Sharing the traditions

 It's been a busy two years of home ownership, much of it involving the house being completely upside down as we removed the original "insulation" of carbon dust and added a proper layer in our first floor, replaced heat pumps, redid the 1920s kitchen that was clearly designed for a single cook, and of course constructed a tree house on an old cherry tree in the yard. Even in a fractured house, there hasn't been a day I regretted making the move from Oslo, and the expansive view over the fjord has not grown ordinary.

The longer I live away from America, the more abstract most of American culture has become for me, with the exception of Thanksgiving. As a child in Vermont, I always enjoyed November's quiet in-betweenness, when the feeling of snow hangs heavy in the air, the grass and leaves dull to subtler tones, and the darkness closes in. Thanksgiving, holding back the tide of Christmas was the high point of this time. My family was not stuck to a specific ritual, so we celebrated in our own home alone, at my grandparents and other relatives, and as we children grew older, in our apartments in various cities on the East Coast. Throughout all of this was the chaos of cooking and good scents, a meal that was always completely from scratch (exception for those particularly fond of canned cranberry sauce).

During my years in Iceland, my life was one of constant change and disruption, with living spaces that were often too small or not home-like enough to bring thoughts of Thanksgiving to the forefront. It took a few Novembers in Germany to recall what I was missing, when I attended my American friend H's glorious Thanksgiving spread.

The first year I had a family of my own was when the urge to host myself suddenly emerged. I invited my mom to join us that year, only to discover the day before her flight arrived that I was pregnant. Thanksgiving that year was a blur of morning sickness exacerbated by the smell of roasting turkey, which made me more resolved to try again when I could enjoy it better.

Since then, it's become an annual tradition to cook something that resembles Thanksgiving, mutated as always happens with anyone living outside America. We have a chicken instead of turkey, lingonberry jam instead of cranberries, but for me all that matters is that I am able to recreate the flavor of my mom's stuffing.

This year was the first time in our new kitchen, with extended family that had never tried the meal before. We started the shopping a week early, made a strict timeline on Thursday, then started the bread drying and prepared the two chickens for sous vide on Friday. Saturday morning I puttered my way through the stuffing prep, adjusting the quantities by feel until I achieved the perfect just-like-mom balance. My six-year old F was an enthusiastic assistant with the sweet potato casserole, a flavor that wasn't on my childhood table but is now a steady family favorite. Our guests arrived after T had put the chickens in a giant plastic storage bin to simmer with the sous vide, and we pressed the new arrivals to work on preparing the apple crisp.

F was once again somber in his role as final apple slicer & quality control, and in short time the makings of a vast dessert were assembled and ready in line for their oven time after the chickens were roasted. As we cooked, the guests mingled in the adjacent dining room, discussing the boats passing on the fjord and watching as the gray day turned navy and faded to black.

Candles lit, the spread laid on the kitchen table, everyone ate enthusiastically with many questions about the different ingredients and flavors. One guest had even done homework and come prepared to share what she was thankful for in the last year.

Now, even as November fills feverishly with everything that Must Be Completed before the holiday pause, the love of the in-between time persists. I'm already looking forward to next year's meal.

Holmestrand Harbor Watch

Less than three weeks ago, a crew of movers came to our Oslo apartment, and in a frighteningly fast and efficient process, completely dismantled the life we'd spent four years constructing there. That night we slept in our curtainless new bedroom in the creaky, airy new home in Holmestrand. The weeks since that day have been chaotic but productive, with people coming to inspect and deliver, welcome us to the neighborhood, and meet our new home. We've had wood brought into our spacious wood shed to hopefully last the whole winter, we've had people come to inspect the room upstairs where a kitchen was installed postwar, where we hope to build a bathroom. We've had friends and family come to see our new home and taste homemade fruit tart (our own berries!), and new neighbors arrive with welcoming plants and cookies.

It's hard to describe just how much this place feels like where I was supposed to be all these years in Oslo. It's a lovely city and I've enjoyed getting to know it, but I missed the smell of grass being mown, the drone of a lawnmower being the loudest sound coming from my open window. I have become the family's number one fan of laundry because hanging it is such a treat with the sea view, the arc of blue skies above, and the scent of an unknown but viscerally familiar plant crushed beneath my feet. The sheets then flap in the sea breezes and come inside smelling of oxygen and energy, and my children do what all children have done since clotheslines were invented, racing through the hanging sheets as I chide them for pulling them askew.

