesund Adult Learning Center (where I attended) instructed all their students to make some food from their home country and bring it to share with everyone on the day of the party.  Before we sat down to our feast, however, we played little games that had to do with learning the Norwegian language.  There were classes from all levels of learning, so just giving the instructions for the game was a challenge, since it was done in Norwegian and it was obvious most of us were clueless.   We had some good laughs that day as we all interpreted things quite differently.

The food was the highlight of the party. Everyone was so excited to have others taste their special dish from their home country.  I liked the oatmeal cookies from another American best, as I’m not much of an “adventurer in eating” kind of gal and most of the other food looked scary.  I made a salmon/cream cheese spread for crackers which got gobbled up quickly.  Everyone started asking for the recipe.  No one had ever heard of some of the ingredients, so I had to explain exactly which store to go to and on which shelf in that store they would find things like horseradish and liquid smoke (I was shocked myself when I found them in Norway.)  It was fun to share good food.  One woman from Urkraine, who spoke very little English and no Norwegian, came over to me with her eyes wide open and a mouth full of the stuff I made and just said, “Boom-ba!”  Whatever that means in her language, I have no idea, but I think she really liked it. 

We were all having a good time until the Russian women got out the vodka and things got a bit out of control.  The Good Teacher Inga about had heart failure over that one, as there is a strict rule about no drinking at school, but she turned the other way and just let them have their fun (I could tell she was more than a little nervous though.)  That was the day I learned that in Russia, if there is a party, or if there is food, there is Vodka – even if it is ten o’clock in the morning.

Tunnels

Norwegians have mastered the art of tunnel drilling like no other country on earth.  Since Norway is 97% solid rock, they have learned how to make lemonade out of lemons.  It’s impossible to go on any length of road trip in Norway without going through a tunnel.  Often, when the scenery is just drop dead gorgeous, the whole world blacks out as the car gets swallowed up by a mountain and spit out into another world on the other side.

Many coastal ferries have been replaced by undersea tunnels.  I don’t mind going through mountain tunnels so much, but I always get a little freaked out when driving under a fjord and water drips on my windshield.  It’s a sobering thought to realize just one crack in the earth or decent sized tsunami, and I’m done for.  Just to get to the airport where we lived in Norway, we had to drive through two of them.  The islands are so close in one location that they were not able to engineer a safe incline down under the sea and back up again, so they corkscrewed the tunnel down on one side.  Clever.

Some tunnels are free, some cost between fifteen and fifty dollars.  The majority of tunnels are miles long, and Norway proudly holds the record for the world’s longest auto tunnel, at more than fifteen miles in length.  Norway also has the deepest sea tunnel as it goes over a thousand feet down into the earth. 

In the summer the tunnels aren’t much fun as they are so dark and boring, but in the winter they are a nice respite from the snow and ice covered roads, since they are dry.  Norway requires all vehicles to have studded tires in the winter, so there is always a foggy haze inside the winter tunnels, however, as the bits of concrete being chewed up by the snow tires float in the air.

Norway is now in the process of building the world’s first ship tunnel straight through the middle of a coastal mountain.  They say it’s all about safety, but I think they just want bragging rights because no one else in the world has done such a thing.

Norwegians are famous for their stubborn streak and I’m sure it’s in part because they all really do live between a rock and a hard place.  Since they’ve managed to conquer their rocky environment with tunnels, maybe now is the time to conquer that hard head of theirs.  It sure would make them easier to live with.

Halloween

In 1953, when my husband, Kory, immigrated to America, he didn’t know anything about Halloween.  One night when his family was sitting around the table eating dinner, the doorbell rang.  Kory’s father, Halvor, got up from the table to answer the door.  He was greeted by a group of kids dressed as bums and other such unsavory characters, expectantly holding open bags out in front of them.  They said something to him in English he didn’t understand, and he responded to them in Norwegian something they didn’t understand.  He slammed the door shut and went back to his dinner.  After this scenario repeated a few more times, Halvor returned to the dinner table and sternly admonished his four boys that they should, “Never go around begging like that!”  The next day at school, Kory and his brothers found out what all the begging was about, and every year after that, they joyfully participated in this unusual American tradition.

