All Good Things Must Come to an End.

I’m contemplating buying Emil, my massage therapist, a one-way ticket to America.  My life would be much improved if I had him around on a regular basis.  The pain in my lower back has completed gone away and the one in my shoulder is about 95% better.  I had to give him a hug today, as I just felt so good after my “medical massage.”  I hadn’t realized before how much stressed out muscles affect overall health, but I’m certainly going to do my part now to keep them more relaxed.  Daily stretching is a must.  I’ll be thinking of Emil every time, and praying for him.

Bjørn and Kory finished up painting the last of the hand railings today so they both joined the rest of us around the pool for some R&R.  We didn’t leave the pool all day as the sun was hot and everyone just wanted to chill out.   I’m not sure how relaxing it really was with all the water wars going on between Kaleb and I, and Tobias and the twins, but we did our best to keep water off those who weren’t participating.  It was pretty fun, but we all got rather toasted in the process.

At lunch today I suggested maybe we should take the twins on a little trip in the neighborhood over to see the new playground.  Markus said (in Norwegian, of course), “Why don’t we take a little trip up to heaven to see God?”  He’s been fascinated by God and heaven ever since he started shouting HALLELUJAH on a regular basis after spending time with us last summer.  Poor Jonas, he’s gotten kind of tired of it over the past year and when anticipating spending time with us here in Turkey he asked his mom, “What are we going to do with both Kory and Markus shouting HALLELUJAH all the time?”  Kory hasn’t said too many of them this week, as Markus has said enough of them for all of us.  It still makes me laugh when he does it, which only encourages him to do it more, I’m sure, but as I told his parents, there are worse things he could be shouting.

Inger finally convinced Tobias to get a haircut before we leave so I went with them down to the salon and Inger and I got a manicure while we were waiting – for a whopping six dollars each.  We realized it was Mother’s Day back in America (and here, too, but not in Norway), when a neighbor got flowers delivered to her today.  So, we treated ourselves to a little Mother’s Day pleasure.  I think I’ve had a manicure only once or twice in my lifetime.  It’s just so decadent, but for six dollars, I feel I’m worth it.

While we were getting our manicure, a couple of camels walked down the street in front of us.  They were on leads and were dressed up for the tourist business, but it’s still funny to see.  There have been many funny things I’ve seen in Turkey – like traffic lights in the city with a big digital count down clock next to them reporting how many seconds until the light turns green – as if the drivers need time to rev up their engines in preparation.  I’ve also seen two camels sitting down in the back of a pickup truck driving down the freeway.  That was a weird sight.  As was a guy sleeping on top of a tarp, high up on a small semi-truck barreling down the freeway.  One good slam of the brakes and he’d go sailing off that thing.  It made me shudder just looking at him.  I’m sure he wasn’t there just to hold down the tarp. 

The freeway has provided much entertainment as well as handy shopping opportunities.  There are several little stands on the side of the road either selling fresh fruit or cooked corn on the cob.  We haven’t tried the corn, but we did stop to buy 20 pounds of oranges so we could have fresh OJ every morning.  (I think we’ve gone through at least 50 pounds of oranges this week alone.)  One of the funniest things on the freeway is that they don’t have any directional markings for east/west/north/south, but just after passing through a city, there is a sign with the name of that city and a big red slash through it – meaning – this direction will NOT take you there.  It’s pretty comical.

Tonight for dinner we went to a restaurant right on the water and watched the sun go down.  The environment couldn’t have been better.  There was no wind and a very comfortable temperature.  Kory and I had a “hot pot” meal for two where they put chicken pieces and veggies in a clay vase, and cook that in an oven.  They have to break open the vase at the table to get the food out.  It was a genuine Turkish dish so it was fun to have some kind of local food with a little flair.  It was a long evening at the seaside and someone down the shore shot off big fireworks as we ate our complimentary fruit plate after dinner.  The hospitality around here is impressive and the prices are pretty reasonable and sometimes downright cheap.  It’s nice to be able to buy a popcicle for 40 cents here, rather than $4 in Norway.  Many things are even cheaper than in America.  And there is a strong police presence everywhere, so it feels much safer than I expected.  I’m sure this city wasn’t even a city 20 years ago as it seems it was all built around the ruins for the European tourist trade.

Over 150,000 Norwegians travel to Turkey for vacation every year.  It’s the number one vacation destination for them, and it’s easy to see why, since everything is so cheap and they have lots of warm sunshine – two things often lacking in Norway.  The other thing they have, that I love, are streets scented with the smell of honeysuckle and other fragrant flowers.  It’s absolutely heavenly to walk through neighborhoods and breath in deeply.  It’s almost like being in a perfume factory as the smell is so strong.  I haven’t gotten tired of that one bit.

