A Taste of Norway...uncensored

       I have traveled to a few countries, experienced the different cultures and I know that if you don’t try the food, you don’t get the full experience.  Of course there are many other aspects to fully embracing other cultures – trying to learn the language, using the money, not following the tourist swarm, taking off the fannypacks, etc, etc– but tasting every different bit of food possible has always been one of my top priorities when traveling.  I never want to leave a country and wonder what a dish or a drink that I saw tasted like.  Marrying a Norwegian woman has definitely ensured that I wont be a tourist in Norway for long, but I want to keep up my practices of embracing the culture so that all of my friends and family back in Cali can have a taste of Norway.  So, I decided to commit an entire blog entry to Norwegian food, from my adventurous perspective. 

I have been wanting to write about the food here for sometime now, coincidentally Bergen’s annual food festival and monthly farmer’s market offered many new experiences for my taste buds this weekend.  

I remember talking to Benedicte on Skype while I was still in America.  My cousin was leaving the house to go get a breakfast burrito before school at Orcutt Burger, it was a completely natural commodity for him, but Benedicte’s response was “Only in America can you afford to do that!”  A quick cheap bite to eat isn’t as accessible here.  Of coars, McDonald’s has infested Norway with its cheap fattening food as with the rest of the world, but other than that, going out to get something to eat several times a week isn’t practical.  

I enjoy hamburgers, as do most Americans.  In Norway the tastiest ones are sold at gas stations.  I know, my first thought of a gas station burger was leaning toward the unappetizing side also.  I thought that they would be worse than fast food because gas stations usually sell other inedible things, like oil, gas or nachos.  However, besides being rather expensive, about $16 US, I do enjoy them.  They are made when ordered and fresh vegetables are used.  They aren’t as fresh as In-N-Out, but they don’t feel like ten pounds of grease in your stomach afterwards either.  They come with the usual; lettuce, tomato, onion, cheese, but also with two extras: “hamburger dressing” – similar to our thousand island dressing but not so overpowering – and “sweet corn” – which is just canned yellow corn to me.  

While you have that peculiar sweet corn on your mind because its an odd addition to burgers, imagine it on your pizza or tacos as well.  I have been here for a few months now and eaten Tacos for dinner several times, so it seems more normal to me to have bright yellow corn my tacos.  But the first time I had heard of it I remember having Benedicte repeat herself when she told me that it was one of the most important ingredients for her in tacos.  

Taco (tacos for dinner)

Before I go any further about Norwegian tacos (or taco as they call it) I want to make the point clear that I LIKE them very much.  I don’t mean to sound like a hater when I say they that they seem slightly manufactured.  In America, kids often get little plastic mock kitchen sets as toys.  They have a plastic sink and microwave and countertop.  They also come with an assortment of perfectly decorated plastic food items – banana, chicken leg, piece of pizza.  I remember I saw a plastic taco in one of them as a kid, and I cannot help to think of that every time we have Norwegian tacos.  It cracks me up.  They are colorful with brown seasoned meat, red bell pepper, yellow corn, white sour cream, green lettuce, tomato, white cheese and cucumber, each having its own specified spot on the table and seemingly in your taco as well.  The “soft tacos” look more like rolled burritos, but cannot be because I haven’t laid eyes on refried beans since I have been here; while the crunchy tacos look like TacoBell tacos in their rather bright yellow pre-shaped, stacked and packaged shells.  They good and are satisfying to eat, but they taste like a white person made them compared to what I am used to coming from Southern California.  

What I think is so funny, is that all the packaged taco stuff – seasoning, shells, tortillas and guacamole – is produced by a company called Santa Maria (for those of you who don’t know, my home city in California is named Santa Maria).  Apparently my city produces many taco necessities along with any type of spice you may ever need in cooking.  

Frokost (breakfast)

Bread and butter then you choose what you’d like on top.  I don’t know if it’s just a Foldnes style breakfast, but the table is scattered with different types of toppings; cheeses, spreads, boiled eggs if it’s saturday, mayo in a tube, jams, salami.  Warm breakfast is almost unheard of, unless it’s a special day and pancakes are served.  But erase the image you have in your mind of thick fluffy IHOP style pancakes.  These ones are more like my Uncle Tony’s pancakes when he uses buttermilk instead of regular milk and they come out thin and moist.  Maple syrup is one of the many internationally adopted foods that isn’t used seriously, so the pancakes are served with butter and sprinkled sugar – or with sour cream and jam like I had at the food festival.  I had a small surprise when I thought I was putting whipped cream on my pancake then bit into sour cream.  I miss my HappyStack at IHOP but I also enjoy Norwegian pancakes very much.  

