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.

Maltese magic

S and I are visiting Malta for a few days, a trip that has been a complete surprise for me. He is really interested in ancient architecture so the sites here were on his must-see list, and I agreed since it was an island in the Mediterranean. It'd be something new at least. 

We arrived yesterday via Frankfurt after having woke up at 3am to catch the train, and after a quick and slightly dazzling taxi ride, we arrived at our accommodation for the week. After spending a few days booking and then cancelling various hotels around the small island country, I chanced my first experience with airbnb. The host had no reviews but the photos looked promising, and he was friendly and responsive by email, so I hoped all would be well when we arrived. He wasn't around, so his very short father was there to meet us outside, while his mom waited upstairs. Both were charming, tiny, and with an enchanting Maltese lilt to their carefully enunciated english. 

My fears were immediately calmed when we walked in the apartment door and saw the terrace. It's the size of two hotel rooms itself, with open views to the sea northeast of the island. Looking down we can see one of the many fortifications on the island, and the complex's private saltwater swimming pool. Just at the next block, the peninsula where we are ends with a mall that contains a fantastic grocery store and several cafés. Just opposite we have ferry and bus service that connects us to the rest of the  island.

And what an island it is! I haven't managed to grasp the full history of the country's many exchanges of power, but the cuisine and language clearly shows influences from both Africa and Europe. French, Italian, Tunisian, and English flavors and products are available in the grocery store nearby, and the local cuisine is classic Mediterranean. We went to dinner last night and ate fennel-laden sausages, enormous chili-spiced white beans, fish cakes, bean-and-garlic spread, and sundried tomatoes so full of flavor it felt like I had never had a proper one before that moment. We also sampled the local wine, a white that contained flavors of the dusty limestone soil and blazing sun.

Today we spent the first half of the day in a Neolithic temple, and then I wandered the streets of Valletta, admiring the crammed combination of architecture on the steeply pitched peninsula. Heavily fortified on all sides, the center contains an overly touristic shopping street that's edged by fascinating narrow residentiall streets. I caught some entrancing glimpses of a few homes inside, since a few had their outer doors opened to catch the snappy sea breeze. They have a curious sort of baby-gate design here, where the typical Southern European heavy double door often has an ornate iron mini gate in front. Many houses have a tiny friezes of the Virgin Mary at the door as well. 

After thoroughly exploring the peninsula with a stop for an Aperol spritz in the baraka gardens, I took the ferry back to our spot and spent the remaining afternoon hours on the amazing deck, followed by a dip in the glorious saltwater pool. We had dinner at home with ingredients from our local store-Gorgonzola pasta with toasted sage, and a green salad. Simple and delicious, as the snappy breeze off the sea filled the house and made the long curtains billow. 

One year in

It's been technically more than a year at this point, but the feeling of new was still so heavy at this time last year that it feels like I'm one year in now. I'd expected the integration here to be relatively easy after Iceland. It's a country I'd visited often, with a landscape that's viscerally familiar, working a job I knew already. How hard could it really be? In retrospect I realize how difficult it was though. Establishing an entirely new social network takes time and effort and costs emotional highs and lows, and mixing that with the inevital bureaucracy of immigration doesn't make it easier. 

Yesterday was a watershed day in both senses though. Having not changed my American driving license over in Iceland, I decided now was the time to do it, and I wanted to do it properly. Norwegian licenses are different if you don't take the test in a manual car, and in typical American fashion, I'd never learned to do that properly. Several months of lessons later, my instructor booked my exam at the earliest possible date, which fell in the middle of S's company mandated fellesferie. In many Norwegian companies, the entire month of July is total shutdown, so employees have to take their holiday then. With the driving exam looming, I couldn't go anywhere, so he took off on a solo adventure while I stayed back to finish the last piece of bureaucracy I had to complete. 

Figuring that I'd either be happy to pass and want to celebrate or sad and needing distraction, I planned a ladies potluck party the evening after the test. I invited everyone I knew in the area and hoped enough of us weren't on the same summer holiday schedule as the rest of Norway. Mid day Friday, my tiny, calm Filipina driving instructor picked me up for one last practice round, then we went to the traffic station together for my exam. The examiner turned out to be a sixty-something motherly type who was in a hurry to leave for her weekend, so we took a pleasant drive along the local fjord while chatting about the area before she signed off on my exam form with the all important stamp and shook my hand. Time to start the party!

Back home I baked my two favorite summer recipes, a German onion tart and a goat cheese apricot mint bread before a local friend arrived to help set up. The weather has been amazing the past week, so we assembled all the chairs and tables in the house out on the large, shady deck, covered with my favorite grandmother-inherited tablecloths. As people and food began to arrive, introductions passed around- this woman I know from Icelandic class in 2005 who lives upriver, that woman who is a fellow alumna of my college, these women I know through a local social group, this one the visiting mother of another guest.

