Sopp

We went mushrooming this morning. Petter Andreas took Ben and me out to the woods in some direction, neither of us paying much attention, and for several hours we hunted brown chanterelles, foresopp ("sheep" mushrooms), porcini, regular yellow chanterelles (a small bright crop that Ben scooped up), and some others whose names I've lost. I lose names for things all day long, here. Funny what sticks: ikke (not, isn't), skilpadde (turtle; literally, shell toad), hytte (cabin). The mushrooming was wet and archaic in the best way. I'll admit my whole life I've been a little fearful of amateur mushrooming, because I am a paranoid, but today it just felt like the most natural thing in the world--why would you not eat mushrooms from the woods? Same as poaching fruit from your neighbor. Long as you know what you're doing. Amanitas=bad.

It started to rain late in the morning, and we came home with several kilos in our baskets and very wet feet. Petter had a very small haul, because he'd spent the entire morning saying "Susie! Over here," pointing mushrooms out to me, and walking on. "Ben!" he'd say a minute later. "Over here!"

Petter's generosity is wonderful and far-reaching. I've never moved somewhere before and had someone spend so much energy making sure I'm okay--more than okay; that I know how to tell a porcini from an angel of death. It's lovely and very kind, and I think sometimes I feel overwhelmed because I don't know how to repay such kindness. Not that Petter and his family seem too worried about us repaying their kindness. They have said on several occasions that we are their family here for the year, with all that goes with that. Which means, I guess--well, lots of things. Your family is your life blood and your burden. This one has been providing a lot of sustenance, both physical and emotional. I feel very grateful.

Introspective today.

I was a little low earlier. Last night the guy upstairs threw a rager party. I mean, a serious rager, a dance party so loud that I could make out lyrics to the songs he was playing and the bass line even through earplugs and a pillow over my head. It was so loud that a bit after midnight Ben went upstairs to ask him to turn it down. "It's Saturday," the guy said. "I know, but it's after midnight, and really loud," Ben said. "Well maybe I'll turn down the bass a little," the guy told him, and shut the door. I'm not sure he ever did. The racket went on until 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning, dance party rave, drunk Norwegians yelling, me going in and out of sleep, and of course we both woke up feeling unrested and angry and confused on a gray Sunday. The whole thing made me feel old, too, but that's another story.

Oh: I was immediately guilty after I wrote, last time, that the Norwegians have terrible vegetables. Isn't that funny? Thor and I were talking about nationalism the other day, and I said I wasn't very nationalistic. He said he tends to be. I am the first to say something critical of the U.S. But I felt remiss for not mentioning the great potatoes we'd eaten from Thor's and Petter's gardens, and the greenhouses where people grow basil and cucumbers and tomatoes, and the mushrooms in Norway...which makes me wonder if I feel comfortable being critical of the places I know best, but not the ones I know least. I'm sure this will change. And Norway's vegetable situation can be less than ideal.

Oh boy. There I go again.

We just got back from a Fulbright potluck. I had fun. I was interested to learn what other people are doing here. Not so much what they're studying, but what they're doing for fun--playing rugby, joining choruses, going to bars, hanging out at movie premieres. I might join the chorus, too. Ruminate on it for a day or so.

Gotta run. Besos y abrazos. Can't wait to get some pictures up here.

S.

Yes yes, pictures (fotografi)

A few of you have asked about pictures, and whether I have any plans to liven up the old blog with them. I do! But the camera took a nose dive right before we left the States and is being fixed and then shipped either to Oslo or to my parents' house in Boston, depending on the generosity of the Nikon corporation. So herewith a photo of the jellyfish at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in Monterey, California. Please enjoy until I can capture Oslo at dawn or somesuch.