And basically the same things that are eaten for breakfast are also eaten for lunch.

Middag (dinner)

Dinner is when the heat gets turned up.  And its usually meat and potatoes.  Now, there is no use in discussing all the regular modern things that Norwegians eat for dinner like pasta or pizza – it’s the same as in America.  But, what is interesting are the dishes that have been around for hundreds of years, like Raspeballer.  

The closest thing to raspeballer in America that I can think of is dumplings, but baseball sized, made from potatoes and flour and other unknown substances.  They get cooked in an oven cake pan with turnip pieces and carrots and come out with a soupy liquid around them just like dumplings.  Salted and boiled lambs meat is traditionally eaten with them, which is close tasting to corned beef in texture, color and taste.  I think this may just be another Foldnes thing, but we always have sliced sausage and sliced bacon pieces as well.

  Kjøttkaker is another tradition dinner meal that gave me a good laugh the first time I came to Norway.  Literally it is meat cakes but pronounced it is (and excuse my language but you have to know) shit caca.  It definitely doesn’t taste like the second one!  They look like dark brown meatballs served with a same colored gravy.  And I repeat, it definitely tastes like meat and not the other thing.  Apparently they are made with ground beef and flour.  My wife wont eat anyone else Raspeballer or Kjøttkaker except her fathers because, and I quote her, “no one else’s comes close to my dad’s”.  He is a phenomenal cook that spoils us everytime we come back to Bergen.  Looks like I have a lot of learning to do when it comes to the Norwegian kitchen!

I don’t have a favorite Norwegian meal, I have three!  And the third is a white rice porridge called Grøtt.  When Benedicte was growing up, they had it every saturday for dinner.  It’s more like something I would eat for breakfast back home.  Once you’ve slopped a bunch into your bowl, you scoop on some butter and sprinkle on some cinnamon, sugar and raisins.  Apparently it looked “disgusting” when I mix it all together, so I quickly learned how Foldnes people do it by slowly eating a moat around the center puddle of melted butter.  And only to dip each bite into the butter and not let the butter run everywhere.  To me, all that matters is that it makes it way to my screaming stomach.  

Oh, and I cannot forget to mention the fun tradition of the grøtt dinner every Christmas Eve.  One almond is hidden in the pot of grøtt and whoever gets it get a surprise; usually a little pig shaped marzipan treat in Christmas packaging.  Once again, I don’t know if it is a Foldnes thing, but it will be a Betancourt thing for our kids!

Drikker (drinks)

Even though Norway is the number one coffee consuming nation per capita in the world, I can’t help but be unsatisfied with their coffee.  It just doesn’t compare to Starbucks back home.  Even the only Starbucks in the country, which is an expensive 179,- kroner flight-train ride away, doesn’t taste quite like American Starbucks.  I used to not drink coffee after 12 or 1 or sometime in the afternoon, but after being here with Benny for two weeks back in March, I now drink it all the way into the dark of the night.  She is happy to have “converted me”.  

Soda is also a sorry subject for me.  The most popular one and my wifes favorite is Pepsi Max.  I have never tasted Pepsi Max back in the States, so I can’t say if it tastes the same, but I can say it tastes like a typical sugar substituted soda.  Of coarse they have Coca-cola, and even though it has a slighly different taste, I enjoy it.  There are two particular sodas that are interesting enough to mention, but sadly they both taste like...well I’ll let you do the judging.

The first is a red “Christmas soda” they everyone is crazy about during Christmas time.  Apparently they keep selling it a little further past Christmas time each year, but that doesn’t make me like it any more.  Back home we have a store called Food Maxx.  It’s a giant grocery store that sells almost anything edible.  They sell the best name brand quality, a kind of middle quality and then a crappy quality (I think worse than Firstprice here in Norway).  They used to have a soda called Big Red and it tasted like old expired candy in liquid form.  And I am sorry to all the Norwegians reading this, but that is what your Christmas soda tastes like to me.  However, along with all the other important Norwegian stuff I don’t like to eat or drink, I am going to keep drinking Christmas Soda until I like it.

The other soda is Hansa’s Champion Brus.  I remember when I was 4 or 5 years old, we had a pink child’s medicine in the fridge that was bubble gum flavored.  I liked it’s sweet taste so much that I used to sneak in and drink it straight from the bottle.  Now when I think about it, it must have tasted awful to any normal adult.  If Champion Brus was pink instead of gold, I would think I was 5 again.