When the group was finally assembled, we set all the food on the tables family-style, and squashed around on the assembled collection of seats. Some had dining chairs, some were on a teak bathroom bench, we had people on hundred year old carved wooden "thrones" and others on plastic lawn chairs. The plates of food were passed hither and thither as we all loaded up the mismatched plates- we'd cleared the cupboards of all the available plates, glasses, and cutlery. 

It was hard to take a moment to reflect in the midst of the conversation, laughter, and good eating that ensued, but I did look up at one time and realize how tremendously lucky I am here. The sun was setting in a pink-striped sky over the lush green hills that surround our place, and this amazing collection of people from Norway, Canada, Germany, America, Ireland were all gathered around sharing recipes and struggles, joys and woes. We are all tied together by this beautiful place we live, and celebrating it outside  in a way all friendships should be celebrated, over delicious food made with love. 

In the midst of all this, S showed up unexpectedly a day early after having been on the return route for two whole days of plane travel. Despite what must have been some fierce jet lag, he joined the remaining guests graciously, delighted to come home to so much delicious food. And then, as the Scandinavian night deepend to navy blue, one woman's boyfriend showed up, and we ended the party as a fivesome in that deliciously night-scented air. 

When the last guest finally left, I faced the stacks of plates and abandoned glasses with a smile. It's been a rough road to this point but the roots are growing. I've conquered so many personal struggles in the last year, and while it's never going to be 100% easy, I don't regret the decision to move here at all. 

falling into place

Lately I've been thinking a lot about those quality of life surveys that definitively declare THIS city or THAT city is absolutely the best to live in. Most of the time their methods are suspect and sponsored when I dig further, but I remember one survey that defined it as a life that was absent as much friction as possible. They looked at cities where you could expect infrastructure to work and be comprehensive, where the trains are punctual and your daily life isn't interrupted by constant bureaucracy and complexity.

That's pretty much how it feels to live here, and I feel it every day in so many ways. For example, after a few months in Germany, I quickly learned that it's a constant battle against the hard, mineral laden water. It encrusts your shower head, plugging the individual nozzles so only half of them work on a good day. I'm still working on chipping the bits of mineral deposit off the teakettle that boiled German water for nearly two years, while here, the shower runs silkily and my hair is always happy. It's a taste difference too, one of the things I feared I'd miss when leaving Iceland that I find isn't compromised here either.

I also think about it on trash days, where they've got a handy tri-barrel system so each house is able to compost and recycle paper separately. They even provide free compostable bags, and if you need more, just tie a bag on the handle of your barrel, and they drop more off. After growing up composting, then living in a dozen apartments that didn't support it, I'm thrilled to have my little compost bin under the sink. Small things on a daily basis are what make up so much of your life, right?

This town has not historically been considered the most glamorous of Norwegian locations, but that's part of what I like about it. There are remnants along the river of its past as a paper producing town, in the form of some rather nice old brick factories. In the center of town, Norway's oldest brewery still churns out liters of beer in its elegant gray 19th century building that stretches along the riverfront, and on the downriver side, one of the country's biggest ports ensures constant ship traffic up and down the fjord.

A recent boom in immigrant populations has also ensured a wonderful selection of grocery stores. I visit these regularly, aboard my trusty red bicycle that was imported at some effort during our last trip to Germany. Since my first rather depressed impression of the town's busy roads, I've discovered a parallel network of bicycle and footpaths, allowing me to access these fascinating stores along with the center of town across the river. On weekends, the square seems to always have something new going on, varying from music performances to a farmer's market where I always buy our honey from the guy who produces it. It's also worth stopping by to see if the donut lady is there, selling donuts as good as the ones I remember from my childhood, a fluffy cloud of a center surrounded by crisp perfection.

Earlier tonight, I also discovered yet another thing to love. One of the paths I take to the grocery store goes past the local sports area, starting with the local football/soccer team's stadium, then the local playing fields, and finally one of the newest Olympic-size swimming pools in Norway. Rising behind everything is our own tiny ski piste, still waiting for the snow to fall. A few weeks ago, the playing fields were converted to a massive ice rink, complete with a pair of zambonis that zipped around in the evenings between hockey matches. How cool to live in a town with its own ice rinks! It got even better today when they replaced all the hockey goals with lane markers and the entire rink was full of tiny speed skaters. Clearly, Norwegians know much better what to do with cold weather than other nations.

The presence of all this outdoorsy activity and forested hills has been inspiring for my own routines, and now as the days grow short (although thankfully not as short as in Iceland), I'm going for lunchtime runs along the river. I've got a good 8-10k loop that goes through the part of town with the cobblestone street and the 19th century wood homes painted in deep Victorian colors, then over the bridge and back along the river where the old manor house stands. It's got a lovely garden where I met a pair of peacocks a few months ago, although now it's locked up tight and the birds have been taken to roost elsewhere. The end of my loops are in the neighborhood on the other side of the train tracks from my new home, where multi-family homes climb in steep terraces up to the forest's edge.

