Week Twenty Five-Twenty Six
Week Twenty Five Weeks/Six months and one week/Just over six months
Week Twenty Six Weeks/Six and a half months :
Even though I mentioned that I have been here for six months in my last weekly blog (which was two weeks ago, yeah I know). This week the date that is six months after my arrival date in Norway will occur. So is that my real mensiversary? This past week was the third anniversary of the first time I visited Oslo, I'm sure about that. In 2011 I came to Oslo during Valentine's Day Weekend and I fell in love at first sight.
Short version of a long story: I now can tell when people are talking about me in Norwegian so you might want to go with another language if you don't want me to get mad.
Last week I was at a café with a friend and while she was getting our drinks a stranger spoke to me in Norwegian. Usually I just cut people off and say, “Beklager, jeg snakker bare litt norsk.” [“Sorry, I only speak a little Norwegian.”], but just as I was forming this sentence I realised that she was only asking what time it was. Hun sa, “Unnskyld, hva er klokka?'' [She said, ''Excuse me, what time is it?''] Jeg sa, ''Klokka er ti på halv tre.'' [I said it is 2:20pm.] {Norwegians have this CRAZY way of telling time that I think I have mastered now. What I actually said was something like 'It's 10 minutes before half 3:00.' In the UK when it's half 3:00, that means 3:30. In Norway half 3:00 means 2:30. Don't ask me any questions. It's taken me ages to get used to this.}
I've recently had some run ins with salespeople on the phone. When I registered to be a business owner I had to publish my mobile phone number as well. My favourite was the poor guy who said, “Kan jeg snakke med Leeanne?” [“Can I speak with Leeanne?”] which I understood but that was followed by something really fast still in Norwegian. Jeg sa, “Kan du gjenta men på engelsk? [I said, ''Can you repeat that, but in English?''] Then he said, ''Oh you speak English?'' At this point I pointed out that literally everyone that I had actually given my phone number to already knew that. Suddenly the line went bad and he began to have trouble hearing me and he hung up.
Last week we had a test in class and there was a fill-in the blank question I just couldn't remember the word for. I tried to get points for creativity by writing an explanation in the margin that I knew which word the question was looking for, and I knew what it translated to in English also I knew what letter it started with. I thought that was a genius plan, but it didn't work. When I got the test back I had gotten zero points on that particular question, but I did pretty well on the test overall.
Also last week I went to see the doctor alone. The first time I saw him the fiancé was abroad so svigermora [the mother-in-law] kindly went with me. The second time the fiance' accompanied me. This last time I only got a little bit lost and that was primarily because I didn't trust myself. I was going in the right direction, but I panicked and ended up going a longer way to get there. There were not any communication problems, so I probably could've gone by myself the other times but I felt like I needed the help at the time. More to come on this subject...
This past weekend we went to Sweden. Weirdly, I always feel like I speak more Norwegian when I'm in Sweden.
The fiancé, the parents-in-law and I played the game that my second substitute teacher introduced to us. It's similar to Guesstures (which is a favourite in my family). I printed a sheet with vocabulary words on it and I cut them into small squares. The objective is to get other person (or people) to guess the word by defining the word on the card without saying the word itself. The last time the fiancé and I played and we took turns so I had a chance at guessing and defining. This time I did all the defining so I really got a chance to use all of the words that I know. I would recommend this activity for anyone trying to gain vocabulary in a new language.
Today I made a date to have coffee with a friend and the messaging back and forth happened completely in Norwegian. Boom!
I have been having real problems with weather prediction services. The one that I use most often is actually quite good, but the problem is it doesn't tell me which shoes to wear. Before the weekend I wore shoes (gortex, waterproof shoes with decent grip, but they didn't cover my ankles) and it started snowing on my way to work and covered the ground by the time I was on my way home. The next day I wore snow boots and it rained and melted all the snow. Then I switched back to the waterproof shoes to take away for the weekend and it snowed when we got to Sweden.
Now the snow in Oslo has officially melted again and it's not that cold. I do not expect this to last.
Last week I had really strong cravings for quesadillas and a Peanut Buster Parfait from Dairy Queen.
The quesadillas were easy. I just had to get tortillas and I had the rest of the ingredients at home already. When I moved from the US to the UK I really missed Mexican food. Every time I found a new Mexican restaurant I would get really excited and then it would turn out to be terrible. There was only one exception, a place called Las Iguanas in Birmingham, but they didn't market themselves as a Mexican place. There thing is Latin American street food and that covers a lot of cuisines, but the Mexican dishes that they have are very good.
The problem with moving around a lot is having weird cravings for things that are unavailable. The cravings that I have had for Jamaican, Indian and Thai cuisine have been the easiest to satisfy because I can mostly cook what I want from scratch and so far I have been able to find the ingredients I need at the innvandrerbutikkene [the immigrant shops]. Frozen foods, processed food or menu items from fast food places are a little more difficult. A Peanut Buster Parfait is just soft serve vanilla ice cream, chocolate fudge and roasted salted peanuts. With a little substitution (I didn't think the chocolate topping at the shop looked like the right consistency so I used Nutella) I made something that tasted just like what I was missing.
The following is a list of images I would’ve Instagrammed if I wasn’t still waiting on my next paycheck to get a new phone:
The checklist from my class which states what I am now able to talk about in Norwegian (in theory at least).
My version of the Peanut Buster Parfait.
Where I burned my forehead with a pressing comb. I straightened my hair but I didn't take pictures. It came out okay, but I have really bad split ends so the ends looked frizzy. Next time I will also give myself a trim and take pictures.