We walked slowly back to the car after dinner tonight and Inger and Josephine did a little jewelry shopping along the way.  The main part of town really comes alive at night.  The currency here is Turkish lira, but they much prefer taking Euros and all the signs are posted with that currency.   Several places take dollars, too, which I found odd since we haven’t run in to a single American tourist since we got here, but Bjørn said all the Russian “new rich” only use American dollars.  Interesting.

We were late getting home tonight.  All of us felt stuffed from dinner and our bodies are radiating heat from our recently acquired sunburns.  I told Kaleb it’s a good time to leave Turkey – when we now feel like one – stuffed and over cooked.  We leave tomorrow.

Tough Decisions

Kaleb had a big problem to face today. Three of his best friends each asked him if he could have a sleepover this weekend, and there are only two available nights in which to do it. He pondered all day how to solve that problem. I suggested he take them in the order they asked, but his absolute best friend, Toban, asked last, and that’s where he wanted to go first. Next weekend is a four day weekend because of the 17th of May (Independence Day), so I wasn’t sure if people were going out of town or not. I e-mailed the mom of Andre and asked if they were available next weekend instead, and they were, so that got him off the hook with Andre, so then it was down to just Haavard and Toban. Whew.



Kaleb flew through his school work and did very well in all of it (he played piano at Tante Kari’s, and she was more than impressed). He worked hard to get it all done so he could catch the one o’clock bus over to his friend’s neighborhood. I told him I’d drive his overnight things to him later. He called about four o’clock and told me his fourth best friend, Henrik, also wanted him to have a sleepover but Henrik’s mom solved his problem by inviting Andre and Toban as well, so he is having one big reunion sleepover tonight with three of his friends and tomorrow he’ll be one-on-one with Haavard. He’s on cloud nine. When I took his PJs, toothbrush and clean undies over to him, all the boys were outside playing on a neighborhood swingset and Kaleb’s face was just glowing. I couldn’t have been more pleased to see how happy he is. It makes me sad for all the time he spends with just us, and nothing to do.


We had plenty to do today so Kory and I just kept plodding along. It was another beautiful, sunny day, but with both front and back doors open, the condo kept nice and cool, while we scurried to and fro. Kory got the last of the boxes out of storage. Tante Kari suggested using a grocery cart to assist in moving. I guess everyone that lives here does it, since the grocery store is basically attached to this building. They don’t have homeless people pushing grocery carts up and down the sidewalks in Norway, so no one really appreciated how silly Kory looked doing it, but it did help preserve his back, as the last of the boxes had books in them. He also spent a great deal of time assembling shelving and storage units we bought for our other house when we first moved here in 2008. I’m completely impressed and amazed that everything we bought new back then, fits exactly to the centimeter in the places we wanted to put them now. In the kitchen there was a space between the end of the cabinets and the wall, and two shelving units fit there, snug as a bug. In our bedroom closet, there was one space that fit perfectly a set of wire drawers, floor to ceiling, without impeding any other things. Even Tante Kari was impressed. She said it was as if God knew way back then that we would be using those things here. I agree it was pretty close to miraculous. It’s so great to have a place to put things!


I was able to get through all the boxes (except things for Kaleb’s room, since he has no space to put stuff since it’s currently filled up with all of Tante Ruth’s boxes.) Our bedroom is finally in order, the kitchen is done and presentable. The bathroom is about half way there and the hallway (which contains my office) just needs a bit more tidying up. We couldn’t hang all the things on the wall just yet because the two walls we share with neighboring condo owners are made of concrete and Kory has to borrow a jack hammer from Rune in order to hang photos and wall mounted light fixtures. We found out from Tante Aslaug that the two wall sconces we got in the division of property, belonged to Kory’s great-grandparents and are very old (from the first days electricity came to Norway.) Who knew.


I returned to my favorite second-hand store today looking for more light fixtures. They all greeted me like an old friend when I walked in. I’m sure I’m their best customer as of late. I found the most comfortable, beautiful, seemingly brand new overstuffed chair there for $35. It has the same color of slate/gray blue that our couches have in them and I nearly peed my pants I was so excited. I thought we needed just one more chair and this one certainly fits the bill. Kory has basically taken possession of the Stressless recliner I bought, so I wanted a “comfy chair” as well. (See photo of me writing this blog, sitting in said chair in front of our new sheer, navy blue curtains.)