It's at times like this when I realize just how spoiled and fortunate I am, to have the choice of fjord, forest, or river views on my run, all accessible directly from my front door. Living in a beautiful place where the water is clean and delicious, and where I can see the stars twinkle overhead from home is a privilege that helps me step outside myself on a regular basis. The trash bags and bicycle-powered grocery shopping are not quite as traditionally enchanting, but they also add that little extra bit to the low friction life where I now find myself.

new season

Autumn's in full swing in my new home, a season I used to love, but then started to dread in Iceland with the extreme rains September almost always brought. Here it's still that kind of weather I love- cool and foggy in the morning, then burning off to crisp sunny afternoons.

A few days ago, I went for a long trek in "our" forest. Although I'm familiar with the boundaries of this 5x7 kilometer swath of forest after the past few months of weekly explorations, I'm constantly discovering new interconnecting paths. I took one that ultimately delivered me to one of my favorite places there, a small mountain hut overlooking a wide tree-filled valley. This is one of the most populous regions of Norway, but the strategic clusters of trees and contours of the landscape all but obliterate human evidence from the view in this one special spot. Three kilometers as the crow flies from my door, and I'm sitting on a sun-warmed rock with only the sound of wind and birds in the trees. This is why I'm here.

On the way back, I passed some forgotten apple trees, so I pocketed a few of the best-looking prospects, and chose a final one to eat as I descended the hill. Another reason I'm here came to me as I bit into the perfect flesh, crisp, bright white, and that perfect, elusive appley balance of sweetness and tartness. The kind of apple I haven't had for years, and here every other yard seems to hang heavy with the season's plenty. Apple crisp for dessert that evening.

It's not all totally perfect here, as is the case anywhere. Sometimes I have this moment of suspended animation when I don't feel like I belong anywhere, to anything or anyone. I think of where I might be otherwise or what my life might have been if I'd never left. Would I feel more rooted, grounded? Would I be happier? Of course, a few moments later my breath catches at the beautiful shifting light here, I think of how I'm meeting my new friends soon, or that S is coming home in a few hours, and all's well again.

I'm learning Norwegian too, and the rhythm of language classes, of worksheets and repeat-after-me CDs of conversations is soothing and fascinating. The new vocabulary I'm learning is at times laughably predictable, a mix of Icelandic and German without all the troublesome verb complications. I've got my bicycle from Germany here, so have been able to cycle to the school on class days. It's a glorious century-old brick school with massive wooden bannisters worn smooth by years of hands sliding up and down. The first time my hand slid along the railing, I was reminded of the wood in the stave church in Heddal. It's a Medieval building where the interior pillars were worn smooth in a way that only can happen after the hands of nearly a thousand years of worshippers have passed over them.

When people ask how life is here, it seems rather boring from the outside after the past few years. I'm not flying between countries constantly, zipping to and fro on trains. Many of the best weekends are spent within a few kilometers of home, but that's why they're so pleasant. The house is properly cozy now, presided over by an antique clock from S's grandmother that ticks comfortingly, generally smelling of delicious cooking, and full of books. It's exactly where I want to be as the air starts to smell heavy with snow and the yellow leaves spiral off the trees.

.. and then the perfect Bavarian alpine tour

Following breakfast came my favorite part of any southern Germany tour, those kilometers when you're heading straight for the mountains. That day, the Alps appeared shadowy on the horizon in the haze of the summer heat but the alpengiggle of years ago still rose in my throat. Our first stop was the monastery at Benediktbeuern, a place we'd first visited together on a gloomy, rainy summer day in 2008. That time we'd eaten in their bunting-bedecked beerhall, but this time we wandered through the herb and rose gardens in the scorching morning heat before retreating to the car in search of cooler landscapes.

From Benediktbeuern south, the landscape quickly becomes fully Alpine, so we were soon about 8 degrees (celsius) cooler and zipping along on switchback roads that offered tantalizing peeks of emerald green lakes. We stopped at one that I remembered had also featured in our cloud-shrouded 2008 tour, this time a brilliant, indescribable turquoise teal-green. S left me with my toes in the water and went back to the village we'd just passed for some local surprises, returning with pfefferbeisser and some bottles of ice-cold radler. We chewed and sipped, calf-deep in water, books in hand, occasionally admiring the water and watching the lakeside life going on around us. Far overhead, a mountainside construction site received helicopter deliveries of planks, and a dignified-looking gentleman arrived at our rocky outcropping, stripped to his bathing suit and took a short swim. As he dried off, he commented on the lovely location and day, saying that the swim had been his choice of lunchbreak from work. He wished us a good vacation and continued on his way.

We then continued on our way, passing through the famed Garmish-Partenkirchen before taking a slight dip into Austria. We stopped at a spot with a view on the Zugspitze so S could have the required germknödel. This insanely huge dessert is a must-have for him whenever we visit Alpen areas, but for me it's inextricably linked with one wintry day on the Dolomite ski slopes with KSK. After skiing all morning, we stopped at a mountain hut for lunch, and were lured by photos of what seemed like an adorably small dessert. When the bloated, plum-filled dumpling arrived, swimming in vanilla sauce arrived, we tackled it gamely but the rest of the day we found ourselves skiing a bit drunkenly, an effect we blamed entirely on the germknödel. Since then I've stuck with a spoonful or two.

