Peace, Love, and Lutefisk: Adventures i Norge

My girlfriend Alison (standing in front of my new house in this picture) came to visit me for 9 days, and we had a great time together! There are lots of pictures of our adventures (see link to the right), and she just forwarded me a copy of an e-mail she sent to my mom describing Tromsø. So, I thought it would be fun for you to hear about Tromsø from a different point of view. Here's Alison:

The first thing we did when Scott picked me up from the airport was drop off most of my stuff in his old room, where he had collected many many shells from the beaches near Tromso and used them to spell out the world "Vilkommen" on his desk, a gesture that really did make me feel so warm and welcomed there. As soon as I unpacked and repacked to head to Finnkroken, we took the bus down to the Sentrum of Tromso and picked up some groceries for the weekend... our big experiment was Norway's frozen pizza, "Grandiosa," which is only about 20 kroner for a large pizza, and according to Scott's housemate Teresa, is a major staple in the diets of college students in Norway. But when we got to Finnkroken, we discovered that we had a stove, but no oven in which to cook the pizza! So we ended up cutting the frozen pizza in quarters, folding the pieces, and then frying them on a burner to eat them panini-style! It actually was pretty good, I thought, if not a little bit silly.

I think Finnkroken has a lot of my favorite memories from the trip. It was just so peaceful, and we had so much time to talk and cook and sing together (Scott brought his guitar), and just enjoy each other's company. We took a walk on Saturday (the berry pictures on his blog site are from the walk), and found a swing back behind our cabin, which was really fun--I jumped on immediately and began to swing--there are pictures of that on his site too. You'll notice, however, that there aren't any pictures of Scott swinging--that's because when he tried to jump on he never quite made it, and ended up holding on to the rope and sliding to the ground with a yell instead! He was fine of course, but I was too busy chuckling with him at the mishap to snap a picture. :)

All of Scott's housemates are incredibly lively, fun, and interesting people. Teresa, who is Norwegian, but whose parents are from India, and whose English is very fast and British because she studied in England for three years, caught my attention very fast. She's incredibly funny with a quick tongue and opinionated political sentiments. She had a lot of questions about the United States and the Midwest in general, and it was fun for me and Scott to try to explain the differences between the states and regions of our country. Stian, another norwegian Scott is living with, is also very political oriented, and had a lot of questions too. He's kind of quiet, but has a pretty distinct quirkiness to his personality; has a pretty dry humor but is a warm and caring person. I don't know if he's Paul Myklebust material for Scott but they get along really well, and I think the house as a whole will be a great family-like community for Scott to spend his time with. I think it was a really good decision for him to move to the house. It's just such a warmer atmosphere. I think it will help him in stressful times, and when it gets so much darker there, too, to have people around all the time.

Wednesday night, since Scott wouldn't let me help to pay for our Finnkroken excursion, I insisted on treating him out to a meal at a fancy restaurant in downtown Tromso. We went to a biffhausen (Beef House) and the food was absolutely delicious (when you go back, I definitely recommend it). We both had steak and potatoes, but Scott had a kabob with a stuffed baked potato, and I had peppersteak with cheesy scalloped potatoes. We each also had a glass of wine, and the meal lasted a good two hours, with good conversation and a lovely atmosphere. It's definitely one of my favorite memories of the week.

In addition to having good meals out, we also cooked a lot in the house, and I taught Scott my big cooking "secret"--that I pretty much put garlic in onion in everything that it will taste good. So we had spaghetti with tomato sauce (which had garlic and onion in it), and when we made chicken curry for the rest of the house, we started by frying up some onions and garlic, of course! I also taught him how to make my favorite potato dish, which is just potatos fried in butter or oil with garlic and onion! *chuckle* It's really simple of course but Scott really liked them, and I was happy to pass on my "wisdom" and help him discover another easy meal to make for himself.

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Take care! All the best,
Alison