God tur!

Here's my ticket to the CNN interview of Mohammad Yunus a few hours after he'd been presented with the Nobel Peace Prize. That was cool. We got headphones. There was a dolly right over my head. Sometimes the arm would come really low, and I thought it was going to hit me. There was a Fulbrighter sitting next to me who kept saying, "Go ahead. Just pull that green cord out. I'm sure they wouldn't mind." Sharon Stone, however, was not there. Probably because the King and Queen weren't there either, so she had no one after whom to make her grand entrance. Later that evening, we went for pizza, though, and we were able to see the torch processional down Karl Johan, and the laureate waving from the balcony of the Grand Hotel. That was cool, too. By the way, in case you didn't know, Mr. Yunus is a Fulbright alumnus.

Milk cartons in Norway can be very informative. This part of a milk carton tells the story of how yoghurt came to be popular in Norway. It's from a series of cartons celebrating 125 years of Tine milk. Spennende! (Exciting!) I think that's supposed to be a Greek guy in those speedos. The title of the article is "Continental Customs." (I'm not sure, but I think they might be intending some kind of pun with vaner and vanner--waters--because I can't come up with any other reason why that guy would be standing there in a little bathing suit.)



Milk cartons in Norway can also be festive! This is a Christmas milk carton with skiing Julenisser all over it, as you can see. I think it's adorable. Plus, one of the panels talks about how Martin Luther invented the Christmas tree. I think any scholar of pre-Christian religion among Germanic peoples would beg to differ, but, whatever ...



I get lots and lots and lots if advertisements in my postbox at the student town. In fact, I rarely get anything else. (One reason why you should think about writing me a letter. I promise I'll save it forever ... ! Whoa, accidental end-rhyme.) What I think is really funny is when the most upscale department store in Oslo sends its Christmas catalog to a bunch of starving international students. Here are a few of the funnier pages:



You probably can't read it, but the slogan for this clothing company is "Defining Scandinavian Preppy." My friend Joel thinks that's hilarious, and I can't help but agree.


Here we see the traditional Christmas custom of building gingerbread skyskrapers while wearing really expensive vests. I'm going to go ahead and leave that very typical typo in this post, just so you can see how living in Norway is giving me a learning disability. "Skyskrapers"?!?! Seriously?!?! Sometime I'll have to do a post on English words that are really funny to Norwegianize by changing "c" to "k" and "z" to "s".



... And here is a really fancy pile of marzipan pigs. Those little guys are just s'damn versatile.

I am a hopeless packrat. Not in the stacks of newspaper, millions of twisty ties, lots of old coffee cans kind of way, but in a nostalgic kind of way. For some reason, I want to remember what everything looks like. And I always think I'm going to show other people the funny little everyday things I save. But, I never do. So, while I have easy access to a scanner, I thought I'd let you in on a few gems from my personal paper trail.

When I first left for Norway, I was resolved to spend the entire year there, no breaks. But I soon learned it's a lot harder to move to a country than just to study there temporarily. And I was homesick, which surprised me a little. I don't really remember being homesick, really, when I started college, for instance. But I was homesick probably until the middle of October (blech), which was plenty of time to schedule a trip home for Christmas. In spite of this, I was in Norway long enough before Christmas to get a few ideas to improve my own celebrations. First of all, I think Norwegians do incredible things with light and darkness. (See, for example, my pictures from the river festival.) They have these outdoor candles that look more like torches when you light them, and many stores and cafes set them out in the afternoons by their doors or in front of their outdoor specials signs or what have you. I brought some of these home to share with my family. See?



I also decorated our tree with Norwegian flags. Bet we were the only house on the block with those!


Finally, I've been waiting and waiting for it to snow, so I could re-enact a little ritual I first saw in a Swedish cartoon called Gubben og katten og nissemaskinen (The Old Man and the Cat and the Christmas Elf Machine). The cat wishes for the Julenisse to visit them on Christmas, so the old man and the cat build a little igloo out of snowballs. But before they put the top snowball on, they light a candle inside the igloo. Then they put their letter to the Julenisse inside the snowball and use it as the roof for the little igloo. During the night, the snowballs melt and cave in, and the letter either burns up or blows away, so the old man can tell the cat that the Julenisse has come for his letter. The ritual itself is kind of lovely, and the effect of the candle shining through the cracks in the igloo is definitely so ...



Of course, now I'm a little worried that I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning with the Julenisse standing at the foot of my bed, tapping his little foot and looking very disgruntled, because it's after Christmas after all, so what am I doing interrupting the first few days of peace he's had in over a month now, by building a completely non-utilitarian snow igloo in such an out-of-the-way location? (I don't think the Julenisse usually visits Nebraska. And I'm pretty sure he only speaks Scandinavian, so it will probably take me a long time to pacify him in my sub-standard Norwegian.) Whatever, it was pretty. And I may not be super athletic, but, personally, I'm pretty sure I can take the Julenisse.