Eli is the wife of a prominent politician in Norway.  One day (in 2001) she had to drop off her husband at the royal palace in Oslo for a government dinner.  She had been to the palace grounds many times before but had never driven.  Not sure where to go, Eli headed straight for the main road… down the palace stairs.  She had driven off the palace circle road, past the Karl Johan statue and right over the mouth of the stairs.  A little embarrassed, she drove straight home.  When her husband called to see if she was all right she wouldn’t answer the phone.  In fact, she didn’t answer the phone the whole night even though it was ringing off the hook.  The media had gotten word of her ‘little embarrassment’ and were now camped outside her house pushing for an interview, a comment, a picture – anything!

Today, the palace stairs, Eli-trappa (the Eli stairs), has become a house-hold name.

This is always a controversial topic in Norway.  There is currently a documentary series on national TV that presents the issues of being an immigrant in Norway: Det nye landet.  Last week the documentary focused on Norwegian men and ‘import brides’.  It is commonly known amongst Norwegians that Norwegian men import brides because Norwegian women don’t consider them ‘a catch’.  So Norwegian men look elsewhere.

When it comes to Norwegians marrying someone abroad certain trends have developed over the years.  Currently most Norwegian women who marry from abroad marry from Sweden, Denmark and the UK.  Most Norwegian men who marry from abroad marry women firstly from Thailand, secondly from Russia and thirdly from the Philippines.  The import brides have clear reasons for their marriage choice: Russian women marry Norwegian men because of the ‘Norwegianess’ – meaning that Norwegian men are more domesticated than Russian men therefore Russian women have less domestic responsibility and more ‘freedom’.  South-east Asian woman marry Norwegian men because they want to up-grade their lifestyle and also use it as a means to support their family in Thailand.

Through this study an unfortunate trend has surfaced.  Some of these marriages have turned out to be a very bad arrangement.  By Norwegian law a foriegn spouse may be sent back to their country if the marriage hasn’t lasted for more than three years.  Some Norwegian men use this power to control their spouse.  He threatens divorce, and in turn will send the import bride back to her home country, if she doesn’t do what the man wants or the marriage has problems.  It is known that if the marriage is disagreeable in the eyes of the Norwegian man he will divorce his first import bride, sending her home, and then, I quote from the documentary: ‘they pick up a new younger wife from abroad if the marriage has conflicts’.  Some of these import marriages trap women into a life of insecurity and service.

A Russian woman who marries a Norwegian man increases her social status among her friends and family.  However, coming home from Norway after a failed marriage will decrease her status to the same extent.  Many Russian women wait for three years until they divorce so they can stay in Norway and not have to face disgrace back in their home country.

One particular Russian woman, now living in Tromsø, said that her friend was married to a Norwegian.  Her friend asked her if she wanted to live in Norway.  When the Russian woman asked ‘how’, her friend said that their neighbour was a single man.  Soon after the neighbour and the Russian woman ‘hooked up’.  The couple are now divorced because of “differences”, after a four year marriage.  The Russian woman wanted to return to Russia but said that there was nothing for her in her homeland.

A UiT researcher, Ann Therese Lotherington, says ‘The Norwegian regulations produce dominating men and subordinate women.  Even if the parties don’t want it that way.’  She mentions that this does not fit with the Norwegian view of gender equality.  However, ‘many of the 6500 marriages between Norwegian men and Thai women are happy but Norwegian law allows some men to exploit their wives’.

Interview from Thai woman who was masked to hide her identity:
The first time we met we hit it off and he asked me to come to Norway on a holiday…  (After marriage):  After two months he said I wasn’t allowed to go to school.  He said if I went to school he would send me back and that I had to apply for a job.  I worked long hours and when I came home he was angry with me.  That’s when I made the decision I wanted to break up.  I couldn’t be with him anymore.  Many Norwegian men just want to have sex and then just dump them and find a new one.  It’s better not to get them.  It is better to leave them in Thailand.

Statistics show that most Norwegian men who marry import brides live in rural areas as there are not enough Norwegian women (as they have all moved to the cities to further their careers).  It means that import brides are brought to secluded areas or small towns.  This makes an even greater challenge for import brides to successfully transition to Norwegian life.  Unfortunately, to be an ‘import bride’ – meaning brought into the country by a Norwegian man to have sexual relations and to clean and cook for him – they will not be well received into the community.  This isolation will weigh heavily on the import bride.  As is is, it is very hard for regular immigrants to make friends in Norway, so it is even harder for an import bride to make connections.  Not only do import brides have to deal with regular immigration difficulties such as culture shock and discrimination, but an underlining sense of shame projected on them by Norwegian society.  Even amongst immigrants, import brides have a lower status than asylum seekers.

As mentioned above most Norwegian man and import brides have ‘happy’ marriages.  Even though ‘love’ might not be the primary motivation it can still be a win-win situation – meaning the man gets someone to look after him and the import bride gets someone to take care of her and her family.

This documentary Det nye landet is an interesting comment on Norwegian immigrants and immigration.  The series can be viewed on NRK web-TV (it might not be available in certain countries and the dialogue is in Norwegian): www1.nrk.no/nett-tv/prosjekt/1394

Lilu wants to join Pappa in making snow angels.  She dives face first into the snow – doh!

Not to worry, she has three more months of snow to get it right.

And licking off the snow is just as fun!

People always complain about how expensive Norway is, especially Norwegians.  However, Norway really knows how to put on a sale.  I have never seen things cheaper on sale than in Norway.  In fact, we rarely need to buy clothes full price.  There is always a sales clothes-rack with 50-70% off somewhere in each store.  Quite often you get a great find.  Today I bought a little black cocktail dress for 90% off.  It fits like a glove.  Boy, did I walk out of that store beaming!