It's Friday night, Ben has gone to meet Thorbjoern for a beer, and I am enjoying a little peace in our apartment. The truth is I am also enjoying, alternately, slices of stinky blue cheese on gluten-och laktosfritt kneckebrod (which means gluten- and lactose-free flatbread) and pieces of dark sjokolade and I'll let you figure out that one. Today we met up with Thorbjoern and Kristin and went on a drive to a little seaside town called Drobak, where we sat in the sun and ate a really yummy Norwegian lunch, i.e., lots of fish, some good bread (luckily I had the kneckebrod in my backpack), some salad. The Norwegians eat this bread and cold things meal all the time. Bread with cheese, bread with "caviar" (a tube of mayo-ey pink stuff that tastes and smells fishy), brown geitost (my fave), salami or ham or chicken liver pate, a little cold tomato salad or cucumber salad. I suspect this meal is so prevalent because it's summer, and come colder weather we'll be eating warm things, but for now the truth is I've developed a total craving for the cold meal. I seem to want it all day.

Which is good, because food is a little tricky here. This country is so green, and there are gorgeous flower beds everywhere, lush happy looking trees, but the vegetables are terrible. It's the stereotype, and it's true. Supermarkets have small, lame vegetable sections and everything is wrapped in plastic. Luckily, the immigration that's happened here over the last ten (twenty?) years has had the effect of bringing more ethnic markets, and in them...vegetables! Still wrapped in plastic and imported from all over, and never organic, but still--vegetables. Oddly enough, besides a 32 kr. (about $6) bunch of chard I saw at a farmer's market last Saturday, I haven't seen a single cooking green. So we're eating a lot of tomatoes and cukes and salad, as well as some fruit (the apples are out all over Oslo, tart little crunchy guys). Workable. But, after California, a bit of a shock to have to travel so far and make such an effort to get live stuff.

And oh my, this country is expensive. Ben and I are already saying things to each other like "Let's ride our bikes to that store where they put all the cheese that's about to go bad in a cooler and sell it for 50% off, yeah?" We will not be above eating bad cheese this year, I fear.

So I started teaching; as I already mentioned, I was incredibly nervous beforehand. Butterflies. The whole deal. I'm not sure why. And of course I was given two totally packed sections (35 students each) of bright, glowing Norwegians. Not everyone is actually blond or Amazonian here, but I would say ninety percent of the people I've seen are rosy-cheeked and robust-looking, with high cheekbones and bright faces, and they're pretty extroverted. My students are no exception. They all have names like Arne ("awrna," roughly) and Are ("ahra") and Ore ("oohwra," sort of) and Jens and I even have a Frode ("Frruhda"). After butchering the pronunciation for twenty minutes, we started talking about American Lit, and, after all those nerves, I had a great time. To be quite frank, I'm not used to having a classful of motivated, smart kids who stay on topic for the duration of a small-group discussion AND come back from break when I ask them to. It was a real treat. Should be a good semester. Or maybe, like my AAU students, they'll turn flaky in a week or two.

Ben started this week too. After a couple of days of orientation, we went to the Nobel Hus, as in, Nobel Peace Prize House, and had a welcome reception where all the Fulbrighters stood up and talked about their projects. I was amazed at how many projects were focused on global climate change, but Ben's was the only regulation-focused one. After he spoke a couple of Norwegians next to me gasped, impressed. That was neat. (I think the Norwegians are ready to deal with climate change, but I could be wrong. They're in a good position to do so, and in a bad way when the ice caps go.) Then we got to see the room where the peace prize is decided. It was a thrill to see photos on the wall of Martin Luther King, Jr., Elie Wiesel...and Al Gore.

We're both trying to get into a Norwegian class this fall, encountering some scheduling difficulty. I am still determined to learn, and by listening and occasionally doing my Norwegian tapes, I am beginning to form sentences and remember words. I'm also finding that unlike the Germans, who never allowed me to practice my German, the Norwegians are encouraging me to speak Norwegian. It's too easy not to, though, because everyone over the age of fourteen speaks fluent English if you get stuck. So that means I also have to overcome the laziness factor. Let's hope that come June I can add Norwegian to the list of languages I speak badly (Spanish, French, German...).

Ha det bra,

Susie

God Tag!

