Feeding the Habit

I think my addiction to buying things at the Thrift Store is averaging me about a hundred dollars a week.  Never before have I had such a problem.  I was trying to stay away this week, just to be sure we’d stay within our budget, but I’ve been back in Norway now for three full days without once going to the Thrift Store.   (I tried to find some in Turkey, too, but they didn’t have any.)

All I could think of today is all the things that must have shown up during the week we were gone, and I just couldn’t help myself.  I decided to take my little “fresh air” walk down to my favorite place to see what I could see.  I wasn’t disappointed.  The problem was, however, I didn’t pack enough cash with me, so I had to call Kory to come bail me out.  There were treasures galore.  I got table cloths ($2-4 each), a new stool I can use outside when I’m trying to pick up an internet signal from the library ($7), a new computer desk chair (big splurge at $22), some really cool bowls ($2 each), 8 matching glasses (free), a few metal serving trays ($2 each) and a very cool little shelf all hand carved with a Norwegian design ($20).  I even bought a few kid’s books for Kaleb ($1-2 each), a decorative plate of Trondheim ($2), a very old copper pitcher ($13) and a Hardanger table runner ($4).  I really splurged on a few things and was quite “fornøyd” as they say here in Norway (satisfied.)  I don’t know why I get so happy shopping at that store.  I think it’s a combination of affordable items and also unique things that certainly could never be found in America.  And all the money I spend goes to missions!  I wish I knew the prices I could get for some antiques, because I’m sure I could resell many of the items in that store for a good profit, if I only knew.  I was in there two hours today.  I really can’t go back for a while as I spent all our food money for the week.  I think we’ll be eating those hot dogs I bought on sale yesterday, for dinner.

Poor Kory, he so wants a new drill motor, as he swears he can’t do a thing without one, but they are at least $300 and I feel we can’t afford one for the occasional screw he’ll be using it for.  But he said nothing when I spent $100 at the thrift store today.  He’s a very good martyr.   And I spent $50 on plants today too because EVERYONE in Norway dresses up their decks and front porches with flowers for 17^th of May, which is coming right up.  I hate to seem like a stick in the mud, so I had to splurge and buy some red, white and blue flowers so I fit in with everyone else.  The rebel in me even bought some purple and yellow pansies that don’t match anything else, but they were cheap so I need to get those all potted up and ready to grow.

Kaleb came home right after school today all frustrated with the amount of homework his classmates have been given.  He said it’s pointless to go home with anyone after school since they are all taking an hour or two to get their work done.  He’s been helping a lot of them with math and English homework, but he doesn’t like sitting around waiting for them anymore, so he just came home.  I gave him a little homework to do himself, just so he doesn’t feel left out.

We saw in the paper that a cruise ship was in town this afternoon, so Kory had the big idea to go down and try to sell some of his artwork to the tourists.  It was drizzling a bit and they were all heading back to their ship by the time we got there.  Kory and Kaleb set up a little table on the corner of a street, but they had no signs, so it didn’t go over too well.  I told Kory he should just go into the souvenir shop next door and see if he could leave some things there on consignment, but he wouldn’t listen to me.  Then a local guy came by and admired his work and they had a little discussion about it.  The local guy told him to go into that souvenir shop and try to sell his stuff on consignment, and next thing I know, Kory is in the souvenir shop working out a consignment deal with the shop owner.  Go figure.  So at least Kory now has his art being distributed.  We’ll see how it goes.  He’s very hopeful and I’m just thankful he listens to somebody, even if it’s not me.

Kory visited with Tante Kari tonight while Kaleb was practicing his piano.  I think it’s an odd time for two people who are both hard of hearing to be having a conversation while piano music is blasting right next to them, but somehow they manage.  There’s a lot of head nodding but I’m not sure either of them can hear what the other is saying.  It’s kinda funny.

“Russ” (pronounced Roose) is going on right now so it’s an interesting time in Norway.  All the kids that are going to graduate from high school have 17 days in May to do crazy things and act very wild.  They all wear red overalls and many pool their money to buy old red mini-vans painted with all kinds of things on it, including the names of the “Russ” kids who own it.  The vans get recycled year after year and insurance companies sell insurance just for these 17 days in May when the kids are driving them. 

The Russ kids (graduates) attend parties non stop where they all get challenges to accomplish during this time.  They have funny hats they wear with a tassel on it, and for each challenge they complete, they get some weird object to attach to their tassel to show they did it.  As I’m writing this at midnight, there are a bunch of Russ kids out in the roundabout near our house, tooting horns and holding up signs asking people to honk their horns.  I think they get points for the number of honks they get.  The other day when I was walking alone on the sidewalk, a Russ van went by and someone threw a water balloon at me.  It didn’t hit me so I’m sure they didn’t get a point for that, but it reminded me to be very careful when I’m out in public, as one never knows when they will encounter a Russ kid with a challenge to complete.  I’m thankful the 17 days are soon over.