Even now, Norway doesn’t really have Halloween, but the times, they are a changin’.  The prevalence of American media in their culture is messing with all kinds of things, and now after seeing it on TV, Norwegian children want to go trick-or-treating like American kids.  When we lived there, the newspapers all ran articles reminding people what Halloween was and that kids shouldn’t bother to go to homes where the porch light wasn’t on, as many Norwegians are adamantly against this “celebration.”

Our neighbor girl, Sabina, was counting down the days until she could go door to door and get a bag full of candy, but then was sorely disappointed when she and my son, Kaleb, discovered no one on our block was game. 

Kaleb was invited to a birthday party for a classmate just a few days prior to Halloween, so all the kids dressed up in a costume, much to their parent’s dismay.  One mother I talked to was worried about the affect Halloween would have on smaller children, since all the costumes available for purchase in Norway are quiet gruesome.  She thought children might become afraid of the dark if they saw some of these “creatures” walking around in the evening, or even worse, become terrified if they answered their door to such horrific looking faces.  I had to agree.

As the parents were picking up their kids after the birthday party, I overheard one mother say with a disgusting tone, “If we HAD to get a holiday from America, why couldn’t it have been Thanksgiving?”

Funny Words

I think one of the reasons I liked living in Norway so much, was because I laughed a lot.  Even though Norwegians as a whole are pretty serious and sober people, their language has a way of just cracking me up.  Some of the expressions they use are very funny, as well as the sound of some of the words themselves.  If I didn’t come from an English speaking background, I’m sure I wouldn’t have laughed as much as I did, but there were some words I heard over and over again that never failed to put a smile on my face, like “snart ferdig.”  To properly pronounce those words in Norwegian, one must say “snart far-dee,”  which means “soon finished.”  It made me laugh every time I heard it, or said it.  It’s used often, whether referring to dinner being ready soon or when one would say, “I’ll be done in a minute.”

Of course, “snart ferdig” doesn’t crack me up as much as when I hear someone say “full fart,” which, honest to goodness means, “high speed.”  There are often huge advertisements in newspapers or on the sides of busses for internet service, and those “high speed” words grab my attention every time.  Some neighborhoods have “farts dempre” which are “speed bumps,” and when traveling along certain stretches of highway there might be a sign that says “din fart” which means “your speed” and the digital read-out board shows just how fast the car is traveling.  There is lighthouse in downtown Aalesund with huge letters painted on the side that say “sakte fart” (slow speed) warning boats coming into the harbor not to make a wake.  I can’t imagine the origins of some of these words, but it’s pretty funny for someone from America to live in Norway and see them everywhere.

There are many Norwegian words like “fart” that mean something completely different in English.  Take the word “fag” for instance.  In Norwegian it’s pronounced “fog,” and it means a “subject” that one takes in school, or a particular trade.  I often see burley men driving work trucks with the word “FAG” in huge letters written all over it.  It’s most common on plumbing or construction trucks, and it’s always a sight that gets my attention.

The Norwegian word “do” actually means “toilet,” so I had to be careful not to mix my English with Norwegian too much or I got some pretty funny looks from people when I was talking about what I was about to “do.” 

Dairy Products

Norwegian dairy products, I believe, are far superior to anything we can buy in America.  Even the organic version of milk, cheese and butter from America doesn’t really compare to the quality found in Norway.  Any recipe I made in Norway using their dairy, tasted significantly better than when I’d made the same recipe at home.

The Norwegian government doesn’t allow the use of growth hormones or antibiotics and all the cows are “free range,” so apparently that contributes to the difference.  A happy cow obviously produces good milk, which unfortunately only lasts about a week before it sours in the refrigerator, precisely on its expiration date.  Norwegians don’t pasteurize their dairy products much, either.  I found Norwegian cheese to be pleasantly addicting and I ate it several times every day, otherwise, it started to mold after about a week in the refrigerator. 

The one dairy product I struggled with, however, was whipped cream.  Norwegians are very unconventional when it comes to their whipped cream usage.