This is fiskekake, like kjøttkake but made with fish instead of beef.

This is regular grøtt.  With and without the toppings.

This is sour cream grøtt (rømme grøtt).  It was at the food festival.  I saw it and was weirded out by all the butter, Mamsen saw my face when I saw it and got some comic relief.

This was a delicious homemade tomato soup that a friend made for our small group.  Just wanted to point out how Norwegians eat eggs in unusual ways – cold scrambled eggs, or in soup, or with a spoon.  But I guess the idea of  boiling them, painting them and hiding them in the yard for your children is odd too.  

Im sure they sell this somewhere in America as whale.  It tasted like smoked salmon, just not as strong.

See, Norwegians eat regular food too.  This is my wife's favorite, and I have say probably the best steak I have ever had.  

Mamsen's plum-milk dessert; infamous to my wife and brother-in-law, delicious to me.

This is what I know a Norwegian breakfast looks like.

Brown Cheese.   The one on the right is the common one that many Norwegians have asked me if I like it, and I do.  It is the one I brought home last time for some of my family to try.  The one of the left is geitost (goat cheese).  My in-laws bought some at the festival for me to try.  It's so strong that I feel like my taste buds are being punched in the mouth when I eat it.  I guess its taste accompanies its price at 175.- NOK.

Raspeballer!

Santa Maria style, only Norway doesn't have Tri-tip.

Warning! The next three pictures may be disturbing to some, if young children are reading, you may want to turn their eyes. ;)

At the food festival, we saw a sign that said Smalahovetunet.  My Norwegian isn't that good, so when Mamsen wanted to play a joke on me and ask me if I wanted some, all along knowing that I will try just about anything, I said sure why not...

My Norwegian isn't that good yet.  I walked over the the stand and peered into the wooden barrel to see what Smalahovetunet was exactly....












Goat heads!
Dried and salted goat heads!

The tongue is supposed to be the delicacy of the head.  I tasted a little piece like the one on the edge of the table from behind the jaw.  It wasn't as scary as you think.  

So, now you have a little idea of what Norway tastes like and what I think of it all...

Thanks for reading :) 

Bergen til Oslo

Foldnes Summer Adventure

This was a charming summer for me on little island of Foldnes.  I got to stay at my in-laws peaceful vacation-like home with my beautiful new bride (she takes my breath away) and experience so many new things.  Being out on Arvid’s rowboat in the sea has been my favorite adventure, whether it was by myself or him or another companion.  The dark cold nordic water is new to me, and much of what was in it too.  The “brennemanet” had my interest all almost all summer!  The word literally means “burn magnet”.  The red cereal bowl sized jellies apparently burn for a few hours when they slide across your skin.  In the beginning of July I saw one or two.  I was fascinated by one when it came within a foot of the front yard dock.  I had never been able to see any jellyfish so close and in such detail.  My interest only grew as the number of them did.  By the end of July I could see one every few meters as I was out rowing in the boat.  To me, there were incredible amounts in the water, but that was only until a family member (Even) told me that one year there were ten times the amount.  He said you couldn’t jump off the dock without touching fifteen of them!  All summer, my curious daring heart and I so badly wanted to touch one with my arm just to see what it felt like.  But I never mustered up to nerve to do so.  Its just a matter of time and eventually I will accidentally be stung by one, so I’ll just let nature run its course.  Maybe next summer ;)

Blåbær (blueberries)

I think maybe I am nearly an avid blueberry harvester.  I have been picking the healthy little blue treats a liter at a time.  It takes me about an hour to get a liter and paints all ten of my fingers purplish blue for the rest of the day.  Mamsen taught me the Norwegian way of smashing them up with a load of sugar.  Eating them with thin Norwegain pancakes or vanilla ice cream is popular here, but I like the bluen slurry best just straight with a spoon.  One three-day period in July I ate nearly a liter a day by myself. mmm 

Klippe Plenen (mowing the lawn) 

The house has a nice big front yard, and thanks to Papsen’s summer hobby of maintaining it, it always looks beautiful.  I was eager to help out and mow the lawn while he and Mamsen were away on vacation.  Turns out that it’s also another activity that takes an hour to complete.  In America it takes maybe 15 minutes to mow the fenced in square suburb lawns that I am used to.  Here on the outskirts of the city, its like mowing a big meadow in the forest.  The yard is so full of hills, trees and rock-lined flowerbeds that you feel like you are making funny patterns with the lawn mower.  One minute you are mocking the shape of Mickey’s head and the next you’re mowing by the “beach”.  In America, you mow around the boarder once then keep the same back and forth direction the entire time.  Here, you could mow the same lawn your entire adult life, and never have the exact same patten.