Tonight I attended the women’s Connect Group with Agape Church.  Our fearless leader, Synnøve, had a birthday yesterday so we all met at a local restaurant for “kvelds mat” (night food).  I wasn’t hungry so I just ordered some pita bread ($10), while the others ate a full meal (after 9pm!).  We had a nice time of sharing and talking about stuff going on in our lives.  It’s good to be connected.

It's Finally Springtime!

After last night’s failed attempt to print or even get a good internet connection, I made an executive decision to put Kaleb’s Honors Algebra course with Johns Hopkins University on HOLD until the fall.  Even with the dial up modem option, the signal keeps dropping and it’s not very fast, so for him to watch lectures over it would be a nightmare.   He wasn’t too upset about that and it takes a lot of pressure off me to get him hooked up everyday to the internet to do his math.  I had him stay home from school today, thinking we could go to the library and print out the mid-term test he needs to take, but there was a huge wait for computer time there, so that fixed the deal.  No math for several months.  At least I brought his grammar books along.

My Pal Vestina sent me a text message inviting me to her see her new place today at 11 and there was no misunderstanding in THAT invitation.  Kory and Kaleb went with me into town since Kaleb wanted to go to the bigger downtown library to see what books are available and Kory wanted to see if any shrimp boats were in.  He loves buying shrimp right off the boat and eating them on a bench overlooking the harbor.  I was just glad to have some chick time with my sweet friend from Lithuania.  She now has a steady boyfriend and they’ve taken their relationship to the next level by buying a condo together, so I just had to see it. (see photo) It was incredible with floor to ceiling, wall-to-wall windows overlooking the fjord and mountains beyond.  It’s pretty small, but it’s all they need.  She made me lunch and bought little marzipan cakes for me because she remembered I love marzipan.  Too sweet.  We didn’t have enough time to catch up on everything, but it was a good start.  There’s still plenty of time ahead for future visits.

The sun came out today so Vestina walked with me into the heart of town (see photo) where we went shopping for some second hand furniture for her.  She didn’t know about all the thrift stores I do, so she was glad to be shown where they are because they really aren’t in obvious locations.  We ran into Kory and Kaleb while we were walking around.  I asked Kory where he parked (I needed my wallet to buy a few treasures I happened to find), and he told me he found a free spot over by my old school.  I told him there was no such thing as a free parking spot in downtown Aalesund, but he insisted there was.  It’s only two bucks an hour to park, but his tight-fisted nature gets the best of him sometimes.  As we headed back to the car later, we found a parking ticket on the windshield for $60 (300 kroner).  Ouch. I didn’t need to say, “I told you so,” but I really wanted to.

Kaleb was anxious to get home to meet up with his friends after school so we cut our downtown time short.  The sun was still out and I could have taken photos for hours as everything was just so beautiful to me – being back in the heart of the city – but we had to go.  I needed to get going anyway because I invited The Good Teacher Inga and her husband over for dinner.  We had a few good laughs with them and a nice visit (see photo).  I showed Inga the text message I’d gotten from Kristin about going for a “tur” (hike/walk) and she interpreted it the exact same way I did, but then right away she said, “It could also mean just come on over…” and when I told her about showing up to a fancy lunch in my rain gear, she cracked up.  She did say she probably would have made the same assumption, so I shouldn’t be too hard on myself.

They had many similar experiences living in Ireland for a year as we had living here in Norway.  Her husband, Pat, is from there.   He told us some of his observations about living in Norway and how different it is even from Ireland.  One thing new I learned tonight is around the rules for hunting deer.  Apparently only farm owners are allowed to shoot them.  They are allowed so many deer each year based on how big their farm is, and only during a three week period, and only within a certain range of their farm.  Inga’s brother just took over their family farm so he has a three deer limit, because it’s a small place.  It must be one of those laws that goes way back – not only to protect the farmer’s crops but also to provide meat.  I guess venison is hardly ever in the grocery stores and when it is, it’s very expensive, so they made sure I understood what a special treat I got the other night being served deer stew.

The rules for fishing around here are also a bit strange, Pat said.  Anyone can fish for anything out in salt water, with no license and no restrictions, but fishing salmon in the rivers is highly controlled and very expensive.  Not only does one need a license to fish, but they need to pay rent to the farmer that owns the land they will be standing on when they fish.  The licensing fee is about $30 a day, but the rent to stand on the farmer’s land can be up to $200 a day.  Only the farmer has the fishing rights to the river going through his property, but he is free to sell it at any price, so the good fishing holes get a good price. 

