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.”