I am soooo full! :)

yeah, yeah, yeah... I know it's been awhile since I've updated. But today I actually have something to update about!!! Today was the first day of the Trondelag Food Festival. An event I have been waiting for FOREVER..... or, at least since I found out about it last month. And, been the foodie that I am, my days this weekend are completely planned around what's going on at the festival.
First things first - MAN, these people know how to throw a festival!! This thing is huge!! I spent close to 6 hours (ok, quit making fun of me now) there today and i didn't make it to all of the tents. Or even half of them. Every different little mini-area or town in Trondelag has their own tent or group of tents with their local specialties. Tons of local cheeses, breads, meats, and bright colored produce. I was mesmorized! Where do I start? Samples of everything everywhere! Of course I tried everything I could. I consider it my duty... I mean, i'm suppose to "discover the culture", right? And how do you do that without diving head first into the local food?
I tried a lot of cheeses.. brown geitost (goat milk cheese), Rimmel cheese, and something called Gubb cheese. I still don't know what exactly the Gubb cheese was, except that it was some type of goat cheese. It was a light marbled brown color, but not sweet like the common brown cheeses around here. Very dry, and unlike anything I've every tasted.
Right on the side of a tent some folks were roasting a whole pig. Ham is very, very popular around here, and you can find 20 different kinds of ham and pork chops in any local grocery store (but don't bet on finding a steak). Very cool to watch.
The other meats at the festival were mainly cured sausages of all types. Norway has so many different types of sausages with different names i've lost track of them all - and sometimes I can't even tell what kind of meat it actually is (which, of course, i'm pretty good at all the norwegian words for foods.). A Sami tent was selling reindeer meat and a whole series of tents was devoted to seafood. Huge fish were on display - several feet long, and clams and mullosks that were as big as my hands. I even broke my no fish policy and tried some smoked salmon and some chili spiced smoked salmon, which were both really good and surprisingly non-fishy.
For lunch (all that other stuff was just appetizers!), I bought something called rommegrot. When I asked the woman selling it exactly what she was stirring in her big cast iron pot, she looked at me and said, "It's Rommegrot!" um, okay.... I think that was the extent of her English. She did manage to tell me it was very traditional, so i thought, "what the heck!" and i gave it a try. I figured it must be good from the line of people waiting for their portion. So she dished me up a bowl of white porridgey looking stuff and directed me to put some melted butter and cinnamon sugar on it. Voila! A proper Norwegian treat.
Turns out all those people are dead wrong. Not that rommegrot is completely disgusting. But its like eating raw pancake batter. But it is apparently very popular with the locals, considering how many folks asked me where i had gotten my rommegrot from while i was sitting on the sidewalk eating it. Maybe it's something you have to grow up with, like grits or cincinnati chili.
I went to several presentations on different topics - Dairy farms in Old Norway, The many things you can do with Lefse bread, and a Beer and Cheese tasting. And no, my Norwegian has not progressed to the fact that I can understand a word of what the presenters were saying. But I figured I may learn something anyway, and there was interesting food involved at the very least. Little did I know that the MC at the lefse presentation was going to bring the mike around to audience to ask them their opinions of each lefse dish we sampled. Yikes! I was trying to blend in , but for the sake of pictures, of course I sat right up front.. I went with the "If my mouth is full and I don't make eye contact he can't talk to me" approach. Things I may have very cautiously tasted went right down the hatch. (A girl's gotta save face.:) ) By the beer and cheese tasting, wayne and I were much more seasoned at "blending in"... we sat in the back and watched what our neighbors ate first and followed suit.
So out of all of the fabulous food i encountered today, what do I choose to bring home and savor? Oddly enough, Butter. Goat butter. But seriously, this is amazing butter. really. Stop laughing at me. stop it!! now!!
And after a very full day of sampling, I can honestly say that I don't think I could eat another bite. Until tomorrow, when i go back for more...:)

Harry Potter and Jordbaer

Wayne and i went last night to see the new harry potter movie. we've had our tickets for two weeks. but we're not obsessed or anything. :)

I've decided i LOVE the theaters here. Why did we wait so long to go see a movie?? The screens are about three times as big. About as big as the 3d half a room sized screens. The aisles are big enough that no one has to get up for you to get to your seat in the middle of the row, and everyone - even you over 6 foot guys out there - has plenty of leg room. The chairs are like a cross between business desk and laz-e boy. comfy!! And the big ta-da... you don't just walk up to a counter and get your popcorn. You walk into a virtual stand alone candy store.. with every type of candy you can think of, and stuff i'd never heard of... two rows of shakers with different toppings for your popcorn... lots of folks around us had jumbo boxes of these things i can only refer to as "bacon snacks"... they looked crunchy like corn chips, but the color of bacon... I never really figured out exactly what it was. Anyway, we had learned on the Mack brewery tour in Tromso that Norway is one of the largest consumers of white sugar.. and after being in that candy store, i believe it.