Post dumpling stop, we wended our way back out of Austria and back into Germany, landing right at the intersection that goes to one of Germany's most beloved tourist stops, Neuschwanstein. I simply had to see it, so we braved the bizarre traffic survey (four cars at a time were let through, while be-vested teenagers asked us what the nature of our trip was and what our destination was) to the chaos at the base of the castle. From there, it was a brisk 20 minute walk up the winding entry road for us. We passed a lot of people from all over the world, including the ones in the horse-drawn carriages. Once inside the castle courtyard, I was glad we hadn't sprung for the tickets, as enormous groups were corralled together and let in at 15 minute intervals.

S found himself a shady, slightly less crowded spot to doze in while I headed further to a lookout point on a bridge. The landscape was charming, the crowds less so, but I managed the requisite look-I-am-here-for-real photo before we scrambled back to the car. We hadn't planned our overnight but after the tourbus traffic jam in Füssen, we decided to keep going and try our luck. S has a good nose for overnight places, so I didn't argue when he proposed turning off towards the massive lake that stretches northwards from the base of the Alps there. We found ourselves in a tiny village with a handful of houses and a guesthouse at a dead-end road. He left me in the car while he went in to scent out the lay of the land, and returned triumphantly, door key in hand.

Our room was on the second floor, complete with a deep balcony overlooking the crystal-clear lake and the mountains to the south. As soon as we'd unpacked, I threw on my swimsuit and walked down to the tiny beach area lakeside.  I backfloated there in the chilly aquamarine water and marveled at how much better Neuschswanstein looked framed by my bare feet with the muffled sounds of children splashing on the shoreline instead of the cacophony of a million hot tourists. Perfection.

The next day dawned hot, so after an early breakfast followed by a dip in the lake, we dawdled our way back north via&nbsp Bundesstraße, with one final stop at a marvelous lakeside cloister outside Munich. A short tour of a jewel-box baroque chapel followed by the local apple-cider/wheat beer mix (don't knock it til you've tried it, people), and we were ready for the next phase of our vacation back in Nürnberg. I've said it before and I'll say it again: Germany is still one of my favorite places for a road-trip vacation, due in no small part to my excellent tour guide.

perfect Bavarian city tour

S and I spent our summer holiday in his homeland and in between various family commitments, we took a short trip south to my favorite area. We'd previously been through southern Bavaria on our way elsewhere, but never spent enough time for me to get a proper feeling for Munich. One winter day and a November afternoon in a beer garden do not a city tour make.

I found an serendipitiously inexpensive and well situated hotel via app two days before, so by mid-afternoon we were settled in, car disposed of in the garage, and ready for exploration. S had arranged to meet a friend at the Pagoda so we started off with a wander around the famed English Gardens. The bosky paths intertwining with the swift moving river were exactly as I'd hoped it'd be, and with a panini and drinks we found a shady spot to enjoy the atmosphere and an overview of what seemed to be the prime sunning area for locals. As I looked over the prone bodies I noticed there seemed to be a surprising absence of clothes, which was confirmed when a nattily dressed guy arrived by bicycle and proceeded to remove every last stitch of his business casual outfit before flopping on a towel. Not quite the scenery I had imagined from one of the most famous parks of Germany! We continued the wander past another section of river where bathing-suited people floated under the bridge and then ran dripping back upstream to repeat the process, dodging lederhosen-clad bicycle rickshaw drivers carrying agog tourists through the chaos. A bit further on, we arrived at the pagoda and its immense forest of green-painted tables in the beer garden.

S's friend and her boyfriend were waiting so we ordered our immense one-liter drinks (we chose the half-and-half radler option instead of full beer) and a gigantic pretzel with obatzda and settled in for the evening, watching as the tables filled up and people brought out their beer garden accessories. Unlike anywhere else I've been in Germany, it's apparently quite acceptable to bring your own tablecloth, decorations, and dinner to a beer garden, and then just buy a few mugs of beer to round out the meal. After the place became too crowded for our liking, we moved along, over the Isar to their favorite local café for dinner, and then S and I went back to our cozy hotel by tram.

The next day we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the hidden garden of the hotel, marveling at our good fortune in finding the place before we packed up and returned to the center of town for an intense few hours at the German Museum. It's a full experience, that museum, from the impressive kaiserzeit architecture to the vast collection that covers everything from a 1906 u-boat to a fully operational miniature brick factory. We went our separate ways so he could look at spaceships while I checked out textile history and musical instruments. Three hours later, we'd both had enough so we went back to where the car was parked near the viktualienmarkt. The day was sunny, leafy and breezy so we ate lunch there- freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and goat cheese, sundried tomato, and rucola panini.