And the view.. I cannot say enough about how much it has changed the shape and enjoyment of our lives to have this gigantic sweep of sky and strip of fjord so visible from the house. This region seems to be prone to brief rain squalls, which ruins my laundry drying but makes the clouds all the more interesting, and we have the best seat in town to enjoy them all. We look out on the major shipping channel going from Oslo, so the days have begun to be punctuated by the passing of the ferries to Germany and Denmark. Every morning as we eat breakfast during the week, we watch for the Kiel ferry arriving, and when I see it pass on the way out of Oslo in the afternoon, I know it's time to go pick the kids up.

We've become familiar with the moods of the water here, waking to the silver sheen of morning light that makes the islands look like navy blue whales dreaming in the water. In the afternoon the fjord is a brilliant teal striped with white as small boats race in and out of the local harbor, and then as we eat dinner, it turns a luminous turquoise when the sun swings around the back of our house. And now as I write this, the sky is a dull periwinkle striped with pink clouds, and the matte grey of the water lies placid in the darkening light.

Earlier today while the kids had their usual Friday dose of TV time, I slipped outside to the long low light striping across our newly mown grass and just lay there listening to the quiet hum of the in-between time. Too early for the evening crowd to be out, too late for kids to be playing outside, the only sound I could hear was the distant thrum of a ventilation fan somewhere, and some magpies conversing in the next yard. As I lay there I had this sudden realization that this piece of ground I lay on was mine. My first time actually owning property and it is this slice of magic, surrounded by rose bushes and apple trees, and guarded by an elegant old oak tree. Dripping with black currants and bursting with rhubarb, buzzing with bees and butterflies this time of year, and scented of manure, flowers, sea, and grass. My home.

Almost there

 In the years since I last posted here, a lot of new features were added to my life. That navy blue eyed sunnmøringer I mentioned before became my husband. We celebrated our wedding with our family and friends deep in the best part of his home region, a tiny village on the shores of Hjørundfjord. As we said our vows, our infant son lay sleeping strapped to the chest of my college friend's husband.

When we returned to Oslo, it was to our brand-new apartment that we had just moved into a few weeks before. As a new build, it didn't come with so much as a lightbulb or a closet, and since we moved in early May it was months before we realized we really needed more lamps. The boxes I'd packed up in February when I moved from my studio apartment took almost a year to unpack. By that time I was heavily pregnant with our daughter, who joined our family three summers ago. Last year I applied to be a Norwegian citizen, which was approved only three hours after I delivered the required documentation to the immigration directorate.

Since then, I've tried to write a post saying I've finally found my home, since it seems that with all the family happiness one could hope for and a country that has welcomed me as a citizen, I must have a home now. Something has never quite felt right about where we live though. It's brand new, bright, and as city apartments go it is spacious, but we bought it before there was even the dream of children in our lives. Those children continue to need more and more equipment- helmets and skis and skates and LEGO bricks galore and sixteen varieties of outdoor clothing, all of which has become harder and harder to store in this space.

But mostly, I've had this feeling of something being missing, that something I had in abundance when I lived in Iceland. I miss seeing the weather sweeping across the sky, I miss taking a moment from my work to look out the window and remember where it is I live, the place that still makes me weep when I spend a morning skiing alone in the majestic trees. I miss being able to see the tiny changes in the landscape as spring unfolds, to smell the earth waking up as the snow melts. I miss the quiet of an early morning and the space to see sunset skies.

So, yesterday we put this place on the market. We bought a house a month ago in what seems like a remarkably spur-of-the-moment decision in retrospect. We'd both agreed it was time to return to our roots as small-town people and in the absence of any other activities available during the Easter week, we did day trips around the Oslo area. One town really struck us as the perfect balance of coziness and connectivity to the city, access to necessary services and the nature I crave in abundance. We did a search for properties available and found the kind of house I've always loved from afar here, expecting that it was just not the kind of home within my reach. My practical father-in-law read through the inspection report, a process I expected to reveal the fatal flaws of the hundred year old house, but all he did was make approving noises. New roof, new windows, properly drained foundation, replaced electricity and insulation.