The other thing Pat said was that saltwater fishing has been totally unrestricted up until just recently when they started clamping down on the Germans.  Apparently they’ve been coming up here in droves, driving in their motorhomes and catching all kinds of salmon, freezing them in their RVs, and filling up ice chests to take them back to Germany and selling them.  Entire tour groups were coming up because it is free food, so then the Norwegians got concerned all the salmon might go away, so now there is a limit, but it seems, it’s just for the Germans because they only place that law is enforced is at the border when they pull over motorhomes.  Funny.

And that ends yet another day in Paradise.  Our house is filled with tulips, as everyone that comes for dinner brings a bouquet or two.  I’ve never had this many tulips in my house in Skagit Valley at one time – even living with fields of them out our front door.  Spring has most definitely arrived.

God Påske (Happy Easter)

Well today was certainly had a few surprises. It was my first Easter in Norway, and it wasn’t anything like I expected. I guess I’m so used to the American version of the holiday that I mistakenly assumed it would be somewhat the same in Norway. At our church back home, Easter and Christmas are the biggest attendance days of the whole year, but that certainly isn’t the case here in Norway. We were up and ironing clothes to look our Sunday best this Easter morning. The sun was out and Paula and I walked to Agape Church, just down the road. I asked Kory to drive the car to get there earlier to save us a seat as I expected the place to be packed out. We got there five minutes early and there was only about 20 people in the whole building. Apparently everyone was still up in the mountains with their crime novels and oranges. I was shocked. Even the pastor had the day off. Eventually more people trickled in, but certainly no one was wearing their pretty new Easter dresses or looking their finest for this Resurrection Day, so it threw me for a loop. The overall attendance was very low and they didn’t even have coffee afterwards, everyone just went home. I was so bummed!

Paula and I got busy making dinner for Odd and Turid and Hege, who were coming over at three. As I was making dinner, I saw Sabina ride by on her bicycle. I yelled out the door to her “Happy Easter” and she yelled back, “It’s not Easter today – that was YESTERDAY!” I was sure I misunderstood her. When Tobias came inside with Kaleb, I asked him if he wanted to stay for dinner and he did. I asked about his Easter traditions and didn’t he have a big Easter dinner with his family and do special things today, and he said, “We did all that yesterday.” So it seems that Norwegians do the same thing for Easter as they do for Christmas, they big deal it on the night before. So today, for “real” Norwegians, all the celebrating was over and done with and it was just a day to relax and go for a walk or hike. Boy was that hard to digest. Here we were sitting down to a big turkey dinner, and it was just an ordinary Sunday to Odd and Turid. It sort of took the fun out of it. (They had their big family meal last night with all of Odd’s kids home for the holiday.) But we still enjoyed having them here, with Tobias and my friend Paula, and we ate until we couldn’t eat anymore.

Kaleb was nearly beside himself all day with anticipation of the traditional Easter egg hunt. I shipped over plastic eggs to fill with candy on the chance I couldn’t get them here, and I was right. They don’t do egg hunts here and they certainly don’t sell plastic eggs. Paula brought lots of candy to fill them up so after dinner Paula, Turid and I were out in the yard hiding the eggs while Hege, Tobias and Kaleb were squirreled away in the bathroom waiting for us to be done. Hege and Tobias were quite excited about it as they didn’t know what to expect and they had never been to such an event. I made sure they knew this was not to be “fair” and they got to keep whatever they found. Hege found the most eggs but they all found enough to make them happy. Kory and Odd sat up lawn chairs to watch the show. Neighbors came out of their houses wondering what in the world was going on and people driving past or walking in front of our house watched with interest as these kids were running around the yard picking up things and putting them in a bag. It almost looked like they were picking up trash, so I can’t imagine what people thought since it’s not anything they have in their frame of reference. The kids had a great time and Tobias and Hege were thrilled they got to keep the plastic eggs, so perhaps next year there will be a few more egg hunts in Norway even if we aren’t here.

This past week we were on vacation we saw a lot of advertisements in the stores for Easter things, and every ad had a big yellow chicken in it. Some malls even advertised photo opportunities for the kids with the Easter Chicken (some guy dressed up in a chicken suit). I asked someone why they don’t do the Easter Bunny thing like we do in America and they said, “Because bunnies don’t lay eggs.” Kaleb questioned the whole bunny/egg thing when we was three years old, so now that I think it about, we must look pretty foolish to the Norwegians that we tie rabbits and eggs together with Easter. But somehow the idea of an Easter Chicken still makes me laugh.

After dessert, Kaleb and Tobias took off to go float some plastic eggs down the creek at the end of our street, Kory and Odd and Hege went for a walk back to Odd’s house, and Turid, Paula and I went for a long walk to get some fresh air and to give Paula a chance to check out our neighborhood. Paula has been my greatest Easter gift ever as I haven’t had to clean up a thing – she’s just a dishwashing dynamo and a great help to have around. If I didn’t feel so guilty about that, I’d be enjoying myself even more. But sacrificial love is what this day is all about. Hallelujah!