Holidays, Later Days, Always

A turkey carrying a turkey...

When you're an expat, there are three, different ways you can spend a holiday:

1) You go back to your home native country.  This is, in most cases, the preferable route.  You go back to the place where you grew up, eat familiar foods, see familiar people, and pretend like everything isn't awkward.

2) You make the best of it in your current new home country.  You can scour the internets for recipes and/or beg your mom to mail you possibly customs violating goodies.  If your new land also celebrates the holiday (Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa… no) you can try to incorporate their traditions into your own (If your partner is from said country, "can try to" is replaced with "will"… Compromise is the spice of life!)

3) You can pretend like it's just another day even though it's not and nothing is open.  You can't even order Chinese food here on certain days.

Anyway, I tried doing #3 during the time I was in Belgium, it's not much fun (I remember subsisting on  cheese, bread, and jam on Good Friday… Ok.  There wasn't much cheese.  Or bread).  Since that experience, I've decided to only do #1 or #2.

As funds are tight and both Thanksgiving and the Christmas were over these past, two months, I did both.

THANKSGIVING

I'm not sure what's the best part of the trans-atlantic flight.  The moment the plane lifts off and the journey itself actually hits you or the moment you take your sip from the first, complimentary alcoholic beverage.  Thanks to SAS' draconian law of banning free booze on international flights (Btw, here's a list of airlines that keep their passengers lubed up… If there's not too big of a difference, definitely worth it to fly Lufthuansa), I only had the first option to choose.

Regardless, I landed home for the first time since the Ravens' won the Super Bowl (important to point out as this will be the first, post-season without play-offs in Baltimore since SRB took City Hall).

It was fun.  The food was awesome (Top, three meals I miss:  1) Wings; 2) Maryland Crabs; 3) Korean BBQ; 4) Fish Tacos… I know I said three, but I couldn't limit myself).

Though, the thing that's hardest about traveling home as an expat isn't the time away, it's what changes when you're away.

My parents had gotten older.  My siblings were becoming more like my parents.  I got to see my nephews and nieces.  They're growing up too fast.  I got to see my friends.  They're becoming the adults we thought we'd never be.  I got confused driving around the hometown I'd spent every summer in since 1986 (This was the first summer since then where I didn't spend a single day there).

The worst of all is that I felt behind in all the conversations.  Even if I'd been sitting in the room/car/bar stool for the beginning, I constantly felt myself saying "What?" and "Who?" during stories and talks with the people who'd once been so intricate in my daily life.  I couldn't pretend like it wasn't weird, because, often, the speaker was looking at me in just such a manner.

People asked me how come I hadn't been updating my blog.  I was surprised they were reading (Thanks, nation of 8,000!).  I didn't really have an answer I could tell them.  It feels weird and overdramatic to say what I really felt.  I didn't write because I didn't know what to say anymore.  I was a stranger to a life I had always lived.

CHRISTMAS

I landed back in Norway in early December.  I had to turn in my paper at the dreaded UDI to renew my residence permit.  I passed the weeks in labor disputes about some work I had performed (tl;dr) and unsuccessfully hiding the Christmas gift I'd purchased for my wife.

It also gave me time to savor/miss all the things I'd experienced when I was home.  Riding the metro.  Neighborhood bars.  Brunch.  Watching sports at normal hours.  The list goes on.

Though, soon it was time for the season.  We got a Christmas tree and were soon on our way across the mountains to her hometown.

And so we spent Christmas.

I got to celebrate many of the Norwegian traditions, like dancing around the Christmas Tree and drinking a lot of champagne (the picture on the website is from my first, Norwegian Christmas) and aquavit.

I enjoyed it.  The food was good (Pinnkjøtt and Ribbe!), I already said the drinks were good, but, the most important thing was that it was a home.  My wife's family and friends made me feel like I was apart of the group and not an outsider.

Which is an important thing.  As an expat, you're constantly straddling with one foot in both your native and present worlds.  It's not so much a balancing act (I realize the term "straddle" can intimate a need for balance), but one of a willingness to adapt and amend.

I've come to learn over this journey of being an expatriate that it's not about stripping anything away, but what one can add.

The life I live may not be one I set out to lead or one I'm fully comfortable in yet, but it's one that I'm happy to own.  It's not about what I don't have or am not anymore, but the things I'm building.  Stay with me.

I'm still building.

Thanks for reading and now a word from our sponsors…

ALT FOR NORGE

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Buy my non-Norway based book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/This-New-Normal-ebook/dp/B008M0GPW2

So, yeah... Fall

Not sure if my last post conveyed it or not, but fall is upon us.  Which, in Norway, is harder to notice.  True, the air has that crisp smell to it and the trees are turning colors (I swear, it feels like the leaves change earlier here... but it's probably just a misrememberance born out of the disassociation of being in a new place at a new time of year for the first time) and the berries in the markets are being replaced with apples...

