Christmas Break Part 2: Arendal, Norway
The morning of the flight had been early, and as the plane soared high above the ocean we tried to nap so as to catch up on our sleep. The results were mostly fruitless. So instead, I watched clouds go by out the window. With about 15 minutes of flight left to go I looked down to see the outlying islands of Norway. I suppose I’d never thought of Norway as having islands. Actually, I suppose I’d never really looked at Norway on a map before. As I watched the shapes slide past, I noticed the white sheen blanketing the coastline. Maybe we really would have a white Christmas!
After filing through all those restless lines, we exited into the pick-up area where we were met by Laura’s Uncle Per (pronounced “pear”, like the fruit). Katie and I immediately recognized him as Santa Claus. He was round and jolly and definitely welcoming. We liked him immensely, and all the two and a half hour drive to their house he told us many interesting stories. There wasn’t a dull moment to be had.
Finally we pulled into their driveway and no sooner had we gotten ourselves out of the car, than Laura’s Aunt Monica was hugging us and showing the way into the house. After brief introductions we were settled down at the dinner table and served the most delicious roast! It was very similar to special K loaf, so needless to say, we were thrilled!!! After a few more stories and a slightly more-successful-than-average bout with our utensils, we headed up to be shown our room, readied with hot water bottles for our chilly feet in bed.
The next morning was Saturday, so it was up early to face the crisp air as we went off to church. Per and Monica sang songs, some in Norwegian and some in English, for everyone and played so many instruments it was hard not to be impressed. The sermon, however, was fully in Norwegian, and therefore we didn’t pick up on a word. Now, lemme tell you. It’s very frustrating to encounter a language and not be able to speak it when that is precisely what you’re abroad for. Even though I know I shouldn’t be expected to speak Norwegian, it was very frustrating to not be able to do anything but smile and shrug my shoulders. I literally could not communicate with others, and that is a very strange feeling seeing as how I’ve pretty much been able to speak in either of the two foreign languages I’ve encountered for a long period of time, no matter how poor the conversation. Blah.
After the frustrating worship, Per and Monica drove us out to our first real glimpses of frozen sea. It’s strange. All the boats still in the water, but unable to move. From the bay we went back home where Per fixed up the curry soup Monica had prepared for our lunch. The sun set shortly afterwards, and we turned on the TV, eager to learn about things going on in the world. (As a side note, the sun sets around 3:30 pm in Norway and rises at 8:30 am, therefore I was always confused and started to let myself feel sleepy as the sun was setting, only to remember that my day was barely over! As a result, I have a hard time recalling exactly which day we did what activities…) After a little world review, we bundled up and went for a nice frolic in the snow. I’d never seen so much snow before, and we spent a good deal of time rolling around in as much of it as possible.
We came inside dripping and frozen but once we had changed into dry clothes, we sat down at the table to play a game to which Laura introduced us which involved nothing but creativity and nonsense, so it was perfectly suited for us. After laughing ourselves out of breath, we bade Per and Monica goodnight and headed up to bed with our refilled bottles.
Sunday morning we woke to a breakfast of what could have passed as grits. Well, actually, we woke rather to lunch, not breakfast, but that’s beside the point. However, shortly after we finished our lunch and set about trying to communicate with our families via Skype, dinner was served, after which we had been invited to the house of one of the church members we had met the day before. So off we went to Raiden’s house. She is, of course, Norwegian and after we had a tour of her shop, we were invited inside where we had a lovely discussion with her English husband about Handball and politics and were encouraged to try ginger snaps and Gløgg, a traditional Norwegian winter drink that tastes similar to spiced apple cider.
It was nice to get to visit people, even if we didn’t really know who they were. However as we sadly parted ways with the cookies and Gløgg, we weren’t to be sad for long, because we were then taken on a tour of the most impressively lit houses in Arendal. Apparently covering every inch of your house in lights is really only an American thing, so mostly only Norwegians who’ve spent a year or two overseas come back and uphold this “gaudy” tradition. For us, though, it was like being that much closer to home!
The next day we were up at a more decent hour and after long, off on a walk down to the shore of Veg. It’s quite beautiful there. Unfortunately the cold killed my batteries which, admittedly had done well to survive London. So once again I was cameraless for a bit of my journeys. But just a few hours later and we found ourselves at a mall, and I was able to buy both batteries and a Christmas gift for myself. Upon arriving home Monica made us mugs of hot cocoa as we watched the last half of Mamma Mia which we had started the previous evening, after which we ate tamale pie and began Pride and Prejudice ( with Colin Firth. Laura’s a P&P fan too!)
After that late night we had another late morning, and came down to warm rice pudding with cinnamon. YUM! Around sunset (aka 3:00) we headed out to the main part of town to see the harbor and the city at night. We wandered around and took many pictures and froze very thoroughly and returned home a few hours later to wrap our presents to ourselves and end the evening in Balderdash
Wednesday is very much a blur of relaxation and all that I can say we did with assurance is that we discovered that their TV got the Disney Channel. Oh, happy day!!! Hours of entertainment and feelings of home! Other than that I think it’s safe to say we ate some food, drank some tea, rolled around in the ever-deepening snow and talked to our families. Actually, I think might even be the day we turned into daredevils and made some killer sledding trails. One even dropped off a large rock. I caught some decent air..
Christmas Eve we left the house at 2 o’clock to go with Per to the nearby Lutheran church. There was a band of small children with their out-of-tune instruments and some Norwegian carols whose American equivalents we sung, and what I’m sure was a rousing Christmas sermon. As I could not understand a word that was being spoken, I contented myself with staring at the rather attractive ginger boys across the balcony. At 5 as everyone was departing from the church, the bells began to clang, officially ringing in Christmas!
Christmas day dawned very non Christmassy due to the lack of family, but definitely white. We had opened our presents from Per and Monica (Reindeer skins!) and the surprise ones from Laura’s mom (fuzzy pajamas and other goodies!!) , so most of our spirit was already gone, but there were still wonderful things in store. On this particular freezing day, we got to go to the beach. I’d never seen a snow covered beach before. It was an odd sensation to smell fish and see snow… So did what any other baffled person would do and walked around taking pictures of the fishy smelling snow and icy moss-covered rocks. It was even more astonishing when the surfers turned up. Crazy people! That evening we ate our Christmas dinner with Per’s parents at their house nearby. The father didn’t speak a lick of English, but kept talking to us. We smiled and kissed him on the cheek when we left and wished him a God Jul.
Our second Saturday, we spent at different church and this time Monica sat between us and translated the sermon. We also met Marta a very friendly girl our age who Monica invited to spend Sabbath with us. We ate delicious mac and cheese for lunch and then took another walk down to Veg. It was a sparkling wonderland with the 3 foot snow! As we walked we talked and sang our Italian worship songs for them and when we got back at sunset, we watched one of Marta’s favorite Christmas movies: Home Alone 2. Then we moved on to more Disney! Eventually she had to leave, but not before we all become Facebook friends. Then we played a game of Scattergories with Monica and went to bed, ready to fly off to Ireland the next day.
Our final morning in Norway dawned bright and clear. We packed our bags with as much as would fit and wore as many clothes as still permitted movement and headed downstairs to watch the beginning of the Sound of Music before we headed off. It was sad to leave, but we were also quite excited about Ireland. We all dozed off on the 2+ hour drive to the airport and when we arrived we said our final goodbyes and ate the lunches Monica had packed for us. More lines, more security and eventually we found ourselves flying across the ocean on our way to Dublin!