We'd found a hotel for the evening outside of town, so we decided to make one more stop on our way out, at the Nymphenburg palace. As we pulled up, I was reminded strongly of my visit to Versailles when I was in college, with its similar flanking outbuildings, and the grand canal setting off the gardens behind in a similar fashion. S was feeling a bit walked-out so I left him in the palm café and set off on a promising looking path. In classic grand schlosspark fashion, there were plenty of follies and a romantically winding stream criss-crossed by urn-topped bridges. There were plenty of swans gliding gracefully as well, naturally.

When I'd had enough traipsing, we continued on our way to our overnight, a classically Bavarian guesthouse on the edge of a forest, naturally with its own enormous beer garden. We supped there on creamy garlic soup, goulash and a tomato stuffed with goat cheese, herbs, and rice. A delicious end to a delightful pair of days.

whole new direction

I've just spent my first almost-full day in our new home in Norway. I arrived last night after a gloriously sunny and emotional Sunday in Reykjavík, accompanied by a colleague who happened to be traveling for meetings in Oslo. After we landed, we both took the train, and after the last station in Oslo, I was on my own, rocketing through the blackness to where I will now be living.

S met me at the train station and we walked through a brightly lit square lined with shops to the car, and a short drive later we were at the new place. He'd chosen it at a time when I couldn't be with him for the search so it was with some anxiety that I walked in to see what he'd committed us to having as our home. I should not have worried. It's bright, classically Norwegian looking with a huge deck, slate floors in the connected salon, and views of hills from every window.

Last night I couldn't sleep, looking at the twinkling lights of the hills from the massive bedroom window, pacing between the other windows in the other rooms to look at stars and sleeping Norwegian houses. After so many months being apart, it's amazing to be here finally, together with the same address.

all the right elements

Yesterday afternoon, the joyously blue weather coupled with the glimpses I'd seen of early asparagus gave me a craving for a bright, fresh salad. Since I'm working downtown in the center of everything German-city I decided to do the shopping from the street market near the church instead of going to a usual grocery store. Come 6pm, I packed my computer together and headed up to Lorenzkirche were a small band was playing some snappy 1930s jazz tunes to a captivated crowd. Ringed around the base of the church was a small cluster of stands selling fat olives, all varieties of cheeses, beautifully displayed vegetables, and tempting clusters of flowers.

I made my way through the different stands, finally going for the Spanish green asparagus since all the German stuff this early seems to be the white kind- not my thing. A few lemons and a massive bunch of flat parsley the size of a small shrubbery and I was ready for the cheese guy, where he sliced of a generous, creamy chunk of parmesan. One last stop to toss in a few coins for the musicians and I was on the way home with my spoils, the parsley springing out of the shopping bag festively. At home I sliced and simmered the asparagus lightly, and tossed with bulghur, minced garlic, garbanzo, and the other market ingredients, it was the perfect way to celebrate the springiness of the day.

These are the kinds of moments I dreamed of so much when I was a girl in Vermont, albeit quite vaguely. The ancient churches, the cobbled streets, the street markets with their gorgeous produce, and the soundtrack makes it feel even more like a dream fulfilled. I'm not sure what makes it feel so special though- I had cobblestones and street markets when I lived in Boston, and I did love them too, but maybe it's just that the Big Dig towering overhead isn't quite the same as a Medieval castle? Is it about the language and that thrill I feel when I can successfully order my 100 grams of cheese in German and actually get 100 grams of the cheese I wanted? It's definitely partly due to the knowledge that when I get home with the spoils, S will be there to tell me about his day, and as darkness fades on the view of the towers in the altstadt, we'll be there together, talking over our asparagus salads.

living the dream

That's how I feel this week, after spending a few days visiting my friend C, her husband, and their charming bebe E in Paris. I've known C since 2004 and since I moved soon after, our time spent visiting has generally been a few snatched hours amid other activities in both our lives. This time on my way to Germany, I decided to add a few days and take her up on the invitation to see the amazing apartment where they now live.

After so many visits to Paris in the recent years, I'm familiar with how to get efficiently into the city, so an hour and a half after touching down, I was knocking gently on the 7th floor door to her home in the 18th arrondissement. From all outward appearances she's living the Parisian fantasy life, with sweeping views of the city that cover the top of the Arc de Triomphe to the Tour Montparnasse and everything between- Invalides and Eiffel Tower included. The triple-balconied apartment has all the necessary fanciful ironwork and herringbone wood floors. It's a rental from some professors on sabbatical so it's ceiling high with dry art-history texts, and a collection of furniture that looks suspiciously rickety. The desk I worked on one day had a leaning front leg that seemed about to give up, and most of the chairs in the kitchen swayed like drunken sailors at the lightest touch. No matter, though, we're in Paris, at the base of one of the hippest neighborhoods, where Sacre Coeur appears like a ghost in the view on certain streets.

We took full advantage of this location too, with an evening at a local bistro, plenty of bakery stops, a tour to one of her favorite decorative art museums, a massive family home on Parc Monceau. We also spent one lovely evening at home making our own food- she did a divine goat cheese tart and I made my favorite parsley-and-mint laden tabouleh. With a cheap table wine and a view on the glittering Eiffel Tower, it was all the things a short visit to the city of lights ought to be.