Yet still... It doesn't feel all that different than spring (Not like the trappings of the States).

The sun (when it I see it... it still does that "rain 4 days a week" thing) is doing this weird thing where it's not quite up and it never quite sets.  Sunrise just feels like a prolonged glare from around six a.m. for the next few hours.  The sunset isn't much different.  It's a little after six now and I've been staring at dusk for an hour and I know it won't really be dark for another couple of hours.  Norway, everyone, where the sun never can say goodbye.

Though, one noticeable element of Fall is the cuisine.  Fall means it is officially lamb season.  Which means Faarikaal (Lamb with cabbage), Smalahove (Sheep's head... and Americans think chitlins are gross!), and, my favorite, Pinnekjøtt (simply saying its "smoked salted lamb or mutton" doesn't do it justice).  I haven't had the first two, but I'm making plans for the first and the second... well, I'm making plans for the first.  Also, I have a date with reindeer pizza... That's right, Rudolph comes with cheese and sauce now (in fact, it's a fairly common thing that I feel cheated on having not tried here... same as whale, but that's another post for another day).

Anyway, it is really fall here in Norway now (50 degree temperatures for everyone!).  If the shortening days and colorful trees didn't alert me, the ever-present smell of burning lamb fat has conveyed such.

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Alt for Norge (before we eat them... før spiser vi dem)

An Autumn Walkabout

I'm back to full health which means I'm back to doing "Norwegian-ly" things.  Or at least trying to...

And so it goes...

Last thursday, in celebration of the beginning of Fall (Summer hath all too short a lease...), I went out to a traditional, Norwegian celebration for the Autumn Equinox (you know, when it starts getting dark earlier).  While, Mabon is more of a Celtic celebration, there are many similar traditions held throughout Scandinavia.  And that is how I found myself on the Akerselva Walk (elva means river so it literally means Aker's river in English... thanks for playing along).  What exactly happens on the Akerselva walk (ok... it's actually called "Fakkelvandring langs Akerselva", Flame walk along Akers River)?  

Fire.  A lot of Fire.

And children kicking hats off of sticks

I realize, out of context, these poorly taken pictures may seem bizarre.  Please, keep up.  We all know that the harnessing of electricity is a fairly, short lived phenomenon and, as such, before its advent, fire was of great importance.  Even so in the frigid north here(I've been making "Game of Thrones" jokes about being "North of the wall" for some time now).  I imagine all the fire (there was also a fire eater I failed to capture) is just a way to pay homage to the giver (and taker) of life.

As for the kids kicking hats off of sticks, I imagine it must've been pretty boring before the advent of TV and Draw Something.  I'm kidding, here's the real reason.  So yeah, it was a lot of fun, there were also a lot of different musical groups and some really awesome torch, lights, and candle set-ups in and along the river.  

So yeah... it was fun, but I prefer my American, Autumn traditions, instead... Go O's! Go Ravens!

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Alt for Norge

1 month in...

So... After three failed attempts at blogging (in a twist of irony, I may resurrect armchair all-americans while abroad), here we go again.  At first, I didn't want to do it, but, as I've come to realize, its the best way to keep everyone up to date on my travails without having to tell the same anecdotes in a million emails (I wish I knew how to do footnotes... but seriously, a piece of you dies each time you have to recycle the same half-funny joke).

That being said.  Short recap for those of you who don't know me or why I'm writing a blog.

I am an American who relocated to Oslo, Norway hence the semi-funny title (it'll get better, I promise... money-back guarantee)

That was really easy.

So.... How has the first month gone? (footnote 2: photo albums are on my Facebook)

Great.  I spent Christmas in the cozy, hometown of my girlfriend on the west coast of Norway. Enjoyed some new food :| and some really great food!.  Along with doing a lot of the traditional, Norwegian customs... oh, and I also got to experience aquavit.

Next, was New Years.  A simple plane, train, and car ride took us up to the middle of the country, amidst bustling metropolises with welcoming names.  Here, we drank more aquavit and I got to try Tuborg, which has become my second favorite beer here behind, Ringnes.  Oh, my girlfriend also built the best ice couch ever and our champagne froze in our glasses.  Minus 10 Celsius + ain't no joke.

Since then, its been a fun array of going to Norwegian language class and getting to know the city.  I went cross country skiing and didn't do too bad (those pictures should be up on Facebook soon).

So yeah... that's pretty much it.  I'm going to try to update this weekly or whenever something happens.  I hope you guys have enjoyed it and just comment or message me any questions.


Rap lyric I'd incorporate into a song if I were a rapper:
The path less chosen, chose me instead, though/ Now I'm an expat like Drew Bledsoe