I watched Cousin Kari one evening prepare a dinner salad the way her grandmother taught her.  She cut up iceberg lettuce in thin strips and placed it in a bowl.  In another bowl she whipped up a lot of cream, added some sugar and a little bit of white vinegar then mixed that in with the lettuce so it was well coated.  That was all there was to the salad – lettuce and cream.  I actually kinda liked it, but I’m sure it’s because it had sugar mixed in with the cream, which I found out another time, is NOT the norm in Norway.

The first time I discovered the absence of sweetness in the whipped cream was when we were invited to Cousin Birger’s house for dinner.  The dessert was served with a large dollop of whipped cream on top.  After taking the first bite and realizing something was terribly wrong with the topping, I waited until our hosts had momentarily left the table, then I quickly piled on spoonfuls of sugar from the little bowl sitting on the table.  I was in for a bigger shock, however, when I discovered the “sugar bowl” was actually a bowl of salt.  Just when I thought the dessert couldn’t have tasted worse, it did.  

The Morten Report

My son, Kaleb, was often a “big hit” at school in Norway, literally. A boy in his class named Morten, found Kaleb’s sweet face irresistible, so he often punched it for the oddest reasons. One time it was because Kaleb had parked his bike next to his, another time because he was standing behind him in line. When Kaleb came home from school each day, I always asked him about “The Morten Report,” as it came to be known.




The day Kaleb told me Morten came at his throat with a pair of open scissors, was the day I decided the “zero tolerance” policy they have for bullying at school (with no consequences if they do), was just not enough. I made an appointment to talk with the principal to tell him just how we deal with such things in America. It fell on deaf ears. When I suggested a consequence like having Morten stay inside during the next recess after he punched or kicked or threw rocks at my sweet boy, the principal kindly thanked me for my suggestion, then told me why it wouldn’t work. In Norway, everyone is treated the same, and if Morten were singled out and punished for his behavior, he would feel different, and that is just not part of the Norwegian socializing system.



When I talked to Morten’s mother about the scissors-to-the-throat incident, she apologized, but I noticed that Morten wasn’t even kept from attending another kid’s birthday party that evening. If my son had attacked another kid with scissors at school that day, I’m certain he wouldn’t be at a birthday party that evening. Morten’s mother didn’t want him to feel left out, so she wouldn’t ever consider using that as a consequence for his “impulse control problem,” as she called it.



One day when Kaleb had been beaten up by three different kids on the playground, he cried as he recounted the events to me. I told him I thought maybe we should just go back to America because we didn’t move to Norway to have him become a punching bag, and we were free to leave at any time. Kaleb replied, “Hey, there are a hundred kids in the fourth grade, and there are only three of them that are a problem. Do you think I’m going to let those three kids ruin it for the other ninety seven that like me? I don’t want to go back home just because I get beat up!”



I was quite proud of Kaleb for tolerating Norway’s “zero tolerance” policy on bullying.

Home Construction

My husband, Kory, is a retired union carpenter. He worked for a small construction company two days a week the year we lived in Norway. He didn’t mind working because he loved seeing how Norwegians build things. They use the highest quality materials and they build things to last.




There are wooden churches still standing in Norway that were built in the 1100s. Norwegians are good about planning ahead. Back in the “old days,” before any building was built, they identified which trees would be used for the construction, then they stripped off all the bark the year before they cut it down. The tree, in an effort to “save” itself, emits a pitch that acts as a preservative and makes the wood impervious to rot or insects. It’s incredible to stand in wooden buildings that are almost nine hundred years old. It’s not uncommon to have wooden buildings from the 1600s still being used on farms today.



Each day Kory went to work, he’d come home and tell me a little about what he’d learned from these very “forward thinking” Norwegians as it related to the construction of houses today. For example, just after the framing is done, they run plastic conduits throughout the house wherever there will be plumbing or wiring. The plumber and electrician then snake the wires and water pipes through these conduits. The water “pipes” look almost like an industrial garden hose as they are flexible and all one piece so they can’t break. Assuming they did break though, the water would be contained inside the plastic conduit and it would all come out at the junction box where there is always an in-floor drain – so water damage to a home from “broken pipes” isn’t really an issue. And since the electrical wires are also protected inside a conduit, little critters can’t gnaw on them as easily.