Next day we had a leisurely breakfast and then I took the direct bus to the Gare de L'Est for my train ride to Nürnberg. I confirmed my train on the Grand Lignes info board (love the way that sounds!) and spent my last minutes in Paris soaking up sun in the cobbled courtyard. I'd gotten a cheap first class ticket on the train which was of course punctual as Germans do best, so at precisely 13:10 we jolted away from the platform and off we went into the gently rollling farmland east of Paris.It was a delight to discover that first class international train service on Deutsche Bahn includes lunch, so a few minutes into the ride, a snappily dressed waiter delivered roasted vegetables, chicken and couscous to my seat, of course accompanied by a glass of wine and a miniature chocolate bar. The life indeed.

A mere 4 hours later we were delivered in Frankfurt (in comparison this same bus ride takes 9 hours) after winding through some lovely mountainous areas just past the German border. I had an hour to wander the station before my connecting train, so I stepped outside the station for the first time in all my stops in the Frankfurt main station. I was happy to see that the architecture is satisfyingly grand, with the standard massive clock framed by female allegorical figures, with both sprawling station wings thoroughly laden with columns.

The connecting train is a route I'm very familiar with, and with no meal service the difference between first and second class was a bit less noticeable, but I still always enjoy the ride. The bit near Würzburg is the best part, with the glimpse of the grand fortress on the hill surrounded by vineyards. All too soon, we were pulling into the Nürnberg Hauptbahnhof and I stepped off into S's arms. A long day of enjoyable traveling well over.

grocery joy

One of my favorite things to do pretty much anywhere in the world is go grocery shopping. Even if it's shopping in the same place I always go, there's always something new to be seen, a new kind of cheese I didn't notice, a shipment of strange vegetables, some crazy kind of pasta.

When it's the first solo trip in a new country, that's even more fun. Last time I was in Germany I sallied forth to provision for dinner at what I thought was a regular grocery store a few blocks from the apartment. When I entered I was dismayed to discover it was in fact some kind of bizarre discount shop. I wanted regular vegetables and meat and herbs and dairy products but found horse blankets, canned cheese soup, and obscure potato seasoning instead. The vegetables available were all in massive multi-kilo bags, and the dairy also covered a rather suspicious range of odd yogurt flavors. The dinner plan had to change drastically but after having had stranger shopping experiences I just took it as part of the learning experience that comes with new countries.

It wasn't an experience worth revisiting though, so this time I chose more wisely, armed with S's better information on where Germans really shop. Off to Marktkauf at the square nearby, where I found that strange combination of cheap housewares and good grocery variety that seems to come frequently here. I paid for my trolley in the trolley corral and found the descending trolley-conveyor to the subterranean grocery department. No trip to a German store would be complete without some clever engineering feat, which I found in the design of the trolley wheels- they'd been shaped in such a way that they rolled freely, but once on the conveyor, their grooved surface stopped the cart from shooting down the ramp and bowling over other shoppers. Cool!

What a store.. After years in Iceland I've forgotten that this kind of shopping experience is normal elsewhere, but for me now it's a total delight. What a vegetable department! Five kinds of carrots, beautiful firm mushrooms of all types, sprightly bright herbs, and everything so inexpensive compared to Iceland. I moved onto the spice aisle where I bought something in hopes it was bay leaf, then I rounded the corner into the baking aisle. Here I found a wall of flour, including spätzle flour, as well as more types of sugar and cookie sprinkle than I could use in a lifetime. I found nuts of all sorts prepared in all sorts of ways, special bakeable, edible cookie saucers, dozens of fruit sauce bases, pudding mixes of all sorts, and yet, the one thing I needed was not to be found. I trawled the aisles four times and didn't turn up a single can of baking powder. Perhaps it's classified somewhere else in the German mind? Whatever the reason, dinner was served without biscuits tonight.

I even found an American food shelf that was populated exclusively by Mexican dinner fixings and one lonely can of spray cheese. Glad the best of my native country has made it across the pond.

The meal came together without mishap, and the leaves I'd hoped were bay leaf were indeed bay leaf. Hopefully this is the beginning of many more culinary successes, and one of these days I intend to make use of that spätzle flour.

dreams of far-off lands

As long as I remember, I've been interested in Other Places. Some of my favorite books when I was younger involved foreign travel. My mom lived abroad as a child and young adult, and the house was full of the remnants of that life- books from Brazil and France, kitchen towels and trinkets from her family trips all over the world, and when I was sick and stuck in bed, she used to give me the postcard box to distract me from the long bedridden hours. It was a shoebox full of postcards that her parents and college roommate had sent from their stops all over Europe. I'd flip through them, lingering particularly over the ones of the little girls in national costumes, and try to insert myself into those turreted, cobblestone venues.