We arrived in Oslo on Friday. Those middle of the night flights are so strange. In seven hours you go through dusk, night, and morning, arrive feeling like you've been run over by a truck, and carry on. Luckily Oslo was bright and sunny when we got here and our friends Thoerbjorn, Kristin, Petter, Eldri, and Therese (that's the Steen family, pronounced "Stay-en"--Petter and Eldri are the dad and mom, Thor and Therese are the kids, and Kristin is Thor's wife) were so totally welcoming and wonderful we felt...cushioned. Moved into our new apartment on Saturday. It's roughly in the center of Oslo, around here on a map, and it's small but very sunny and clean and nice. We have a little balcony, and the flat comes with a 120-cm bed that Ben and I have been sharing, which is sort of funny because at six in the morning I noticed that when Ben curls up, the length from his knee caps to his back is about 100 cm. We may be getting a larger bed.

Today I meet with Rebecca, The Professor, up in Blindern where the University of Oslo is located--for me. Ben's department is a ten-minute walk from our place. My school is more like a forty-minute walk, uphill, so I think today I might take the tram. I am feeling very nervous about teaching--about the whole thing--for some reason. I think it's just the new place, new everything, and teaching texts I haven't taught before. Of course it's always dislocating when you don't know the language, too, because even if you're teaching in English (thank goodness) you still have to negotiate a university run in Norwegian. Of course, most people speak English perfectly.

Discovery yesterday: a restaurant called Japo Sushi (yikes!).

We got bikes yesterday, too. First we walked up to Blindern so I had a sense of where I'd be going today, then decided to walk to Petter and Eldri's house and got, if not lost, a little confused. Oslo has a lot of little alleyways and bike paths and other routes I'm sure qualify as shortcuts when you know where the hell you're going. The second leg of the walk took us about an hour and a half, and we arrived exhausted and foot-blistered and luckily weren't too late to avail ourselves of Sunday dinner. Afterwards the thought of walking home was unappealing, so we picked up a couple of bikes from Eldri and Kristin. The ride home was blissfully short and easy.

Thor and Kristin have two little girls, Agnes who is four-and-a-half and Rannveig who is two-and-a-half. Agnes has been sick with a bug since we got here, but Rannveig (pronounced like Rrrrrrahn-vigh") has been in good form. She is one of the sunniest little kids I've ever met, always smiling. She doesn't quite get that we don't speak Norwegian yet, which is fantastic because then we learn from her. I wasn't sure we had really registered on their radar until Kristin told me the girls have been talking about us. When we were leaving with the bikes Rannveig insisted on fastening my helmet for me and then she said "Susie! Susie!" It took me a second to realize she was saying my name. Apparently she was telling me I had to put my feet in the toe clips. Of course.

I attempted a Norwegian text message yesterday (did I mention we got cell phones? We joined on a family plan with the Steens). I told Thor that our flat was "fulkommen" and that we were going on a "Spasertur." Apparently the text was a bit anachronistic. I said something like "The apartment is simply splendid. Ben and I are going on a sightseeing venture."

Ah well. I'll get it.

Ha det,

Susie

We Leave Today

Hi friends,

Welcome to my new blog. Today's note is not actually from Oslo--we fly this afternoon. Ben and I have spent the last week(ish) back east, chilling with my family. It's been alternately gorgeous (sunny, high sky, cool, fall-like) and raining in torrents. Today looks like a good day. I dislike flying, but a clear day helps.

My feelings this morning are...mixed. I'm emailing with Rebecca, the professor I'll be teaching for at the University of Oslo this fall (Introduction to American Literature--two sections). I sort of can't believe that next week I'll be teaching in a foreign country, on texts I've never taught before (Jonathan Edwards' "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" is some heavy reading). I'm definitely a bit nervous. But otherwise I'm pretty excited to just get there after all this anticipation. We have dear friends waiting for us. And an apartment. And a few months to acclimatize to Oslo's dark and cold as winter approaches.

For those of you who are stumped by now, here's the deal: my husband Ben got a Fulbright to study at the University of Oslo this year. He's getting an LLM (Master's in Law) in Public International Law, with an emphasis on global climate change regulation. I, his trusty partner-in-crime, am tagging along. We'll be there for a year, give or take. Who knows what adventures we'll have?

So here are my notes from Oslo...enjoy.