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.