We went to see the place and I did my best to conceal my immediate love of the sweeping staircase, the double doors opening out to the majestic view of fjord and sky, the upstairs conservatory with even more of the glorious view. But my husband knew how I felt when he saw my face, and he saw all the potential such a home could offer too. A week later, the place was ours.

Since then, I've had several rounds of panic over this sudden change of life plans, but somehow every potential hiccup has been smoothed out. We found a delightful new daycare/school for the children that had space despite us applying outside the main enrollment period. We have visited the town multiple times and explored the charming boardwalk area and downtown. We found where everyone goes for ice cream on sunny days, and beachcombed on the rocks of the beach that's a few hundred meters from the new home. We even got a chance to introduce the children to the house, where my son gravely asked where he would be washing his hands when he got home from daycare. My daughter has spent the days we have visited introducing everyone to her favorite dress and generally spreading the sunshine she has become famous for. 

And now that the hardest part of preparing our current place for sale is over, I'm starting to allow myself to dream of mornings drinking coffee as I watch morning develop over the fjord, of afternoons gardening in my own yard while my son digs in his sand box, of my daughter riding her bicycle to the sweet park a few blocks from the house. I want to cook meals together with my husband in our seaview kitchen, invite friends to the terrace for cake and coffee. I'm ready to be home.

Ski magic

As a kid growing up in Vermont, I heard of the magic that was xc skiing in Norway. In later years, I wondered about this place where it was so normal to use ski poles with your rollerblades or rollerskis that it wouldn't be the fodder for drive-by screams that I was cheating (thanks, Martha's Vineyard). Then came the first time I was stuck in Oslo during a work trip from Iceland and I saw someone dressed to ski walking to the tram on a Saturday morning. A city that had ski trails within reach of public transportation seemed impossible to someone used to New England where there was a ski culture but it wasn't something that absolutely everyone does.

I did manage to go skiing once in Norway after that one glimpse thanks to a pharmacist who took pity on me. Stuck in Norway for yet another weekend while waiting for a Monday meeting, she lent me everything I needed and I took the train to Lillehammer where I had a marvelous day. And yet still, I thought of course skiing in Lillehammer is great, because it's what the region is known for.

Then, last month my in-laws-to-be gave me a pair of my own skis for Christmas, and a week ago it began to snow. It snowed half of Saturday and all day Sunday so on Monday after work I hopped on the subway out to Sognsvann, following the others carrying skis. When I arrived, I followed the stream of other ski-bearing people to the trail head where I nervously waxed up for the first time in years. A beautifully groomed, lighted trail curved off into the darkness around the lake, so I followed the pinpricks of light between the snow-laden pines.

It's hard to get lost on a lighted trail in a forest, so I kept going until, 11 kilometers later, I emerged at Frognerseter with the glow of Oslo spread below me. From there it was a short climb to another subway station that whisked me back home to warmth and dinner.

Still not quite believing what I'd just experienced, I decided to try again this morning. By the time I arrived on the trail at Sognsvann, the sun was fully up and the sky just starting to brighten to a crisp wintry blue. There had been fresh snowfall last night so the pines were even heavier, and every bare twig was outlined in powder that gently wafted off as the sun warmed the branches.

I took a new route even farther out into the forest, a gently rolling track that wound through pines, past small frozen lakes, past a farm and along a rushing river. The forest was full of others- children barely able to walk being pulled along by parents with lead ropes, 85 year old women with vintage skis, lots of rambunctious dogs in bootees snuffling the passersby. After having skied in places where it was mostly ski team and a few enthusiasts on the trails, it's fantastic to see how all-inclusive and accessible the sport is here.

And what better way to enjoy a perfectly crisp winters day than to be skiing through landscape such as this? The trail I took eventually arrived at a skistua, where skis lined the sun drenched wall outside, and where the scent of fresh waffles drifted out the door. I paused briefly for some hot tea from my thermos before continuing on. The trail I chose started a downward descent after a brief panorama of the Oslo skyline and surrounding pine forests, and I eventually found myself back where I'd started at Sognsvann.