All rooms have interior doors in Norway because heating is zonal, not central. All interior doors are kept closed all the time and as a result, they hang little signs on the outside of the bathroom door so visitors don’t accidentally walk into a closet or bedroom when they need to pee. Most of the signs say “W/C” –borrowing from the British term “Water Closet,” but the other option is the sign I put on our bathroom door that just says “BAD.” That’s actually the real Norwegian word for “bathroom,” but it’s also an accurate description of how that room sometimes smells – so it also serves as a warning. That’s my version of “forward thinking.”

The Great Fire

Many great cities have had a catastrophic fire in their history and our town of Aalesund was no exception. A fire in 1904 burned down the entire city center. The scene of the aftermath was pretty devastating as 850 houses were nothing but ash heaps and piles of bricks. The fire displaced over ten thousand people and was and still is, the worst in Norway’s history. It started in the middle of the night in a factory, and there were such strong western winds blowing that it took no time at all to burn up the town.




When the first fire alarm sounded, the fire “trucks” had trouble getting to the scene because the horses, which pulled the water tanks, wouldn’t go near the flames, until they were finally blindfolded. Amazingly, there was only one death - an elderly woman who went back to her house to get her purse.



Some houses along the perimeter of town were spared, but there was just one home, in the midst of all the rubble, that miraculously remained unharmed. As the story goes, the man that owned that house was a strong Christian. He later said that God told him if he left his house, it would burn, and anything taken out of the house would also burn; but if he stayed, it would all remain unharmed. All the houses around his burned to the ground, but not his, as he believed God’s promise, and he wouldn’t leave. His wife and children left, and the things they took with them burned, but they were not harmed.



There was a documentary made for television several years ago about that man, as he became somewhat of a folk hero for his ability to hear the voice of God and obey what he heard. His faith touched many lives. The photograph of his house still standing, after the rest of the town burned down, is an unbelievable sight.



While the town of Aalesund was still smoldering, the last King of Prussia, Keiser Wilhelm II of Germany, who had previously visited that coastal Norwegian town and loved it dearly, sent several ships full of supplies for the people, along with building materials to start rebuilding. He also sent architects and engineers who designed and rebuilt it with the Art Nuevo flare that makes it famous today. Norwegians have voted Aalesund as the most beautiful city in their country, and it certainly is.



Most locals feel as horrible as the fire was at the time, in the long run, it turned out to be a good thing. I wonder if they feel the same way about the Vikings.

Challenges

The Good Teacher Inga never taught us on Fridays because she taught English to another class, so we always had a substitute teacher on those days. We had one substitute named Lidia, for several weeks in a row. She is from Russia and I have tremendous respect for her because she started teaching Norwegian after only having lived in Norway for a few years. She is gifted in the language department. She speaks English perfectly, as well as French and Spanish, Russian and Norwegian.




We didn’t have any native French speakers in our class, but we sure had Spanish and Russian speakers, so she was quite the hit with all of us. She was teaching us one day about the rules involved with prepositional phrases and we all sat there with a blank look on our face. When the light bulb finally clicked for me, I asked her, in English, if what I thought was correct. She answered back in English. Then a Russian woman fired off a whole string of questions and they went back and forth like lightening in Russian. Then the Spanish speakers spoke up and she answered them just as quickly, in Spanish. Finally, we all understood what she was trying to tell us in Norwegian. She was amazing. It’s not that we didn’t understand her Norwegian, we just didn’t understand why in the world the Norwegian language would have such crazy rules about prepositional phrases. (I’m sure most of the class didn’t even know what a prepositional phrase was, even in their own language.)



I’m sure the best training ground these Norwegians have for setting world records and winning so many Olympic gold medals, is the fact that as children, they’ve all had to learn to speak Norwegian.



