norway christmas and new year 2010/2011

---

so here is my second blog, this is to tell you (the reader!!) about my norwegian christmas (jul).
because its a travelk blog i will tell you the whole story.... maybe in a few entries we shall see i guess.
we left swansea at i cant actually remember what time, to get on a 4 hour train to london, it was cold (christmas kinda obvoius i guess) and in my bag i had packed so many clothes, i was not gonna get cold, i had thermal t shirts, socks, gloves, scraves etc etc seriously i thought i was gonna freeze, i wasnt sure how much snow to expect, the only thing i wish i took was warmer boots as all i had were my doc martins which are made of plastic and are useless in ice as i later found out.... but yeah
i knew a few norwegian things by then but not much, just enough to say like thanks and stuff..
the flight to norway only takes like 2 hours so its not bad at all and the price is great, the train costs more than the flight!
we arrive at haugesand flyplassen and there is snow around, more snow than ive ever seen in my life in fact, must have been like 6 inches at its deepest (15cm for you metric readers!). this was nothing as snow goes in norway. the airport is actually not in haugesand but on an island outside it called kalmøy or something like that, its just a very windy rock at the bottom of norway (reference to raskemen there). the airport is also really small but they get along well considering the size. we then got picked up by margrethe's (my fiances) parents , i think or maybe it was her mum and sister i forget, but im pretty sure her dog was there and she went mental as she always does when around people.
we then drive back from haugasand to stord which i think takes about 1 hour ish, the whole time im just staring at the amazing beauty of this amazing country, the land of the vikings.
when we get near stord we go through a tunnel that is roughly 7Km long and 800 odd meters below sea level, this was the longest tunnel id ever been in, before that, id only ever been in the one near hatfield on the A1 near london!
after the tunnel comes the bridge over to stord, its a pretty big bridge will have to get some good pictures of it one day...

so then we stay on the e39 til we get to leirvik, which is an amazing town (techniclly its a city after it was recently upgraded). we head out of town towards a place called hystad. its very close to the ocean and looks out over the ocean surrounded by mountains and trees, have a gander at the pics attached (if i actually do that, im doing this blog in parts...)

just to let you know im not sure on the dates we did anything, think we went to sogn after christmas but not sure...

anyway when we were there, it snowed at some point, and it snowed A LOT!!! see the attached photos. and in true british standard, i fell over everyday on the snow, im blaming it on my shoes but really i know its because im british and lets face it... in england half an inch of snow and the country stops, and thats not even exagurrating....
at some point i got margrethe to teach me to ski, even tho she hates skiing. so the theory behind skiing is simple, stay up right and use your foot board things to go over the snow, turn your feet in to slow down, lean left and turn left etc. in reality, i barely could stand up with those clown feet on, after some time i managed to actually move forward without falling, so we went to try a small hill for me to practice on, i must have fallen over 100 times before i even went down the hill. so first attempt down the hill, i managed maybe half a ski length before i fell, then i stood up, and fell again, and again , and again and again...
some time later...
i finally managed to get down the hill without falling, as i got nearer the bottom (moving at the speed of sound...) i decided to use alternative, more effecient, brakes, i gently lowered my face toward the snow and very carefully used it as a friction surface against the snow to lower my speed before i crashed. just to make it clear i didnt crash, i used my face to stop...

the dog (kiara) was just crazy about snow, she just loves chasing things including snow balls, but she just HAS to find the exact snowball you threw, which we found out the hard way when i threw one when we where on a walk along lysløypa (ski track on the mountain) where she was hunting for it for about 20 minutes.
right back to the actual christmas bit
sorry if i repeat its taken me ages to write this ive done it in blocks
so unlike christmas in the uk in norway they open presents and celebrate christmas on the 24th december, chritsmas dinner is pinne kjøtt (literal translation stick meat) which is dried and salted rib of mutton that has been steamed over birch tree sticks for a while, i used to hate salty food but i love it now, pinne kjøtt is actually my favourite food i think, its served with tyttebær sauce which from memory is i think logan berry. also it comes with streaky bacon and norwegian style sausage which is erm... different from english sausage somewhat similar to german sausage i guess, it also comes with some veg and potatoes but i cant remeber what, and one of my favourite things is the sort of dumpling things it comes with which are steamed with the meat, they are called kumlar (probably spelt that wrong) and they are made from patatoe flour, they would sell so well in england....
thats the food bit over with anyway, i think.....
after the food we opened the presents, thats just the same as anywhere i guess.......
we also at some point (cant remeber what day it was on) sang around the christmas tree, which was loads of fun as it was to the tune of "here we go round the mullberry bush" so i knew the song but not the words..... even though the words were written on the christmas milk carton!! but dont laugh because i wasnt the only one who didnt know the words apparently, because after the third verse everyone sort of mumbled and then we all laughed a lot. and needless to say kiara thought it was great fun too......

some point after christmas there is a norwegian tradition of julebok which means christmas goat... erm yeah i dont get it either, and its nothing to do with goats, its a similar thing to halloween except kids sing christmas carols. so fancy dress and singing, that expalians why im being a hostige and my other half is wearing an eye patch on one of the photos... if they upload.....

then comes new years, we decided to go with margrethes sister to the local christian youth centre (bedehuse) where they had entertainment and music and more pinne kjotte!!!!! yum!! im hungry now im thinking about it!!!!!
amongst the entertainment there was a licorish (however you spell it) eating contest where margrethes sister entered along with their cousin, should have a picture of that.....
then at midnight its fireworks all over the place....
ooh and i just remebered the best thing about norwegian christmas, CAKES!!!!!
lots of different cakes including kansekake (translated to circle cake) which is usec at wedding too, its a tall cake made from loads of rings of a hard cake, there is some sort of tradition at weddings with it but i forget what it is.....

after new years we went to sogn fjord but i think i will put that as a seperate blog. so YOU, the reader can have a little rest and let the lovelyness of this sink in..... ok that was a lie its more because im too lazy to type more.....
NEW COMPUTER in a few days!!!
bye for now...

---