After the movie, we decide to really splurge and go out for pizza and (a) beer. Which brings me to my next observation of norwegian culture, the "hands off" rule. (everyone, get your minds out of the gutter, i'm talking about food. as usual.) there is no such thing as the "finger food" here. Hamburgers are eaten with a knife and fork. (Doesn't that negate the purpose of the bread? why not just eat a meat patty then?) A basket of fries? don't even think about it. ham sandwich? better have your silverware handy. pizza? yup, you got it. Nachos, even. Wayne went for the "while in rome, do as the romans" approach, but I'm guessing i got a lot of "gross! look at the barbarian american" looks, cause i stuck with the tried and true "just-pick-up-your-slice-of-pizza-and-shove-it-in" method. Not very pretty, but way more efficient. :)

Another thing to love, though... Norwegian strawberries are FINALLY in!!! we've been suffering (!!) the last month looking at the little, tiny, moldy, rotting strawberries in the stores and wondering if this could possibly be the amazing strawberries we had been told about. I finally just figured that the norwegians who told us those tales must have a whole lot of national pride in just about anything ("norwegian sewers are the BEST!!"). Finally, last week, the farmers in the center of town showed up with huge, beautiful, sweet, red, ripe strawberries. Strawberries so awesome they even warranted a special sign - "From Lagnaes!!" (apparently that means something important?? the garden of eden for strawberries?) So, so so so gooooood. So good the little box we bought didnt make it the 15 minute walk home. And we had to go back and buy more. And more. these things are like crack, people. Seriously, we've gone through a pint a day this week.

Cheers! :) (Wayne enjoying the local jordbaer)

adendum

so this is an adendum to my previous post.

i love my husband. i really do. because of him, i am un-funk-de-fied. (i'm sure it is in his best interest to do this, cause when i'm in a funk, i'm sure he's not happy either).

he bought me a sil-pat today. and chocolate chips. and brown sugar.

ahhhhhhhh..... i am baking........ chocolate chip coookies......

i am a happy girl.

Funk

I am officially in a funk. I am tired of sitting around everyday, anxiously awaiting the next post on facebook. I am tired of having really nothing to do besides run, and clean house, and grocery shop. I am tired of the house-wifey thing. I am tired of eating pasta, because it's quick and easy and cheap and we only have 1 cooking dish in this whacked out kitchen.
And before you say it - yes, i can hear all of you already - "how can she possibly be bored in norway??!!!" Let me remind of the costs of things in norway. the $30 beer generally keeps us away from the bars. the $8 lattes away from the cafes. Oh, and being that i've been on this "i really want to cook or bake something real even though i don't have any pans" kick, i went looking for chocolate chips at the store to make cookies. $15 for a bag of tollhouse.
I might just be making hundered dollar cookies this afternoon. :)

Tromso

This friday we headed out for our first minivacation since we've been in Norway. We took off for the Arctic - specifically Tromso, Norway's largest city north of the arctic circle. My main objective was to get a glimpse of true midnight sun. In Trondheim, although it never gets dark, the sun does dip below the horizon for a few hours each night. Up here in Tromso, the sun is at the same height in the sky for 24 hours a day!

Unfortunately, the weather report when we arrived was clouds, clouds, and more clouds. Despite living with Eeyore, who kept telling me the clouds weren't going to break, i managed to keep up hope that the sun might peep out, even just for a second.

Tromso's scenery is beautiful, even if the town is slightly more industrial than Trondheim. The fjord is surrounded on all sides by mountains that are snow-topped even in mid-july. Along the harbor you can see the colorful yellows and reds of the the old wooden warehouses that Norway is so famous for. Even though Tromso is the largest city in this part of Norway, it's still pretty tiny. It sits on an island joined to the mainland by a bridge and a tunnel, and has one small main street. Even in such a small town, we managed to find plenty of things to do.

We started out at Polaria, an aquarium and museum dedicated to arctic life. The big attraction here was the group of bearded seals. The seals were so playful diving and swimming around - we could have watched them for hours. Every time the seals poked their noses out of the water, they would be looking around the tank to see who was watching them. They were like little kids all vieing for attention.

