Advertisement
Published: February 25th 2007
Christmas here started a bit early, at our Christmas party on the 9th of December. After quite a few drinks, Lars felt that the party ended long before our guests left, which is why he ended up passing out on our bed. Some of our mates decided to draw a moustache on Lars’s face with mascara for his punishment. Check out the photo. 😱
Christmas in Norway was pretty over the top. I did not realise that there was so much to it. They have special things that only come out during Christmas time. They have Christmas chocolate, Christmas soft drink, Christmas acquavit (liquor), Christmas beer Christmas meals, Christmas cakes, Christmas Cookies, Christmas Movies, Christmas Cheese, Christmas Mayo, Christmas games, etc etc. The list is endless. Nothing like our simple barbeque and cricket back home. It seems like it is this way because they are hibernating during this time of year, and Christmas is like the light at the end of the tunnel from all the darkness.
We headed to the
Netherlands for New Years to visit our best friends, Renee and Martijn. The European festive season has a common theme, to be inside playing games; hence half
the time that we were there, we played 'Puerto Rico' (board game) which almost became an addiction. We're still dreaming about tactics. We also did Dutch things like riding bikes and eating Dutch junk food among other things. NYE was spent at a party in the city of Utrecht. I was a bit skeptical at the start, as the night started with a trivia competition, but it served its purpose, as I realised who out of my team I did and did not want to hang out with for rest of the evening. Come midnight we headed out to set off our fire-works, crazy times! It was lots of fun. We then progressed to a night club and ended up back at the party at 5am. We crashed out on the floor of the living room along with 20 other people. What a great way to start the New Year; hangover and crippled.
January brought lots of snow. Once the snow melted or the rain came, it became very icy, as I discovered every time I fell over. I slipped over three times in one week and felt like a complete idiot every time. However, the biggest problem I
BBQ in the snow
NOt even the snow can stop us.faced was the
Cold! . My worst day was when I went outside, not realizing that it was -15, freezing my legs so badly that they started burning. It took plenty of soup and layers upon layers of clothes before I gained back sensation in my feet. However, I got used to the Cold. Last week I told Lars: ‘wow, only -6, it’s really mild today! ’. This was after having several days of -20. Yes, I’m definitely far away from the 40-odd days I would experience in Australia.
January the 26th - AUSTRALIA DAY!!! I haven’t really celebrated this day back in Melbourne, but we thought since being overseas; let’s throw a true blue BBQ and be patriotic!
We bought portable outside bbq’s (check out the photo), and enjoyed an awesome party outside with surf&turf, cricket, footy, Waltzing Matilda and beers. All in the company of expats and wannabe-aussies. The fact that it was -10 degrees and snow didn’t seem to bother anyone.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.281s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 5; qc: 44; dbt: 0.0388s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Marte
non-member comment
Great blog! Yes we norwegians have a lot of funny christmas traditions, to bad u are not here for easter, we have a lot of funny easter traditions too. Love the picture of Lars by the way hehe. Dont know if u remember, but I talked to u both on the phone that day, sounded like lots of fun! Ill be there for Australia Day next year! Marte