There was also that one time my father went on a trip to somewhere in Quebec and came back with all kinds of ordinary objects from there. Soda cans (in French! I was delighted), tickets, paper napkins, brochures. I wanted to be in one of those places where these other languages were really how people communicated, not just something I practiced in a classroom. Later I collected coins from anywhere I could- forgotten remnants from the dryer traps at my parents laundromat, gifts from friends and family who traveled.

The first time I went For Real abroad I was in college, on my way to an internship in London. I stopped over in Paris before my work began to visited my aunt who lived in the 16th, within walking distance of the Eiffel tower. I can still remember that sunny July day when I called my parents from a phone booth below the Palais de Chaillot. "I'm HERE I'm really HERE!!" The next two weeks I spent doing all the things one does in Paris- I ate loads of lemon tarts and meandered through the parks and went to Versailles and generally marveled at all the things I'd seen in all my dim art history classes, finally come to life in full three-dimensional beauty. What glee to know that the downspouts at the base of the central courtyard at the Louvre had dolphin-shaped openings, to know exactly how the summer light looked through the stained glass arcs of Ste Chappelle.

Six months later, I was back in Paris again, this time to study 19th century French literature. I was one of the hardcore kids in the class who wanted to only speak French all the time whenever wherever. After just four weeks I was almost able to walk into a shop and not plan out what I was going to say beforehand. I started thinking in French, and the French words for objects moved to the forefront of my mind, just in time for me to return to America.

I held onto that foreignness as long as I could, wearing the clothes I'd bought Over There, poring over my credit card bill when it arrived with all the names of the exotic places I'd used it while on my trip. I held onto the timezone as long as I could too, waking early to the fuchsia streaks of a New England winter dawn through the leaded glass windows of my dorm room. It was the early days of radio stations streaming online so I hunted for ones that would give me the flavour of being Continental, streaming them into my dorm room decorated with travel posters and any travel memorabilia I could scrape from my home. My miniscule dorm fridge was stocked with Pellegrino limonata from the Italian grocery store near school, and I thought it the height of cool to invite my friends for espresso. Yup, I was That Girl.

During those first years after college I didn't manage to travel so much, what with living in Boston on a meager entry-level salary, and having only two weeks vacation per year. I did finagle a trip to South Africa via England once, and I remember sitting on the wall at Windsor Castle in the light of Saturday morning, thinking how lucky I was to be sitting there while everyone back in Boston still slept. The rest of the trip was quite memorable for probably all the wrong reasons, but I came home still resolved to get out as often as possible.

When the chance to move to Iceland arose, I grabbed at it, not only due to the relationship but because I saw it as a way towards this life I'd been dreaming of for so long. This might not have been my dream country but it was different, foreign, with a crazy language and totally new customs and culture. In the years since then, I've never regretted the move, and the chances I've had to visit places I imagined so fiercely haven't disappointed. Even after almost seven years of life abroad I still get those moments of wild euphoria when I realize that I'm actually sitting in that fabled city, understanding an ordinary daily transaction in a new language, being part of some ritual that I'd read about once upon a time, or I'm there in front of some long-adored building or work of art.

I promised myself when I graduated from college that I wanted to be sure to never stop learning, and this life trajectory has certainly made learning a nearly daily necessity. There's always a new word to learn, a new obscure era in history to experience first-hand in a tiny village, and now an entirely new language to soak up. It's a bit daunting to think of how much there is to learn lying ahead, but I know that along the way there will always be those thrills that come when dreams become concrete.

time travel

Back from Germany and finding the re-entry to be rather bumpy. The visit to Germany was golden and sunny and autumn-leaf filled, but one of the high points was a visit to S's bachelor uncle H in a miniscule village in the rolling fields of Thuringia. This time S promised me I'd be able to explore the wonder of a house more than our last brief visit- it's a huge pile of stones, a home from another century, and has been lived in by the same family for most of its time.

We pulled through the always-open heavy wooden doors into the cobbled courtyard mid-day and passed through one of the barn gateways into the back garden, where the blood from a recent sheep slaughter still pooled in the earth. Off to one side, S's cousin was playing with her young son, a pink-cheeked, solemn young fellow. She told us that H was awaiting our visit eagerly and had even put on new trousers just for the occasion. So, back through the courtyard we went and through the wide farmhouse door to the flagstoned entry hall. This room alone is fascinating, with the massive staircase leading up and the myriad of doors going everywhichwhere, ornate of hinge and door handle. H came out, followed by his enthusiastic and massive Ridgeback, Nelson. We'd brought treats for Nelson and he found them immediately despite my attempts to hide behind my back. No matter.

We then all piled into H's farm scented land rover, and off to lunch we went. He'd chosen a place that was surrounded by a sort of petting zoo, occupied by deer from India, potbellied pigs, shetland ponies, and all manner of curious piebald geese. Inside the decor of the restaurant was equally inspired, with a Tiki bar hung about with cowboy boots and crowned by a stuffed peacock. The food was the best Germany can offer though, plentiful, delicious, and comforting. Afterwards, H took us on a tour of this slice of the land, showing us his winter wheat fields, sown and ready for the frosts to come. He showed us the wide view over the water that provided the area with the power that fueled the once-booming leather manufacturing. It's crumbled now, and as we went through the main town, it was quite evident- rambling, massive villas from the turn of the century are now crumbling into the ground in fascinating disarray. Some have been preserved and rise in fanciful shapes against the woody hills, but the place definitely had the feel of having passed its era of grandeur.