When my dad was a little boy, he was quite mischievous and my grandma used to say, “If he lives to be five, he’ll live a lifetime.” (And he did.) I feel the same way about Norwegian. Norwegian parents must say, “If they can learn to speak Norwegian, they can do ANYTHING!” (And they do.)

Too Much

During lunch break one day, I was sitting in the back of the classroom checking my e-mail and one of my classmates asked me what the word “formue” meant. She was looking at a website that used that word. That website is a big hit in Norway – one the government set up in the last few years – which shows every Norwegian’s tax return; how much they made, how much they paid in taxes, and how much “formue” they have (assets, including money in the bank).




There are only 4.5 million people in Norway and in the first week the site went live, it got 1.2 million hits. Lots of people were apparently wondering how much their friends, family, neighbors, and ex’s make… and now it’s all right there for the whole world to see. The local newspapers even have a direct link on their homepage websites so the information is just a click away.



One local I talked to thought the reason the government did this was so they can find out who is not paying enough taxes. It’s more likely now that someone would turn in their neighbor if they see something suspicious. If their income doesn’t support their lifestyle, then there is a chance they are getting “black money” somewhere (money received “under the table”), which is obviously illegal.



The jails in Norway are full of people who had little “businesses” on the side and didn’t pay taxes for it. Taxes are a big thing and they take them seriously, since it’s how they support their socialist ways.



I’m not sure the money reported on the tax lists is such an accurate picture of what people really make, however, since it only shows their income after they deduct legitimate expenses, but it’s something to look at, for sure. For a country full of people known to be so closed, I think it’s hysterical that they have all this financial information so open and readily available. The website even makes little bar charts so one can compare the amount they made with others born in the same year, or in their area.



But the funniest thing of all is the word “formue” -- it literally means “too much.” And while I believe the intent was to say, “You have too much, therefore you will be taxed on it,” my take on it is, they have provided “too much” information.

Formalities

We were invited to my husband’s cousin’s ex-wife’s house for dinner one night when we were living in Norway. I didn’t know her at all, but Kory did. I was happy to attend because I like seeing the inside of Norwegian houses and I was thankful I didn’t have to cook.




One Norwegian custom we were formally unaware of, is just how very dressed up we must be for such an occasion. Previously we’d just eaten dinner at relative’s houses, so the same rules apparently don’t apply there. We found out on that particular night, we were completely under dressed. Everyone else came looking mighty fine, but embarrassingly so, our sloppy Pacific Northwestern lifestyle came shining through.



Another formality we learned was proper protocol when meeting someone for the first time. When someone enters a room, everyone stands up to greet them. If a person already knows them, they just shake hands and say, “Takk for sist,” which literally means, “Thanks for the last,” which is short for, “Thanks for the last time I saw you… I remember it so well and have such good memories of it.”



If a person doesn’t know the other person, they shake hands and they both say their names to each other with a standard greeting like, “Så hyggleig,” (which means, “So comfortably nice” – but the “to meet you” is implied and not always said.) Then that scenario gets repeated with every person they don’t know, so the person who just walked in repeats their name to everyone there. I found it was much easier to remember names when I heard them over and over, so I liked that formality.



It’s also customary to bring a hostess gift, usually a house plant or a bottle of wine. Fortunately, we’d followed protocol on that one.



There’s really nothing like having dinner and dessert in a Norwegian’s home. There is a lot of emphasis on the beautiful table setting as everyone owns nice china, silverware, linens, and centerpieces. The coffee table is also set for dessert so everyone moves into the living room and pulls up chairs around it after dinner. It’s also set with fancy china, special dessert spoons and burning candles. It’s the kind of ambiance that I’m not sure was ever part of American culture - at least not the crowd I’ve hung with - but then, I was raised in a trailer court, so it’s hard to compare anything to that. The only formality I was taught, was, when spying on the neighbors, at least have the decency to turn out the lights so they didn’t know we were doing it.

Swear Words

One of the more interesting days I had at school in Norway was when The Good Teacher Inga taught us all the swear words. She said the times, they are a changin’, as what is considered a swear word now is completely different than when she was a kid (and she’s younger than me.)