In celebration of Wayne's birthday back in June, we took a guided fishing tour out in the fjord. Our boat was the Signe 1, a 101 year old fishing vessel that was on the national historic registry. Captain Arne was a one man force on the boat - driving out into the fjord, telling stories about the Signe and the history of the area, finding us the best fishing spots, and gutting, cleaning, and cooking the fish we caught right on the boat. And although we were the only english speakers on the boat, he conducted everything in english. (That really tells you something about other cultures - there was absolutely no question that everyone else on the boat knew english. Hello, why don't we ever learn other languages like that?) It was really the oddest fishing trip I've ever been on. I always expect fishing to be so boring - it's like a rule. you go out with your pole, drop your line in, and wait.... and wait... and wait some more. Then, if you're like me, you start playing with your pole, casting in and out, or find something across the lake that holds your attention better. I never had time to get bored on this boat, because Captain Arne had an even shorter attention span than me. If the fish were't biting within 30 seconds of dropping a line in, he'd get mad, deem it a bad spot, and move on to another area. I've never been to a spot where fishing was so quick and easy! No bait, just a line and a lure on the end of it, drop it in, get a bite, pull up a fish the next minute. (All that said, wayne ended up catching 5 fish and i only caught one little half dead one, but in my defense, i had a few that fell off.) We caught so many fish in such a short time that we had to start catching and releasing. Most of what we caught was cod and coalfish. Captain Arne then made the simplest fresh fish preparation there is - boiled fish in sea water. And yes, wayne actually ate it. I took pictures to prove it. :)

Friday night we walked across the city bridge to the cable cars, which take you up mt. storsteinen. This was a little nerve wracking, especially as the cable car abruptly slows at the top. The views from the top of the mountain were awesome, and totally worth the crazy ride up there. You look out onto the whole fjord and you feel like you are absolutely on the top of the entire world. We did a little hiking around the moutain and waited to see if the sun would peep out at midnight. It didn't look very promising - a thick layer of clouds had rolled in and seemed to have settled. Right on cue thoguh, as we were getting ready to go back down the mountain in the cable car, the clouds broke open and we saw the sun shining bright as mid day at midnight. yay!

Yesterday we walked out to the Arctic botanical gardens, which (obviously) specializing in flowers and plants from the world's coldest regions. The flowers were beautiful. It's really amazing to see the colors and the life that can survive in the harshest environments.

We also made a visit to the Polar museum. I have to say that it was by far the most disturbing museum I've ever come across. It seemed to specialize in the history of trapping and killing arctic animals. Here's the best way to kill an arctic fox. here's a contraption that will make a polar bear shoot itself. (totally unfair that that was outlawed in 1952!) This is a hook used to club baby seals. (oh, and by the way, according the the museum, clubbing the baby seals before putting a sharp hook through thier brains is a totally painless and humane way to kill them. who knew!)

The only downside to tromso's 24 hours of sunlight - our sleep schedules are whacked out! After going out to a bar last night (and having the best strawberry martini in the world, which another patron told me "that's the most expensive martini you'll ever buy" - too true) we were amazed by the number of people out on the streets at 2 am. It was like a busy afternoon on main street, USA. Plus, after walking back to the hotel, we realized we weren't tired at all! The sun literally just makes you want to stay up and go do things - i guess that's why tromso has such a bustling nightlife. :) Of course, today we are completely paying for it. We yanked ourselves out of bed at 9:30 and this afternoon i took a two hour nap and wayne took a 3 hour nap, so of course we are now ruined for the night again. :) Fresh Norwegian Strawberry martinis, anyone?

Look! I'm posting!!!