20 minutes later, I was home again, with a slightly frozen face but still marvelling that such incredible skiing is such a short ride away from the biggest city here, costs nothing, and is illuminated every night week until around 11pm. It's turned dark winters from something to tolerate to something to embrace and celebrate. I can't wait to do it again.

ten years in

I realized that this week marks two anniversaries: ten years since I moved abroad, and eight years since my first visit to Oslo. Now, I live with a view of that hotel where I dined with M, and a five minute walk from the microbrewery where we had beers that night. That crazy Icelandic weather I wrote about missing then is something I now take great joy in not having to deal with though. Tonight, for example, I came back from a meeting by bike, passing through Frogner park just as the slanting spring light filtered through the spray of Vigeland's majestic fountain.This is my neighborhood, my city, and it's already full of wonderful friends and favorite secret corners.

My neighborhood has also proved to be full of even more unexpected delights, much of which I can witness from the bay of unbroken windows along the front of my living room. Today the local school's marching band was out rehearsing for the high point of the Norwegian holiday calendar, the 17th of May. For three hours, a battalion of sailor-suited children marched in tight ranks around the streets of my neighborhood. They ended by marching up my street with a collection of small flag-waving children trailing along behind, to collect in front of the fire station I can see from my window. The firemen opened all the engine bays and came out to applaud the band, who then played the national anthem before smartly marching off to their school again.

It reminds me of a phrase my dad used to toss around, "an attitude of gratitude", something I feel almost every day here. How lucky I am to live in such a beautiful place, to be part of such a community! Springtime in Oslo is glorious, a furze of lurid green that mellows into delightfully bosky corners in parks and lanes. Lanes! This is a proper city, the largest population of the country, and yet yesterday I found myself on a potholed dirt lane just minutes from home. This is the city where I can take a 15 minute subway ride from my closest metro station and step off into proper forest. It's difficult to explain just how immediate the transition is from train platform to babbling brook lined with early spring flowers- I still can't quite believe it myself.

I also joined a choir recently in my local church, an elegant early 20th century pile with magnificent stained glass windows and vaguely Viking themed details along the choir loft. Just like my early experiences in Iceland, it's an exhausting and exhilarating few hours of my week. We're going to Hungary later this year and I already expect I'll come back having learned a lot of new Norwegian vocabulary.

And finally, there's this fella... a navy blue eyed Norwegian with a Sunnmøre accent who's been teaching me useful phrases like "there's hope in a hanging snore". Trust me, it makes way more sense in Norwegian.

new year new life

Since last I wrote, everything about my living situation has changed. I'm now writing from a small apartment  in the rather lovely neighborhood called Briskeby in Oslo. It's a short walk to the back entrance of the palace, where a fancifully be-hatted guard stands watch at the back gate, and has a panoramic view of Norwegian landscape above the rooftops to the northwest. The center point of my view is Holmenkollen, the famous ski jump, and in the dark hours of a Scandinavian January, it's illuminated and often shrouded in a snowmaking fog. To the left, further ranges of hills sprawl along until I can't see anymore, and above it arches a vast expanse of sky. At the moment, the sky is low, hidden by heavy snow clouds that have haunted us here for the past few days.

The rest of the apartment is small and quaint and fits me perfectly. I've got space to work and read and sleep and a separate kitchen that even has a tiny dishwasher. My bathroom is dusky pink so of course I had to have turquoise towels. In the process of moving, I also got rid of the things I've been moving around just because, without thinking of why I had them. Friends became the new owners of that random bathrobe I got in a gift bag, all the necklaces that are really just not me, all the sweaters that are too short to feel comfortable in. The end result, a home that delights, where everything has a place and a story. I had my first friends over for dinner on Saturday last week, and the general consensus was that this is indeed, unmistakeably my home.

However, I didn't choose this place for the interior space exclusively. I chose it for what lies beyond. When I walk out the door and around the corner, I've got my very own "main street" lined with cafe-slash-other-things. There's an art gallery cafe, a hair salon cafe, a juice bar cafe, and then a few other just-cafes. Add some swank shops, one of the best delis in Norway, and a convenient tram stop to round out the picture. Complete the image with some charming turn-of-the-century architecture and the promise of leafy trees come summer for pure magic.