Kjører Bilen (driving the car)

I have been driving too.  I remember being away in Aussie and Indo for six months; driving was one of the things I missed most.  Mamsen and Papsen have so gracefully allowed me to drive their car on account that I am legally allowed to drive as a tourist for a few months before I have to get my Norwegian license.  I eventually want to do that; maybe when the visa comes through and I can start working.  Norwegians drive manual transmissions.  Here, you learn on a manual and you stay with manuals, very unlike Americans.  From what I have seen, there seems to be fewer automatics in Norway than Manuals in America.  In America it’s typically guys who think they are race car drivers who have manuals – I say that because I am one of them.  I don’t know a single lady back home who has one.  That is why my wife impresses me so much when she drives; a pretty little lady operating a clutch and gears.  Its so foreign to me.  

I like learning to drive the Norwegian roads and learn their rules.  The roads are windy and narrow with few sidewalks.  The surrounding rocky terrain decides the path of the roads.  Its very unlike the broad streets of America that follow a strict square neighborhood pattern.  Here only high trafficked roads have a center dividing line.  Many times on the neighborhood roads does one car have to pullover and allow another one to pass because they both cannot fit.   Rarely do you stop at a green.yellow.red intersection, and when you do, its for half the time and half the size of american intersections.  The highway drive from Sotra to Bergen consists mostly of an 80 speed limit, but thats in kilometers.  Converting to miles, this very typical Norwegian speed is only 49 mph, so my leadfoot has lost some of its weight.  

Tunneler (tunnels)

This west side of Norway has tunnels like America has McDonald’s.  Just to get to the city from Sotra you have to go through four or five of them.  Back home, the nearest and only tunnel I know of is almost an hour away, and its maybe 200 meters.  We drove through “Lædrals tunnelen” on our way to and from Oslo.  At 24.5 km it is the worlds longest road tunnel.  Its so long that it has tourist attractions in it.  As you drive through, on three evenly spaced occasions, you come across a spot that looks like you are inside a giant igloo.  The expanded sections are domed shaped and lit up with blue and orange lights.  Their purpose is to cause the drivers to feel as though they are exiting one tunnel and entering another, to prevent claustrophobia or other complications that come with driving under ground for so long.  My wife rolls her eyes when she sees typical foreigners taking pictures in her country.  It’s because she is so well traveled in the world, but I just had to get out and be a picture snapping tourist for the moment.  I had never thought of this, but it seems obvious that sound cannot escape quickly in long tunnels.  Which means the noise level is greatly intensified.  Even just a little car driving by sounded like a train.  Mamsen and I were posing for a picture when a semi-truck driver passing by thought it would be comical to belch his horn at us ‘tourists’.  The sound was so incredibly loud and startling, like a whale blowing its blowhole directly into your ear.  I think we both smacked the top of our heads on the tunnel from jumping so high.  

Benedicte and I drove to Stavanger in late July, another big city in southern Norway.  We both got to drive in the three underwater tunnels.  A six percent grade down and seven percent up.  The musty dark tunnels were the farthest I have ever been underground.  In the long tunnels, every kilometer there is a sign posted to show you how far you have come and how far to the end.  Of coarse because I am the foreigner I have to learn what these signs mean on my own.  There is an up arrow with one number under it, then another number and a down arrow.  The first time I saw one of these signs was in an underwater tunnel.  The entire weekend I was trying to figure out how the heck we were seven kilometers underground!  Not until the drive to Oslo through one of the  really long tunnels did I figure our what the sign actually meant. 

Out to eat at her favorite Tai food restaurant; JAJA's.

This is the newly built Opera House in Oslo.  The slanted surface reaches from the roof all the way down to the water.

Thought this was cool, my girl and her smile with a Ferrari in the back ground.  In Oslo.

Wife and Mamsen outside Oslo, City Hall building.

This is the Nobel Peace Prize building in Oslo.  And that is a fact I had to have pointed out to me.

Mamsen and me relaxing in the sun.

I miss american tasting peanut butter.  This tastes like the real stuff, but at 71 kroner, its $11.80 US.

This is a blacksmith house.  Notice the grass growing on the roof, its very Norwegian for cabins and other small buildings.

