Advent

Hi kids,

Well, we're down to pretty short days here and, for the first time, I think they're starting to get to me. I wouldn't mind if the five-ish hours of daylight were sunny, but they've been gray for weeks. The sky feels oppressive somehow.

The bright white snow helps. The snow in Oslo melted last night, but we spent the weekend at Thorbjørn's hytte, where there were four-five feet of gorgeous powder. We went for a twenty-kilometer ski on Saturday, totally awesome. I am neither a fast nor an elegant cross-country skier, and at times I'm downright bad, but I have to report the small triumph of being better at going downhill without freaking out. I used, when I'd get any momentum at all, to make myself fall over and crash...before I got out of control and crashed. Stupid, I know. The last two times I've gone, though, I've managed to tuck my knees and get low and use the force and have not fallen on a big hill once! Small victories.

Skiing with Norwegians is intimidating but fun. They're so bad-ass. Thor can pull Rannveig in a sled behind him as Agnes holds onto his pole on a steep hill and everyone makes it down without falling over. Poor Agnes--when we were leaving the hytte (we skied in and out) there was a big hill to get down and she stopped at the top and said, "uh oh..." but I, thinking to myself, "what's the big deal? She's Norwegian--" said to her, "come on, Agnes! You can do it yourself!" and encouraged her to just go. Well of course she made it to the bottom, where she totally face planted, whereupon Ben pulled her out and said encouraging things to her. She wouldn't speak to me for a while, though...and then I wondered if maybe the hill was a little big for a four-year-old after all.

My brother,



just left this morning. We had a really fun visit. Last week we went to Copenhagen for two days. I loved Copenhagen. Sigh. I really found it to be an excellent city. It's more beautiful and more cosmopolitan than Oslo, and cheaper, too. We had real Asian food there, Thai and Vietnamese, and did a lot of shopping. That may sound funny, but there's some great shopping in Copenhagen. So after we did some museuming and checked out Christiania, the "free state," we shopped 'til we dropped. My brother has much better stamina for shopping than my husband, no offense Ben.

It was nice to get away for a few days. Unfortunately I didn't take a single photo; J. did, but he didn't store them on my computer so I have none to show you.

Not much else to report, I'm afraid. It's the end of the semester here, which means lots of grading to do. The Professor gave me fifty exams to grade, more if I want them--I get paid per exam. I also have final short stories to read. My persistence with the resume send-out has been rewarded, too--two interviews for teaching jobs coming up. Maybe we'll stay afloat after all.

Oh--it's Advent, the period leading up to Christmas. Norwegians are gaga for Christmas and, by extension, Advent. They light candles and sing every Sunday before Christmas, and they all have Advent calendars filled with goodies. There's also a great deal of tradition leading up to the Christmas meal; it's bad luck to eat before Christmas what you plan to eat ON Christmas, but otherwise it's a free-for-all. We have now consumed:

Pinnekjøtt
Lutefisk
Rakfisk

I'm sure I'm missing something.



Adjø,

Susie