In the weeks since I moved in, I've been enjoying the exploration tremendously. Oslo is a proper city despite what people abroad might think. There are those funny corners of the city that have weirdly specific shops- places to go get your saxophone fixed, or areas that are known for a particular cluster of specialty groceries. There's even a food hall! 

But what I love best of all right now, is that when I've had enough of the socializing and the exploring, my little treehouse nest is here for me, all cozy cushions and rugs and candlelight, high above the swirling Norwegian snow. Home at last.

The secret tour

Yesterday morning I headed solo into the storied city of Valletta, where I first stopped at the church of St. Paul's shipwreck. It's a fairly unobtrusive church from the street, as churches go, but inside it's a bonanza of baroque elegance. With floors of multicolored marble, altar upon altar covered with heavy silver, and statues in every nook and cranny, this church was built in part to house what is apparently an important relic- a fragment of St. Paul's right wrist. Although I still don't understand the catholic fascination with body parts, it was still an interesting stop. 

Next on my plan, a museum/house of a Maltese noble family. The family is still in residence, but have opened the main floor with the grandest rooms to the public. It's only possible to visit with a guided tour, so I waited the 20 minutes until the next tour in the pleasant courtyard garden. A magnificent blue macaw lives there, and occasionally greeted the waiting visitors with a hello and a wave of his claw, before sliding off his perch to parade around the garden. I also spotted two painted turtles floating around in the fountain. The visit was already interesting, and the tour hadn't started yet. 

Finally, an earnest young man came to collect us, and led the group inside and up the stairs. He pointed out various paintings and sculptures we passed along the way before entering a warren of rooms that wrapped around the courtyard. Each was highly decorated from tiled floor to painted ceiling, with the walls covered in gorgeous paintings. Cupboards and nooks housed all manner of curiosities- the famous Maltese silver filigree work, mementoes of the family, iron seals for stamping documents, century-old hair curlers, embroidery, perfumes, and books. Mixed in with the antiquities were the details of any lived-in home- family photos on the piano, a stereo in the corner of the library with CDs sitting out, the empty wine bottles from the last party standing by the back stairs ready for recycling. Hard to imagine living in such a home and sitting on 17th century chairs for the family dinner, but apparently it's done. 

The end of the tour finished in the former cisterns of the house, converted into a network of bomb shelters during the Second World War. I stopped in the bathroom on the way out, so I was the last of the group to leave the house. As I exited the courtyard, an older gentleman on the stairs going up asked me if I'd just toured the house, and how I'd enjoyed it. Since he was standing in front of his own painted portrait, I recognized him as the marquess himself. We got to talking, and when he learned I was a historic textile enthusiast, he offered to show me some of the bits of undisplayed textiles also housed in the building. He led me backwards through the rooms I'd just visited, stopping to offer me a spray of the vintage perfume sitting on the dressing table we had passed earlier, then around the corner to a door I hadn't noticed earlier. Inside, shelves upon shelves were stacked with boxes labeled with different garments- stockings, bodices, hats, baby bonnets, shoes. He opened the baby bonnet box, crammed with beautifully worked tiny Maltese lace caps, then we moved on to a niche I'd noticed in the dining room that had a trunk labeled with various dresses. He opened that too, and we sifted through Victorian night dresses, evening bodices, and embroidered shawls. 

Next, he ushered me into his office through another mystery door we had passed in the tour,where he opened yet more boxes of lace that he had just received- undersleeves, lappet caps, lace handkerchief borders. He showed me the book on Maltese lace he'd written and we discussed conservation techniques before he graciously excused himself to his duties and ushered me out of the house. In parting, he told me I was invited back and to just tell the front desk to let me in for free at his request, and if were ever back in Malta, he needed help with the lace inventory. 

By then I was half an hour late to meet S, and I dashed up the street to the grand palace. He was waing anxiously and was slightly peeved at my tardiness, but when I explained why, all was forgiven. We finished the afternoon with a long lunch, accompanied by the excellent Maltese white wine, on a shady staircase-street's landing.