Just had to add some of the beautiful scenery; this one was in the backyard of one of Benedicte's friends house. 

Playing Chicken on the diving board; she would have not been happy had I let go.

My beautiful wife in downtown Stavanger.

This was a pretty street I was impressed by in Stavanger.  

One view on our way to Stavanger.

My wife got a new iPhone app that must have been developed just for her.

My mother-in-laws favorite treat; "soft is" or soft ice cream.

Mamsen and me in view of the beautiful scenery.

This picture is one of my favorites; in the tunnel, just after the truck driver blew his horn at us tourists.

mmmm

Summer here was paradise.

Læring Norsk (learning Norwegian)

Im still slowly learning Norwegian everyday.  Benedicte and I both have plans of me taking a Norwegian course eventually, but with the visa not yet complete and a possibility of the government giving us free enrollment afterwards, we haven’t done so.  I have had a few Norwegians ask me what I think about the language when I hear it.  I can best describe it as short, choppy words that constantly rise and fall in tone.  Remember when you were a kid and your dad would put you on his back and let you ride him like a horse?  And how you would exaggerate your words every time he bucked you up?  That’s what it reminds me of.  However, I think it’s not so foreign to me anymore because I am beginning to recognize several words when I listen people speak.  That is encouraging to me, because I so badly want to be able to speak the language.  I have a little pocket dictionary that I constantly look up words in.  I’m finding that I learn a word best when I need it in practical moments, then look it up, then use it.  But even then, it usually takes three or four times of that before the word sticks in my vocabulary.

I used to think people who are bilingual have a little imaginary switch in their mind that they flip to speak the other language, but I’m starting to decide otherwise.  Even though I am just barely speaking a few basic sentences in Norwegian, all my words seem to blend together.  I chuckle at myself sometimes when I try to say something in Norwegian and something from my very concise Spanish vocabulary pops out.  The three languages that I know any of are all jumbled together in my mind.  

I’m very attentive when Norwegians speak English because it gives me some insight on how to structure sentences in Norwegian.  Sometimes these sentences are grammatically incorrect, but the point comes across just fine.  I listen and practice this everyday, but what I am noticing is that I now sometimes use these sentences even when I speak English.  I think because I’m not around many native English speakers, I begin to not hear the incorrectness so much.  For example, just yesterday I caught myself saying “I not need milk”.  Directly translated from Norwegian that is correct, but in English I know better.  

That is my experience thus far with speaking Norwegian.  To all of my American friends and family who periodically use online translators to say something to me in Norwegian, thank you, its making me feel loved and missed!  A few people, both American and Norwegian, have told me that they like the blog.  I hope that it gives you a small taste of the adventure and experience that I am having.  I appreciate you reading it :)

Hardangerfjorden!

My wife and me at Hardangarfjorden.

Norway is known for its spectacular fjords.  Maybe you are like I was, before I had love for Benedicte or any interest in Norway at all, and don’t know what a fjord is.  They are river like inlets from the sea, often surrounded by cascading green mountains or little towns built into the hills.  They are usually a mix of saltwater from the northern Pacific Ocean and freshwater from melting snow in the mountains.  In some areas they are deep enough for cruise ships to tread in, but in others they are shallow enough to see the fish you try to catch.  The entire west coast of Noway is weaved with them due to the rocky mountainous terrain.  I would recommend going to Google Images and typing in “norway fjord”.  More than half of the pictures that will come up will be of the beautiful country, and it may help you get a better idea of what a fjord is.

I first learned of the fjords during my first visit here last December.  During my second visit here in March, my Mother-in-law bought me a very nice sweatshirt.  On the inside of the designer bag it came in was a beautiful picture of a fjord in Hardanger–a region in Norway know for its scenic beauty.  Thats when my fascination with Norway’s beauty began.  I took the bag home to California and posted it on my wall to remind me of the colorful country I so longed to be in with my girl.  I had only experienced the fjords in pictures and stories, so when my father-in-law told me that he was going to take my Bother-in-law and me on a three day hiking trip beginning in Hardangerfjorden, I didn’t know how to tell him thank you enough or how blessed I felt.  