I have been told by several people that i am not blogging enough. :) ok, ok, so I am going to try to blog more. The rest of you who did not ask for this will pay though, because i am just going to have to blog about my daily routine.. which is not very exciting. but you asked for it so here it goes:
Lindsay's Daily Routine: I roll out of bed about 9-930. that part about being here is AWESOME. i get to sleep as much as I want. Wayne has even gotten up before me a couple times. WHOA! After i've dragged myself out of bed, i go for a run. Sometimes i'll walk with wayne up to the University about a mile and a half away (because the walk is killing him with no once to call and chat with on his cell.). Then I'll run back. I've been on the lookout for a good long run route, but i haven't found the "perfect spot" yet. people kept telling me about a path around the shore in Lade, the next town over. I tried that yesterday - gorgeous scenery, not the best running path. It was really more like a hike. It was really steep and gravelly in places. I guess that's good for my hill training, right? The path looks right over the fjord, though. There are a couple of lighthouses in places and lots of wildflowers. In one section I ran through 6 foot blooming rosebushes on either side of me - the scent was unbelievable!! There are picnic tables and little viewing areas on the clifftop parts of the trail, so i think i am going to bring wayne back out there tomorrow with some hotdogs and our second portable grill. Then i'll be able to post some pictures.
On a normal day in the afternoon, i do a lot of perusing the internet, playing computer games, studying a little norwegian, cleaning, laundry, and other "home-making"stuff, and a little resume work (which usually means i work on it til i can't get the stupid template to do what i want it to, which takes about 5 minutes, then i get frustrated and abandon it). If it's nice I go to the park or in our back yard with a good book and sit in the sun for awhile. This may actually be the first year of my life that I get *gasp* tan. I guess that's what 24 hours of sun will do for you - even if you are albino like me. (oh, and whoever said that learning norwegian was easy for english speakers LIED.)
There is of course, my daily jaunts to the grocery store or my weekly trip to the bakery to get a loaf of bread. Although people are starting to recognize me now and automatically speak english to me, i'm getting much better at reading signs.
This morning Wayne and I took a long walk up to an electronic store in Lade that was having a huge sale. We got the circular in the mail yesterday and i managed to translate it pretty well - with a little help from google translate. Anyway, they were having a 2 hour sale on a digital camera that looked pretty nice - 9.1 megapixels, 3x zoom, way smaller than the one we have - for around 100 bucks. Since i have been complaining about our camera for a while, we decided to check it out. Little did i know that this sale would be like an after-thanksgiving day frenzy! I almost turned around when i saw the line outside the door on a WEDNESDAY before the place was even open. I hate crowds, i hate fighting for a product - heck, i don't care if i pay more for it later, i'll just buy it on the internet and save myself the trouble! I would like to have believed that the crowd was there at 10 am for the 1 kroner ice cream sale, but no- they were all there for MY CAMERA. (and a random smoothie maker, apparently. these folks love their smoothies.) Good thing i'm small and wiley, though, cause when the doors opened i managed to squeeze through the crowd and grab a box in the 5 minutes before they were all scooped up. (hey, i wasn't wasting a half hour walk for nothin.) When we got home with the camera and opened the box, we discovered the catch. our very nice camera is a beautiful shade of pastel pink. (the picture on the box was silver!!) So it's a little girly..... but i'm hoping the much clearer pictures will win wayne over on the color. So next time i post pictures, they will be from our brand new camera!

Happy Independence Day!!

Happy fourth of july, everyone!! I hope you all enjoyed some fireworks and hot dogs. If you had been lucky enough to be in Oslo for the 4th, you could have enjoyed and ex-patriot gathering with special guest Walter Mondale. Not so much for those of us in Trondheim, but we enjoyed our little celebration all the same, even sans fireworks. We bought a couple of mini-grills, which are extremely popular around here. Basically they are just a small aluminum pans with some charcoal thrown in and a thin sheet of lighter fluid infused paper over it and a grate for your food. Most people take these along with them to any spot of green grass they can find to sunbathe in. Wayne and I wanted to celebrate by having an all-american meal on the grill - steak, veggies, potato salad, cobbler, and of course, beer. I forgot the fact that we are in norway, where herds of cattle are a little hard to keep on the mountainside.... That's ok, because good celebrations call for some sacrifices - I ended up walking two miles to a "walmart" type grocery store in Lade, the next town over, in order to find a random (and only) cut of steak available. Who cares if it ends up being intenstine? it's COW!!! yay!! Truly American. :)
Other highlights of the day - annoying the neighbors with wayne's randition of Lee Greenwood's "I'm Proud to be an American" (which, folks, i caught on video, but i am forbidden from posting on the internet, sorry!), and lots of bluegrass. okay, so maybe "erdinger" and "dahls" aren't the most "american" of beers to be drinking on the fourth, but neither bud nor PBR was readily available.
Sunday we took the city tram out to Lian and did some hiking. The Bymarka nature area is around that area, although we never could figure out exactly where we were.. It was really beautiful out there. we were surrounded by mountains and there was a pretty lake that was popular with locals. It was a great sunshiney day and all the kids were out in the water. Lots of wildflowers in bloom, too. Next time we go though, we hope to be armed with a better trail map...
Next Friday we leave on our trip to Tromso!!! I am super excited. For those of you who don't know, Tromso is the biggest city inside the Artic circle. Because it is so far north, we should be able to see true midnight sun. Here in Trondheim, the sun dips beneath the horizon from about 11 pm- 2 am, although it never really gets dark. In Tromso, the sun doesn't set at all. There are all kinds of programs in the summer set up to celebrate the midnight sun, like the Midnight marathon and the midnight organ perfomances at the Artic Cathedral. I did check the weather for the weekend.... rainy and cloudy... I am hoping that may change through the week so i can get my peek at midnight sun!!!