We visited the elementary school where both H and S went, a yellow confectionary from 1911, all wide windows and delicious turrets, set atop a hill and surround by lovely sloping lawns. After a final stop to view the glory of the 19th century train viaduct, we went back to the farmhouse for the moment I'd been anticipating since I first saw the farmhouse back in 2008- the attic visit. I knew that such a house must have an amazing attic, and S had told me stories of playing up there as a child, so I'd asked him if this visit could possibly include a trip up there. H happily agreed and soon we were up there among the massive beams and many layers of dust.

Of course there was an old rocking horse, and a large old dollhouse that would have housed a massive doll-family once upon a time, along with ancient farm scales and plenty of heavy old bits of furniture. H pressed through to the end-room where a row of windows trimmed with stained glass looked over the eaves of the outbuildings beyond. There, he went to a dusty cupboard, saying "here's where the real good stuff is". Inside, the shelves were crammed with papers, albums, and cigar boxes. He pulled the top one out, full of stiffly posed 19th century portraits, the baby ones with that fuzzy blur they always had when the baby-wriggle was faster than the shutter speed of the era. Beneath it was another, a postcard album from a little girl who'd lived at the farm around 1900. There were postcards of the sights around Europe at the time, greetings on the first day of school, Christmas cards, birthday cards, new-years cards, all as crisply colored and bright as if they'd been sent yesterday. Page upon page of German history stretching through the first world war, and a second album chronicling the years after.

I dug into the lower shelves, full of dress pattern catalogs from the 50s, farm logbooks from the 40s that tallied the bushels of rye, wheat, potatoes for every month. I found illustrated newspapers from the 1920s, cigarboxes full of all kinds of odds and ends. One contained needles and lengths of hemp for sewing sacks, another contained some forgotten buttons, a third contained a large chunk of rock and a rolled newspaper clipping. None of us could determine what had been so important about that particular bit of rock but to someone it must have been significant.

By then the sun was starting to fade and the attic was growing cold, so we went downstairs to join the others for coffee and cakes. Such cakes! There was plum cake and crumble cake and so many types of cookies, all eaten around a massive table and surrounded by furniture that was at least a hundred years old and probably hadn't moved from its location during most of that time. In one corner a lovely Art Nouveau grandfather clock kept us company, as the view of the little church across the street faded in the dusk. After coffee, S and I went downstairs to H's cozy living room where he lit the fire and Nelson curled up in his huge basket right in front of it. I finally had a chance to marvel at the wonders in this room, including a fascinating 19th century men's smoking table, covered in stamped tin and including matching covered ash tray. I then noticed the row of leather volumes on the bookshelf, so H explained his love for old maps and atlases. I pulled the first one off the shelf and was immediately lost in the 16th century maps of Europe inside. So many of the towns I've visited were already there, albeit with a different idea of their locations relative to each other.

When the fascination of the map book was exhausted, I turned to the next volume on the shelf, an illustrated history of Germany, published in the 1890s. It was certainly a thrilling tome and liberally sprinkled with dramatic engravings of the high points of a thousand years of time, mostly considered to be battles. By then it was drawing onto dinnertime, so over a glasses of delicious German red wine, we finished off the evening with thick slices of sourdough spread with all manner of delicious toppings. We left soon after that for the two-hour drive south, back from 100 years ago and into 2011 again.

besser und besser

Two months gone and since then, many new German words have floated through my brain. The course I signed up for was a disappointment on a rather grand scale, although I suppose the stories I've been able to tell from it have been worth the price of admission.

The course was taught by a middle-aged German man who seems to have lived here for many years, and as a result spoke decent Icelandic which he used far more than I was interested in hearing. I'd signed up for a German course in the hopes of hearing lots of German, not long ghost stories in Icelandic, moments of yoga and relaxation in Icelandic, and a total lack of homework. At the end of the class when I asked the teacher why there had been so little homework, he said that it was because his experience with Icelanders showed that they didn't want to take classes that required homework. For the price I was paying, I'd expected something more rigorous though.

So, on to my own teaching methods. Thankfully my good friend A, provider of German films, is also provider of websites, so I'm now learning online with a nicely organized and entertaining course. I've got books too, bought during my last trip to Germany, and A's organized a Stammtisch for students of German. Also, unlike trying to learn Icelandic a few years ago, there are lots of online ways to practice and learn- I can watch soap operas on zdf, news online, streaming radio stations from German speaking countries, and of course, ongoing contact with all my favorite German speaking people out there in the world.

It's been a strange time of limbo while S works on reconstructing himself, so having the project to learn his language as much as possible in the meantime has been really useful. I don't know what my future holds but at least it will hopefully be approached with some new vocabulary in my toolbag.