May 17: Finally, there’s a crowd in Norway

When I first landed in Oslo from London I kept looking around, wondering where all of the people were. I went out during rush hour, checked out the city’s main shopping street on a Saturday and even took a walk through central Oslo on a Friday night in search of a crowd. It was a big adjustment moving from a city of 7 million to one with barely half a million. But there is one day of the year that people pour into the streets and the big train stations are  as busy as your normal weekday afternoon on Oxford Circus: May 17, Norway’s National Day.

Syttende mai, which means 17th of May, is Constitution Day. Judging by the fact that the gym is actually closed on National Day (it’s open for six hours on Christmas), it’s the most important celebration of the year for Norwegians. It’s a day of tradition which starts with a breakfast of smoked salmon on bread, topped with lemon juice, mayonnaise and scrambled eggs. However sophisticated breakfast is the rest of the day is far more relaxed: lunch is as simple as hot dogs and ice cream

Locals wear either their traditional folk costumes, called bunad, or suits and dresses to celebrate the signing of the constitution on May 17, 1814, which declared Norway independent. For most of the tiny Scandinavian country’s history, Norway has either belonged to Denmark or Sweden, so this independence was a long time coming and is celebrated with pride and vigor.

After breakfast most of Oslo heads to the center of the city to see the tog, a children’s parade. The tog starts by the seaside, proceeds past the Parliament and down a famous street, Karl Johans Gate which is lined with Norwegian flags, and then passes the Royal Palace where the King and his family wave to the public.

Children either march wearing their bunads, carrying flags or in a marching band.

The country is awash in the colors of the Norwegian flag, which is visible everywhere, and chants of hip hip hurrah, to celebrate Norway’s independence, come from all directions.

The day ends with a family dinner and plenty of cakes and sweets. And don’t be surprised if a complete stranger gives you a hug and says gratulerer med dagen! All reserve and propriety are thrown out the door for this special day.

Hip hip hurrah – I finally found a crowd!

The best skinny mirror in town

I was forced to eat salad today.

I ordered mac & cheese from a popular American eatery in Oslo called Café Fedora, a plate of heavenly, cheesy goodness which the chef insists on ruining with a side of greens. The last time I had Café Fedora’s famous mac & cheese I had tried and tried to finish off the salad but failed, succumbing to the food coma induced by Anthony’s secret spice and four different cheeses in his special recipe.

But today, he shamed me into eating salad.

That’s just the kind of place Café Fedora is. Owners Anthony and Nicole don’t run a café but a neighborhood hangout, where you bump into friends, show off a new haircut and enjoy American comfort food: Texas chilli, cornbread, pecan pie, and oh, the mac & cheese.

Café Fedora is like Cheers, the bar featured in the popular ‘90s TV show. Besides the great characters and storylines in Cheers, I especially enjoy the idea that the unassuming bar became a family for its workers and frequent customers. Down-on-his-luck Norm, with his bad marriage and boring job, could walk into that bar like he was at the top of the world because he was warmly welcomed with a chorus of “Norm!” when he arrived. His beer was ready for him before he sat down at his usual bar stool.

A few weeks back I was at Café Fedora for Sunday brunch and Anthony had started preparing a plate of mac & cheese before I had even looked at the menu. (For those familiar with Cheers, that makes me Norm, Anthony the feisty waitress named Carla, and Nicole the equivalent to the attractive bartender, Sam Malone).

Every expat needs a place like Cheers.

Living in a foreign country, I’m always looking for little ways to make Oslo feel like home. I spend so much time translating menus and items at the grocery store, talking to people with broken English or using my spotty Norwegian, that sometimes I just want a break from being an outsider. That’s when I head to Café Fedora where, like the title song from Cheers, everybody knows my name.

They’ve also managed to fill a cultural void. At Thanksgiving they fill the role of mom for the American community in Oslo: They host a Thanksgiving brunch, even taking requests for what dishes you’d like to see on the buffet table. As busy as Anthony was on that November day, with nearly a hundred people to cook for and serve, he remembered that my husband loves cornbread and made sure we had enough at our table.

As if all of this isn’t enough, Café Fedora has a magic mirror in their bathroom. No matter how many red velvet cupcakes you have, a quick visit to the loo and you can see a skinny version of yourself looking right back at you.

Why the fuck did you move to Norway?

Reblogged from Loveinthetimeoffacebookyeah's Blog:

Why did you come to Norway?