Historically, the most awful words that would never be uttered in anyone’s home would have to do with the devil himself. Saying his name, calling “on” him, or mentioning hell, were strictly forbidden. They were considered dastardly words that make even the hearty, weak kneed. The Good Teacher Inga even blushed as she wrote them on the board. No respectable person would ever utter such things and I couldn’t even find them in the English/Norwegian dictionary (yet I found the American F word there.)



But now apparently, the effect of Satan’s name is starting to wear off slightly, and even though kids are still not allowed to utter it, the new generation has come up with even more repulsive swear words that have to do with “private parts.” Inga wouldn’t write those on the board, but I’m thinking they are similar to some English slang words.



Inga said it’s good we know some of the swear words just in case we hear our children saying them or if someone tries to teach them to us, so we will know just how socially unacceptable they are.



Kory laughs about the fact that the swear word that starts with “sh” in English, is just an ordinary word in Norway. Literally, it means something is soiled or dirty, but it’s also just a common expression that isn’t offensive. He said when they moved to America, his dad said that word at church while giving a testimony. He had to tell his dad afterwards that it was a swear word here, so it shouldn’t be used from the pulpit.



I had to try out my expanded vocabulary one day on Tobias, a neighbor boy that came over to visit our son. Tobias was 12 at the time and I asked him to verify if the word that sounds like “fawn” (the devil’s name), was really all that bad. His eyes opened wide. His jaw dropped. He stared at me in disbelief. After a few seconds he said with a shocked tone in his voice, “I’ve NEVER heard an adult say that word before!” Oops.

Competitiveness...

The day we got our first big test back in my Norwegian class, I was reminded of just how competitive I am. I did OK, but I didn’t get the top score. I struggled with putting the stupid verb in the second position for every sentence. I so want to say, “Can you do that?” rather than, “Can do you that?” It goes against every fiber in my being to make a sentence that sounds so ridiculous, but that’s how Norwegians talk so I’m the one that sounds like a fool when I speak with an English sentence structure.




When someone is talking to me in Norwegian (even now), I feel much like the dinosaur that gets its tail stepped on and it takes a complete minute for that information to travel to its brain before it can say, “OUCH.” Once someone says something, they need to stop and give me a minute to process all the words to see if I can figure out what they just said. But no, they just keep on talking and I’m lost in a blur of syllables that go up and down with such a sing-songy rhythmic pattern it could put a person to sleep. No one said it would be easy.



It killed me though because back in my school days, I was used to being the best student in class, but in Norway, not so much. There were young women in our class, fresh out of high school, so their brains were still in the soaking-it-up mode and they kicked my butt in terms of learning the language.



The student that did the best was from South America, and she’s sweet as pie but my nature is to not like her because she was better than me. My only consolation was that she has a horrible lisp, so I told myself no matter how much she knows this language, no one will ever be able to understand her speaking it. At least people understood me when I talked, even if my sentence structure was wrong.



The only good news that day was that I got a better score on the test than My Pal Vestina, and she was a most excellent student. So apparently the class was not so much about me learning or not learning the language, as much as it was about me being competitive and petty. Go figure. I still have a lot to learn.

Baby Money

In class one day we learned all the special words one would want to know if they are pregnant (gravid) in Norway. The reason they are so important is because they mean money. It’s hard to believe, but they actually pay women to have babies in Norway, and they keep paying for those babies until they are 16 years old – no matter how much money a person makes. The government pays the parents several hundred dollars every month until the baby is three years old, when the amount drops to about $200 a month until they are 16 years old. All “baby/child” money is tax free and is given for every child living in Norway, since the government acknowledges that it takes money to raise a child.




Norway is, I believe, the most progressive country in the world when it comes to maternity leave. All working women get one year’s maternity leave and 80% of their pay for that first year – and their jobs remain secure. If they chose to not go back to work after that first year, they can take another year off and keep their job, but they get no pay during the second year. The father of the baby also gets a 100% paid maternity leave for eight weeks sometime during the baby’s first year of life. (It’s been proposed to increase the father’s time off to five months, but I’m not sure if that has gone into effect yet.)



