Breaking in the Bike

Today was a glorious day – not only weather wise, but “free from school” wise. I savored every moment I didn’t have to think about the Norwegian language. I had a nice cup of coffee, cleaned house, did laundry, worked on my Bible study, read the news on the internet, laid out in the sun and got a little tan, I stretched, breathed deeply, prayed and thoroughly enjoyed having the morning all to myself. I need more of that.

After I was completely satisfied with my quiet time home alone, I hopped on my bike and took it for a spin. I love it! It’s so great to have wheels, and on such a warm day like today, taking the car or bus would just seem wrong (I actually wore a short sleeved shirt and no coat today). I rode down the street to Kaleb’s school and the two of us rode our bikes together to Moa (more than a few miles away). It was so sweet, riding side by side. They have huge sidewalks next to most of the roads here that are wide enough for a car to drive on but they are just used for baby strollers, bikes and pedestrians. It makes for a pleasant outing, as we were able to talk about school as we peddled and Kaleb was much more talkative than usual. When we got to Moa we were pretty hot and thirsty so we stopped and bought a popsicle. They have the best flavors of popsicles here – our number one favorite is the pear flavored one. They also have pear flavored pop, along with pineapple pop and this yummy pop called Villa that none of us can quite figure out what it tastes like, other than it’s good. (And the jello flavors here are great too, like blueberry, peach, and apple.) Kaleb and I love picking out things we’ve never tried before, in our never ending search for our “favorite food.” Back home, whenever we talked about coming to Norway, Kaleb would always get a dreamy lilt to his voice and say, “Pear popsicles – my faaaaavorite!” It was good to have one today and to splurge (even if they cost $4+ each).

But the purpose of our bike ride today was to take Kaleb to the dentist, which happened to be located at Moa. Kaleb hasn’t had his teeth cleaned or checked for nearly a year so I called a few weeks ago and made an appointment. All dental work for kids under age 18 in Norway is completely free, so I wanted to take advantage of that while I could – plus I knew he was due for a check-up. We arrived thirty minutes early because I wasn’t sure where the office was or how long it would take to get there. There were no forms to fill out – they just asked me to write his name, address, phone and birth date on a sticky pad and that was it for registering him. Kaleb was pleased they had a Lego table in the waiting room so he killed his half hour building a castle while I took a little snooze (I’ve been way too short on sleep lately). Right on the button at 2:45 when we had our appointment, they called us back to the exam room. I’m used to dentist offices with two or three work stations, but this place was like a hospital corridor with rooms on both sides of a very long hallway. That particular dentist office is set up just for the kids in Aalesund Kommune and that’s all they do. The dental hygienist asked me a few questions (she spoke NO English), I answered them and then she took Kaleb into a separate little closet room and took x-rays of his teeth. She shut him in the room with the machine while she stood outside in the hall and watched him through the window. That was different. Then we went back into the exam room and she pulled the x-rays up on her computer screen and showed me that everything looked great. She asked if he brushed and flossed and then she did a quick check inside his mouth. She swabbed some teeth with a little fluoride cream, gave him a cup to rinse out his mouth and he spit it out in the little sink next to the chair, just like I had when I was a kid. And that was it. They don’t scrape tarter or polish kid’s teeth here. I asked, but they don’t’ do it. She said even if he had a cavity, at age 10, they wouldn’t do anything to fix it because he will be losing those back teeth in a few years anyway. I was so hoping he’d get his teeth polished, but since he got a clean bill of health, I guess we’ll just be glad for that.

Kaleb and I headed over to the shopping mall at Moa and he spent a little of his birthday money – finally. He’d lost his wallet with all the money in it (over $200), but the people at the dog sled place we went after Christmas recently found it and sent it back, so he was anxious to buy something. Kory picked us up on his way home from work.

Turid came over tonight for a glass of wine and to help me figure out what papers I need to take in to the tax office tomorrow to get my taxes done (they are due on the 30th). I need an excuse to skip school tomorrow as we have another big chapter test and I already know I’ll fail it, so I may as well take the lesser of two evils and go find out how much money we owe the Norwegian government. It’s okay by me to get everything wrong on my Norwegian test, but I certainly don’t want to get a single thing wrong on our tax return. They are quite serious about their taxes here.