Is asked again and again every time I encounter any Norwegian for the first time.  An understandable question (If a little tedious to answer repeatedly) and a natural choice to begin conversation with someone who you discover is non Norwegian.  The trouble is that it is always asked with a confused uncomprehending frown; like a cat trying to do algebra.

Read more… 1,822 more words

Dear Edge of the Arctic readers, I'm not reblogging this because I'm too lazy to write this week - this is an great post that picks apart some of the myths about living in Norway. Enjoy!

A driving lesson in northern Italy

Sitting in a car is a novelty for my almost three-year-old son. We’ve neatly avoided the hassle of having one since we left London by living right smack in the center of Oslo, a city with well-organized public transport. So when we do rent a car my son gets incredibly excited, and so do my husband and I for that matter.

Driving has been out of our daily routine for so long now that I’ve forgotten about paying attention to road signs and traffic and thinking about where to park. Being from the heart of the Midwest in the US – where cars haven’t left any space for sidewalks – it’s strange that I find sitting in a car so foreign. A few days with a car during a vacation Italy taught me that I don’t even know how to properly prepare for a car trip anymore.

The three of us spent Easter in northern Italy where we rented a car for a few days. After we picked up our silver Fiat from Milan airport and strapped our kid into his big-boy car seat, we hit the road for an hour-long drive to Lake Como. Our maps were handy and toll money was counted out, but we hadn’t been driving for more than five minutes when the car started beeping.

“He’s opened the door!” my husband said from the driver’s seat. Our incredibly curious little boy was playing with the door handle and although it wasn’t completely open, a little nudge and we’d be some serious in danger.

We forgot to lock the doors.

Completely panic-stricken I clambered into the backseat while my husband pulled off into a nearby gas station. We figured merely locking the doors wasn’t enough and I ran out to ask the one of the workers how to activate the child lock in our rented car, but the man didn’t speak any English.

Here’s where things got even more confusing. My heart was already pounding with anxiety over the danger we had narrowly avoided and for some reason, hearing the man stutter as he tried to communicate with me, I switched from speaking English to Norwegian. I cradled my arms while I told the guy in patchy language that I have a child who opened the car door and I need to lock it. My vocabulary in Norwegian isn’t quite that extensive so I was just saying about four words really loudly to him. I might have thrown in the word “bambino” in there, although I can’t remember.

It’s strange what living in a foreign country can do to you. My American accent prevails but my habits are becoming more and more European, at least as far as transport is concerned. And now I find myself between languages, too.

Besides the slightly bumpy start, the rest of our vacation was fabulous. In six days we used nearly every mode of transport: plane, car, boat, train and tram. We even drove into Switzerland for a day where we explored the twists and turns of the alleys in the town of Gandria, built right by Lake Como. It was in Gandria that we got the best view of the Lake.

After a relaxing few days driving around Lake Como we returned our car and went back to the comfort of public transport, this time in Milan. The city’s history tracing back to the Roman empire is evident at every turn, particularly at the grand Porta Sempione, which is among many Roman structures still in tact.

Sticking to the tradition of many European cities, Milan offers tourists a brilliant contrast of modernity and history. Not long after shopping in a chic department store, we stumbled on what is probably the oldest building I’ve ever seen: Basilica di Sant’Ambrogio, built in 379 AD.

One evening, just before dinner, we were wandering around just outside our hotel and realized that we were standing in front of Santa Maria delle Grazie, a former convent in which Leonardo daVinci’s infamous mural, The Last Supper, was painted. The piece was moved after the building was bombed during World War II but the building displays a lot of the artists sketches and paintings.

 

A community of ‘love refugees’

There are a lot of ‘love refugees’ in Norway.

When I meet other expat couples, particularly trailing spouses like myself, we usually ask eachother how we ended up in Norway. It always comes down to one thing: our partners. They are either Norwegian (who are great at falling in love overseas) or our partners aren’t natives but followed their careers here, bringing their families in tow.

There is an immediate camaraderie among expats. In leaving our comfort zones to see the world, we’ve all done something very brave.

Moving to Norway was a big decision for my husband and I. The opportunity popped up out of nowhere and it took a lot of research before we could make an informed decision to move to a place that we hadn’t even considered as a vacation spot.

Once you’ve landed overseas, the strength of your relationship is put to the test and you find that you have to rely on eachother in ways that other couples don’t.

Autumn of 2011 was a tumultuous time for us. With each step that brought us closer to a life in Norway – putting our London flat on the rental market or giving notice at work – we wondered if we were making the right choice. If one of us became overwhelmed about what was ahead, the other would toughen up for the leap of faith that was taking us to Oslo.