If a woman was not working prior to giving birth, the government makes a nice one-time deposit into her bank account to help with the expenses of raising the baby – to the tune of 90,000 kroner (more than $15,000 – tax free.) And because of their socialized medical system, all medical expenses associated with having that baby are paid for by the government.



We went around the room that day and everyone in class told about the birthing and maternity leave policies in their home country. Everyone (except me) was from a country where the medical expenses are free or miniscule and several countries had many months of paid maternity leave.



I was embarrassed to talk about the policies in America and how we have none of the above and that I had the privilege of paying over eight thousand dollars to the hospital just to give birth. The gasps were audible. But I choose to believe you get what you pay for, and I now have a boy worth every cent (and then some).

Secrets

The Good Teacher Inga spent a great deal of time being a cheerleader to half of our Norwegian class who were getting homesick and tired of how hard it was to learn Norwegian. Inga validated their feelings by telling us all that it’s very hard to move to another country even if you know the language because she lived six years in Ireland and was fluent in English but still had a horrible time adjusting. She was so good for us. The Good Teacher always cheered us on and told us all we are doing great – even the ones that couldn’t speak a word of Norwegian.




One day Inga mixed things up a bit and had us change our usual conversation partners. She put me with the little old Russian lady, Valentina, that didn’t speak much of anything. What a hoot that woman was. By looking at her, she looked old enough to be my mother, but she’s only five years my elder. (Life must have been hard in Russia.) She told me that day (through using her Russian/Norwegian dictionary – and me translating what she said using my Norwegian/English dictionary), that she used to live way up north on the Norwegian/Russian border.



We were supposed to talk about the weather in our home countries that day, so she said (also using a lot of hand motions and drawing pictures on paper for clarification), that in the winter, that far north, they would get up and turn on the radio and hear, “Today will be five minutes long,” and the next day, “Today will be ten minutes long.” That’s how long the sun would show itself on the horizon. And during those winter months, the whole town would go outside and wait to see that little crack of light (no matter what the weather) and they’d whoop and holler and have a great old time because the sun hadn’t left them for good.



I asked Valentina what she did for a living up there and she also told me that for seven years she was a General in the Russian army (I didn’t see that one coming). Then she made hand motions like little boys do when they shoot pretend guns and she made all the sound effects that go with it. I got the sense she’s actually shot people. She then looked up the word that meant “secret” and I’m not sure if she meant I was supposed to keep that bit of news a secret, or if she worked for the secret service agency within the army. I guess her secret is out now.

Work Laws

The work days in Norway seem so much shorter than in America, but that’s probably because most everyone lives within just a few minutes of where they work and there is no real commute time factored in. Norway intentionally spreads the industries out in every little nook and cranny of the country. One little village will have a hot dog factory, another is the home of the “Grandiosa,” Norway’s favorite frozen pizza. If all the jobs were located in the big cities, then everyone would live in the city, and that’s just not the Norwegian way of life.




Norwegians work seven and a half hours a day with most shifts starting around eight and ending by four, including the half hour lunch break. An hour for lunch would be unnecessary in Norway because no one goes out to eat (it’s too expensive). There are rush “moments” (not “hours”) in the town where we lived in Norway.



The government in Norway demands that all working people take three weeks off every summer, and it all has to be in one chunk – they can’t parcel it out. They figure it takes that long to unwind from their jobs and be refreshed again for another year. They also get two other weeks off during the year whenever they want, and they get the week between Christmas and New Years and several Holy Days free. Norwegians have a lot of time off from work. It’s amazing they get anything done.



The law in Norway also says that no one is allowed to work more than ten hours a week of overtime – ever. And in one calendar year, it is not allowed to work more than 200 hours of total overtime. Imagine that. (Microsoft would have big problems operating in Norway.) But after the financial crisis that happened a while ago – they may need to re-think that law. Norway had over 33 million US dollars (168 million Norwegian kroner) of their citizen’s retirement fund invested in Washington Mutual stock (it made big headlines in Norway when that bank fell). Perhaps if some of Norway’s top financial advisors had put in a few extra hours at the office that year – they might have seen that one coming.