Tonight Kory and I were so tired we didn’t want to cook so we thought we’d splurge and go out to dinner (nothing fancy, just a cafeteria style café in the mall.) It was a little after seven o’clock when we walked over there, and they were closed – on a Friday night! It is so hard to get used to the opening hours of places in Norway, when in the US we are used to so many things being open 24 hours. The banks here are open only from ten until three. Restaurants will close between five and seven. Most of the mall shuts down at six, but some grocery stores stay open until eight. We walked over to the grocery store (the mall our condo is attached to has absolutely everything in it – banks, grocery and hardware stores, bakeries, travel agencies, gardening and electric stores, you name it.) We bought some ready made food to take home and put on the BBQ. They sell shish-kebabs in the frozen food section, and also tin foil packages of mixed vegetables, salmon and the seasoning, so all that’s needed is to set them on the grill. It was the fastest food we could find. About twenty minutes later we were sitting down to a yummy BBQ dinner out on the deck. Kory had to buy a beer to go along with it, and he shouted HALLELUJAH more than once while drinking it. It was another great day in paradise.

Sixty-four Years Ago Today...

The flags were flying high in Norway today. It’s the anniversary of the end of German occupation during World War II. There are certain days, by law, Norwegians can fly their flag and today is one of those days. They are such a proud lot of people, I’m sure they would fly it every day if they could. If there is a birthday in the house (or the King’s castle), or someone has been baptized, confirmed, or married it’s also allowed to fly the flag. Easter, Christmas, New Year’s Day, and 17th of May (Independence Day) are national holidays that paint the landscape red with flags flying from every pole. So many people fly flags here it’s just a pretty sight whenever it happens.

I went to school today but it was pretty boring because My Pal Vestina was sick and not many others showed up. I mainly went as an excuse to get into town to pick up some books at the library. I ordered the farm history books for the area in Norway my friend Paula’s great grandparents were from, so I was anxious to dive in and see what more information I could discover. I’ve spent at least ten hours today working on that little project and I’ve got a dead butt to prove it. Fortunately for me, Kory was over at his cousin’s house all afternoon building his bedroom extension and Kaleb didn’t come home from school right away, so I had plenty of time to concentrate on translating the words and connecting the dots. Kaleb asked if he could go home with a classmate after school today and I thought it would be for just a few hours, but I finally called him at 7:30 and told him he needed to come home. He loves playing with those boys from his class and I love that he can, and does. I also enjoyed the quiet in the house as Kory didn’t get home til nearly 8pm either.

When I was in town today there were four Russ (soon to graduate) girls at the crosswalk – two on each side of the street. They are easy to spot because they all wear red overalls. I’ve been asking a bit more about the whole Russ tradition (pronounced Roose) and it seems they are “required” to pull pranks as part of their graduation process (it’s a self-imposed requirement.) The graduates attend a lot of parties in the spring of their last year of school and they all wear hats to them with homemade tassels sprouting out of the top. Each time they accomplish a prank, they attach something that symbolizes the prank, to their tassel. There are long-standing traditional pranks, and then there are pranks each class makes up new every year. The goal is to get as many items on their tassel as possible before they complete school. So today, the girls were standing side by side on each end of the sidewalk, and as people were crossing the street they would reach out their hand to shake whosever hand was crossing and then they said, “Velkommen til andre side.” (Welcome to the other side.) They giggled as they did it, but they are required to shake everyone’s hand apparently, and the locals obliged. Tobias told me today he saw some Russ guys on a tricycle riding around and around in a round-about – right along with the cars going through it, so some of the pranks are a little dangerous. I heard about one where a whole group of Russ kids locked arms and walked very slowly onto a ferry – causing all the cars behind them to not be able to load until the Russ kids had gotten on. It’s silly things but they seem to have fun while they are doing them and the adults just roll their eyes and put up with it.

Before we came to Norway I went to a naturopath who told me I should probably not eat wheat. I rolled my eyes because bread is my favorite food. I kinda forgot I was told that, but ever since I’ve been in Norway I have felt older than my years. Every time I moved, I ached (standing up was the worst). I couldn’t figure it out until just a few weeks ago I remembered the whole wheat thing (no pun intended). Norway’s bakeries produce the best bread I’ve ever tasted, so it’s no wonder I would forget (selective memory). I finally decided to see if my aches and pains were related to some kind of wheat sensitivity and I cut out eating bread and crackers and fresh bakery items (how sad). But the saddest thing was, I immediately felt better! It only took one day of eating no wheat, and I could tell the difference. I wanted to cry. It’s like Kory being here and not being able to eat all those disgusting sausages they make that he thinks taste so good, but dares not nibble on. So now we are on an even-keel. We both have foods we shouldn’t eat. I haven’t eaten bread in weeks (I did have a little cake the other night, however), and I can’t believe how much more energy I have. I guess in some people, wheat causes inflammation, and I’m one of them. My knees even stopped hurting once I stopped eating wheat. Go figure. I guess I’ve abused my wheat privileges and now I must pay the price. Sometimes, when life is so good it doesn’t seem it could get any better – it doesn’t.