One could say that it was faith in Norway that brought us here. Before we moved, we had a five-day reconnaissance trip during which we had to learn everything we could about the local lifestyle before the decision was official. We realized that there was no way to know whether it was going to work out unless we gave it a try, so that’s what we did.

That leap of faith was one that my husband and I also took in eachother. Although we factored quality of life and cost of living into our decision to leave a comfortable home in Britain, a big part of that decision was whether we, as a couple, could make this expat adventure a success.

When you move abroad with your partner, both of you are stripped of your network of family and friends and the safety of familiar surroundings. Once you’ve landed overseas, the strength of your relationship is put to the test and you find that you have to rely on eachother in ways that other couples don’t. Since moving to Norway, my husband is all I’ve got. When I had sinusitis last fall, we couldn’t count on my mom to come by with a big pot of food to help us get through the week. And when my husband was working 80-hour weeks last spring, I couldn’t pass the time by dropping by my brothers’ place to hang out with my nephews and gossip with my sister-in-law. All of those people are 4,109 miles away.

So while I’m in Oslo, my husband fills all of those roles for me. He plays Super Mario Brothers with me when I miss my nephews, and I in turn indulge him by watching the Batman movies for the third time around because he can’t watch them with his brother.

But if we’re all of the sudden getting on eachother’s nerves (like all healthy couples should, every so often), there’s really no escape. If one of us tried to get some space, the other would be left in the lurch, so we don’t do this often.

It’s this precise aspect of expathood that people who are still in their comfort zones, surrounded by their usual support network, can’t understand. It’s the reason my husband and I don’t answer the phone when we’re watching a movie or exploring the rest of Europe, or when one of us is just having a bad day.

Only our fellow expats truly understand what it’s like to live in Norway, far from everything familiar (and warm). From this camaraderie a wonderful little community of has emerged. Newcomers seek the wisdom of those who came before them. Those of us who have lived here awhile are finally able to ‘pay it forward’ and help those that are fresh off the boat. And then there are expats who have been here for 10, 15 or even 20 years. These are our north stars.

I’ve been in Oslo 16 months and I feel that I’m at a turning point. Without realizing it I’ve become a part of a community and have even been able to offer guidance to a few new arrivals. The most important advice isn’t anything I tell them, it’s simply that I’m still here and enjoying every day of it.

It’s time to put my heart in my new home

Exhausted after two flights from the US to Norway, when I saw the bustling streets of my neighborhood for the first time in over a month, an unexpected feeling hit me: I was happy.

The small tinge of excitement to be back in Oslo nearly knocked me off my feet. My goodbyes in the US were still gut-wrenchingly raw. When I left my parents at the airport and crossed security I actually had to talk myself out of running back to them. Yet here I was, a few hours later, giddy to be back in Norway. Even though the streets were icy and unwelcoming, the brightness of the sun that afternoon seemed to know about the exciting spring I had ahead of me.

Maybe Oslo is home, after all.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what “home” means. I instinctively refer to the US as my home, but that’s not true. Oslo, where my husband, son and I live and work and play, is my home. It’s where I’m happy and it’s where I can see the future – at least the next few years. Yet when I tell people I’m heading to the US, I say that I’m going back to the States.

America becoming home for my parents is proof that the US is truly a melting pot.

Part of the reason is that my husband and I eventually plan to settle in the US. It’s where I started and it’s where I want to end up, although I’m not ready to go back just yet. Oops! There’s that word again, back. And another interesting one, settle. That’s the crux of it for me – I haven’t really let myself settled in Oslo.

It’s hard to settle in a place that is so incredibly foreign. London quickly became home partly because we bought a flat, but also because before moving there the UK was already part of my family history. I grew up hearing about my parents’ trips to Oxford Street and Kew Gardens from when they lived in England in the ‘70s. Then there was the time I went to Buckingham Palace with my mom when I was in second grade, and several years later to the Sherlock Holmes Museum on Baker Street with my dad before I spent a semester studying at Cambridge University.

On the other hand, I barely knew where to find Oslo on a map before I moved here. None of the train station names or historical figures mean anything to me. Trying to make this place home has been a very different journey.

I asked my mom, a serial expat, what the meaning of home was to her. She was born in India, lived in Pakistan for a few years, hopped over to England for awhile and then settled down in Ohio, where she’s been for nearly 40 years.