We drove for two hours, crossed the fjord by a ferry, saw the construction of the  1,300+ meter long suspension bridge connecting the two sides of the fjord, and started our 7 hour hike to our cabin.  The scenery we saw on our hike was unlike any other I have ever seen.  We hiked 1,000 meters up through green forest, over rocks and boulders and along side of a raging cold river.  We saw massive waterfalls hundreds of feet tall, constantly roaring with power and constantly filling the air with a damp mist.  We got cramps.  We hiked up a very steep mountain side of solid rock so smoothed out by years of glacial pressure it was literally dangerous to come down when raining.  We would get to the top of one mountain and in exhaustion hope that the cabin would be just over the ridge, to only see more and more scenery and no cabin in sight.  Sometimes I felt like Frodo and Sam in Lord of the Rings on an exciting but seriously long extravaganza.  I experienced drinking true crisp mountain water from freshly melted snow, and no, Arrowhead Bottled Water doesn’t taste like what it says: “Bottled at the source”.  The water was so cold, that when I plunged my hand in it to fill up my drinking bottle, it began to ache before the bottle was full.

We finally got to the cabin and, oh, I slept so rock hard that night.  We fished all day the next day, but because the water was so cold, the fish refused to bite.  The cabin was located in the valley between two large mountains which the snowmelt river ran through.  It was so interesting to me to see such large mountains up close.  I looked at the mountains and down the valley between them, and thought that it was a push-over ten minute hike to the other side, but after an hour of hiking to the fishing hole, I realized how much more ground it was to cover. 

Benedicte and I have been doing quite a lot of hiking lately.  Just ten minutes drive from the house is a few mountains that are very popular to hike.  You can hike to the top where a big “golfball” is just like in Orcutt Hills, California, or you can hike around the local drinking water reservoir.  We go alone, or with her friends, or with her family.  Her mom took us on a hike around the water reservoir and kicked our butts.  Shouldn’t it be the other way around, the young newly weds waiting up for the mom?  Impressive Mamsen!

Learning Norwegian is coming along well.  Its exciting for me to be able learn a little bit more every day.  Its definitely work though, especially not being able to take an academic Norwegian class yet and having to learn it with my own initiative.  I never seriously thought about learning a language until.  Its not just memorizing words for vocabulary.  There is grammar, pronunciation and word choice.  In English we say “I put on my pants”, but in Norwegian they say “I take on my pants.”  Even if you say all the right words and even if you get the difficult pronunciation correct, the other person may not understand you just because you didn’t say something the way their culture says it.  Imagine if someone said that they want ice cream by saying “I will have ice cream.”  You eventually would figure out what they meant, but it would take a little processing.  When I actually try to communicate something serious with a Norwegian, in Norwegian, I feel like I am a little kid learning how to speak.  It makes me think, when about I was young learning English.  I don’t remember being this frustrated with all the specific sounds and having to get them correct.  In fact, I don’t even remember learning English.  

I appreciate now that I know how to say anything in English and can communicate clearly and precisely to any one what I want to say.  I realize that human beings have an amazing ability of having a complex idea then babbling off dozens and dozens of different sounds in a specific order in a very short amount of time to communicate.  The listener then hears the sounds, tones and lengths and can process the same or similar idea.  Its not until we hear a foreign language with unknown sounds, some that we didn’t even know we could make, do we realize how amazing the ability is.  That is my deep thought about learning a new language.

I’m enjoying being here in Norway.  I miss my friends and family back home too.  I’m greatly enjoying being in love and married to my best friend.  We are learning so much together–about ourselves and about each other.  Many people have told me over the years that marriage is work, that it takes effort to bring two individuals with independent lives together to make one life.  I’m finally living that, and its exciting.  I so thank you God for giving Benedicte and myself such clear communication skills with each other.  

There is a line of text in our Norwegian marriage license that stuck out to me when the priest read it before us.  It has been on my mind ever since.  I don’t know all about the “ins and outs” of marriage yet, but I do know that I am so happy to be learning with my best friend, the person who I love more than I knew I could love.  

“There is no contradiction between love and unity on the one hand, and freedom and autonomy on the other.”

A colorful neighborhood in Hardanger.

A nice view on a hike.

An ice cold lake in the mountains.

I pretty town in the mountains.

My attempt at photography by the fairy.

Hardanger

Hardanger suspension bridge.  Im interested in bridges.  This one will be 100m longer than the Golden Gate.

One of the several waterfalls on our 7 hour hike.

For some perspective of how big the waterfall is, look at the average size tree to the right of the mist.

On our hike.  The higher we climber, the more beautiful the scenery became.

This was on the smooth mountain side.  Probably the most cramp creating portion of the hike.

Jan Øyvind, me, and Papsen coming home from the cabin.

We saw this jellyfish in the sea in front of the house.  Literally in our front yard.

Photography by: Cecilie Foldnes