This whole school year I’ve been on a whirlwind routine back home and now I find myself settling into another type of routine, but it’s a lot more enjoyable. I’d still prefer more spontaneity in my life, but the fact is, sometimes life is just routine. Kaleb goes to school, I drink a cup of coffee and do my Bible study. I post my blog once the library opens and head to the grocery store for whatever we need or whatever I find on sale. Around noon, Kory and I go for a walk. Does three days in a row of nearly the same thing count as a routine? Maybe not.
I switched it up a bit this morning and headed for the store across the street, AND I went before the library was open. My favorite brand of flatbread is not available at our nearest market, so I had a reason. I always bring my shopping bags along because the stores all charge about 25 for each bag, but today I only took one with me, which was a big mistake. They were having a huge sale and I couldn’t resist spending only 10 kroner on most everything I bought (about 2 bucks). A can of black beans normally costs $4, but today, it was only $2 so I bought a few cans, and red beans too, and some garbanzo beans. Enchilada soup is in our future. I bought so many spontaneous items that my fingers nearly broke while carrying back the bags. (Yes, I had to pay for another grocery bag because I bought more than mine would hold.) The day began with pleasant surprises. My favorite flatbread was even 10 kroner – on sale from 14. I bought six boxes.
It took me a while to put away all the groceries, as I had to reorganize some spaces. I have no pantry and cupboard space is limited, along with freezer and frig space. Fortunately, I’m spatial. Tee hee.
Just after noon, Kory and I took off to go buy Kaleb a new mattress. He’s been complaining way too much about the one he has, so it was time. We parked the car near the store, then went on our hour plus long walk, in yet another new neighborhood. I’m very motivated to walk when I can see things I haven’t seen before, and lucky for us, it was another gorgeous day (see photos). Today we ran into Kory’s old boss, Espen, who is building a house in the neighborhood where we walked. Another chance encounter.
My favorite part of the walk was going by the barnehagen (daycare center). There must have been 100 kids out playing. Four little boys were throwing rocks over the fence and when they saw us coming they asked me if I could pick up a few things that were on my side of the fence. I did. Then they proceeded to throw them back over the fence. It was like playing fetch with a dog, only I was the dog.
After the walk we went in to buy the foam mattress at Skeidar. I was the only one in the store but it still took the clerk 20 minutes to take my money. She kept complaining about their new computer system. Slow as molasses. Then when we paid, we had to take the receipt out back for it to be loaded into our car. Another 20 minutes. They must have all been on lunch break.
Kory has heard many people here complain about employee’s lack of motivation to do a good job in the work place. There are no consequences for poor performance, so no one is trying to be good at what they do.
People who have left this country complain about all the paperwork and how long things take to get processed. I guess we’ve seen a bit of that but we haven’t been too impacted by it.
The Good Teacher Inga told me her school is completely different now because they’ve changed some rules and if I were to move to Norway and need language lessons, I would have to apply to the school and it would take 12-15 months before the application was processed, before I could attend classes. She said it’s insane because people need to learn the language when they first arrive, not years later. We were lucky to come when we did.
Many people are talking about the long term affects of this type of on-the-job-laziness, which is obviously happening when it takes 12 months to shuffle one piece of paper from one desk to another, or 20 minutes to ring up a simple order. I can rack it up to the “charm” of living in Norway because I have nothing else to do but wait all day for a mattress, but others might feel differently. It will be interesting to see what the future holds for Norway, with that kind of apathy in the workplace.
Kaleb was gone all afternoon again. I asked him if he missed me and he asked if I wanted to know the truth, so he didn’t really need to answer me after that comment. He went on a field trip today with school to a museum where they learned about the middle ages and played a bunch of games from that time. They were gone all day so he was happy he didn’t have to do any schoolwork for me, but I did make him play the piano when he got home.
Kory worked on framing up his art, then attended a condo association meeting tonight and went straight to a home fellowship group after that. I hosted a Bible study at our place tonight for women from the Philadelphia Church. We had a great time of sharing, praying and singing together. They all loved the food I made and wanted recipes, but I’m sure it won’t be the same since I used some ingredients I brought from America.
I made “chocolate chip” cookies, without the chips because they aren’t available here. I bought bars of dark chocolate (on sale for 10 kroner each!) and had the worst time trying to break them into small enough pieces they would work like chips. When I grated them, the chocolate melted in my hands. When I cut it with a knife, pieces went flying all over the kitchen. When I put it in a bag and hit it with a hammer, I made very little impact on the size of the chunks. I finally gave up and cut each small square with a paring knife, but it took way too long to make that dough. I won’t be doing that again. The women were all most impressed with their first taste of a genuine American cookie. (Cookies and pies are not part of this culture.) I sent them home with doggie bags and warned them that Norwegian brown sugar isn’t nearly as good as the stuff you get in America, so if they “try this at home” it won’t taste as good. They’ll try anyway. (Such initiative!)