So where does my mom consider to be home? America. And it didn’t take long for her to feel at home there. Culturally she identifies the most with Pakistan, which is strange since she spent the least amount of time there. And although she thinks about her five years in England fondly she said it never felt like home because of the divide between the born-and-bred Britishers and immigrants at that time. But the US, she noted, is a country of immigrants. It becoming home for my parents is proof that the US is truly a melting pot. American food, culture, traditions and even language is all borrowed, so my parents’ migration to the Midwest wasn’t an intrusion but instead a welcome addition to the melting pot.

So where does that leave me? Maybe I just need to see where my journey to make Oslo home takes me.

An alien at the grocery store

I love how innately friendly Americans are. Our ability to make a complete stranger feel like a long lost pal is our most well-known trait. Ask a foreigner to describe the average American and the first thing they’ll say is “friendly.”

The first American I encountered as a I left Scandinavia a few weeks back confirmed this, although he also made me realize how much I’ve changed. As I settled in on the plane, preparing for the eight-and-a-half hour flight, the man across the aisle addressed me. Over the din of the airplane engine I wasn’t sure what he said but my immediate reaction was to become defensive: “Don’t worry, my son is really well-behaved on airplanes.” I hadn’t been in Europe long before I realized that striking up a conversation with a complete stranger is uncommon and typically done when asking someone to get out of your way or to tell your child to, well, stop behaving like a child. That’s why I was surprised when the man continued the conversation but as soon as I heard his American accent I softened up – and rightly so. It turns out that Dave (for, of course, proper introductions followed) was simply commenting that since my husband, son and I had four empty seats all to ourselves, perhaps we might get some sleep. How kind of him to say so.

By the time the stewardess was serving dinner I had gotten my groove back. I learned that Dave was from Connecticut where he has a wife and three kids, and that he had been traveling overseas for work. I shared a bit about myself and by the time we were in the immigration line at Dulles Airport, I had talked him into reading a Benjamin Franklin biography.

In a strange way I’ve become an observer of American life.

Our journey home was smooth. As the plane descended and the pilot made his final announcements in Norwegian (before switching to English), I breathed a little sigh of relief that for the next few weeks I would understand all of the words I heard around me.

My first few days home were a blur. Jet lag takes a longer to overcome when you have a toddler so I was awake at odd hours and hungry at all the wrong times. But I didn’t care. My brother-in-law had stocked up on my favorite American comfort foods and even though on the first night my son woke me up at 3am for breakfast, I couldn’t have been happier watching him hungrily stuff Eggo Waffles in his mouth.

The next day a quick trip to the grocery store made me realize exactly how much my day-to-day habits have changed. Sitting in a car felt strange and boring. We don’t have a car in Norway, nor do we need one. Oslo, like most European cities, is built so that you can walk or hop on a train to get just about everywhere.

Walking up and down the grocery store aisles I suddenly felt a pang of jealousy of how much is available in the US, while I am sitting up at the North Pole fantasizing about ready-made rice pudding pots and buying pancake mix at a regular grocery store (rather than at an expensive specialty shop in Oslo). The sheer volume and variety was, for the very first time, overwhelming. I spent 10 minutes examining the yogurt shelf only to come home without any because I couldn’t figure out which one I wanted.

Trying to locate the right kind of yogurt is like trying to find Waldo.

A simple exchange at the cash register suddenly felt complicated. In Norway, sales tax is built into the advertised price of an item, allowing you to have exact change ready to hand over. But in the US the measly 6 or 7% tax is factored in at the register, which put extra pressure on my already pathetic math skills as I count pennies and nickles, which are inevitably mixed in with various European currencies no matter how hard I try to keep them separate. I keep getting flustered and just hand the cashier a large bill and then end up with more useless change than I started with.

Even the reason why I am determined to use change is European. Coins come in large denominations there which means a palmful of coppers can add up to the price of a meal.

In a strange way I’ve become an observer of American life. When I visit I notice trivial, humdrum things that I took for granted and wonder when they will once again be part of my routine. I find that with each trip home my yearning to move back to America is slowly increasing while my sense for adventure is gradually lessening. (Extra emphasis on the words “slowly” and “gradually.”)

I think my burgeoning desire to be back in the US largely has to do with a need for familiarity. When I moved from England to Norway I went further from America geographically and culturally. Living in a consumerist society where TV ads include commercials for antidepressants and eating fruits and vegetables that have been pumped with so many chemicals that they are three times the size than they’re supposed to be is what I consider “normal.” This version of normal is what I have sorely missed and plan to enjoy while I’m on vacation.

A giant American onion.