Every university has bike racks to allow students to save both the environment and their money. But what do you do when the snow is three feet deep and riding your bike suddenly seems less desirable? Tromsø University had a simple solution: Install a ski rack. This one at the entrance to the Medical faculty is always filled to capacity during the winter months.

Reindeer is synonymous with Sami culture and life but the Norsemen have certainly cottoned onto the goodness of reindeer cuisine.  A dish that is an icon of Norwegian culture is finnbiff or reindeer stew.  This rustic meal is perfect for cold Winter nights and packs you with energy for the next day of playing in the snow.

The dish has some unusual methods to create its earthy flavour.  No onions or garlic are used (or needed) to enhance the flavour, nor any stock.  The one-pot stew cooks fast and doesn’t need thickening.

To make finnbiff, Norwegians use thin reindeer shavings.  This can be bought in the frozen food section of the supermarket all year round.  You can also get fresh reindeer during the slaughter season in Autumn.  Reindeer is also sold as roasts or dried/cured meat off the bone but not as steak.  This is because game meat can get a little tough when cooked on a grill.

People often think that fresh is best rather than freezing meat, however, finnbiff needs to be frozen to get such thin shavings.  If you buy a fresh leg or roast, freeze it and then shave off slices from the frozen meat.  These thin shavings will defrost quickly ready to cook.

The reindeer shavings (defrosted), chopped bacon and mushrooms are browned in a pot.  Then water is added – to the boil and simmer.  This process actually creates a natural stock from the reindeer meat.

Crushed juniper berries, sour cream, milk, thyme, and brown goats cheese is added.  The juniper berries gives the freshness of the dish and enhances the earthy flavour of the meat.

The brown cheese adds a caramel flavour.  The cheese and cream melt to make a thin sauce with the natural stock.  There is no need to simmer this dish for hours to get the reindeer tender.  This is why the reindeer is shaved thinly – to make this quick!

The meat stew is usually served with mash potatoes and green vegetables – brussel sprouts, beans, peas, broccoli, etc.  The stew is naturally a little more runny than normal as there are no thickeners added but it gets soaked up by the mash.  It is also served with a sweet cowberry sauce (fresh cowberries and sugar – enough to take out the sourness of the berries).

Finnbiff / Reindeer Stew Recipe

500g reindeer shavings
100g bacon
100g fresh mushroom (or more to taste)
butter for browning
2dl water
3 dl sour cream
1 dl milk
3 slices of brown cheese (with goats milk)
5 cruched juniper berries
1/2 teaspoon of dried thyme
Salt and pepper to taste

Method
Brown the meat, bacon and mushroom on a high heat in the pot.  Add water and bring to boil.  Simmer for 10 minutes.  Add the rest of ingredients and simmer for five minutes.  Serve with mash potatoes and green vegetables.

Some birds don’t migrate and as Oslo has taken away many natural bird homes to make way for ‘progress’, Oslo has certainly taken on responsibility to rehouse their birds.

I wonder how the birds feel about having to live in apartment blocks?

It’s Australia Day today.  I did all I could to spread the Australia Day cheer.  I couldn’t let my friends and family here in Norway be completely oblivious.  I got questions like ‘what do you do’ (answer: we go to the beach!) and ‘what happened on this day’ (answer: the First Fleet (11 convict ships from England) landed in Australia (to start a convict settlement).  For the first time, the reason why Aussies commemorated this day seemed rather odd.  Aussies like to laugh about how silly the English were giving up a tropical island with sun, sand and surf to convicts instead of immigrating themselves.

It was really hard to celebrate today when nobody knew about Australia Day.  I felt like I was having a party and I was the only one invited.  There are about 10 other Aussies living in Tromsø at any one time (according to the 2006 Tromsø immigrant stats) but as most of them only stay for a school term it is hard to keep track.  I realised today that if I want to keep my Australian traditions I am the one to remember and make things happen in our family.  It would be too easy not to celebrate my traditions.  If I want my kids to grow up half Australian then I can’t let laziness get in the way.  So even though today wasn’t beach weather (in fact, there was a coastal storm big enough to be named ‘Ask’ – after the Norse ‘Adam’ from Adam and Eve) I decided to make Aussie comfort food.  With a bit of adjustment to Norwegian ingredients, the food didn’t turn out half bad.

In Australia we have the famous meat pie – ground beef in a gravy sauce wrapped in a pastry shell.  It is very common to have mushy peas on top or mashed potato, and of course, dead horse (tomato sauce).  They don’t actually have pies in Norway.  The only real pastries are Danish custard pastries but other than that pastry isn’t really used in Norwegian cuisine.  So, I had to make do and Norwegianise our Aussie dinner.  The result – and open meat pie with a loose puff pastry hat, and mash potato and mushy peas on the side.  For desert was cream filled lamington cakes – vanilla cake coated in a chocolate sauce and rolled in desiccated coconut.  How Australian can you get!

This tree on the farm was my favourite.  During the Summer, squirrels played in its branches.  In the Winter the branches collected the falling snow.  In the Autumn the leaves turned a magnificent yellow.

But as the seasons change, so do farms.  The tree was gone when we visited last Autumn.  It will be missed but now the Summer sun can come through the window and light up the house.

As an Australian, it is common courtesy to bring a gift to give to the person or family you are visiting.  You never visit empty handed.  However, in Norway this custom is not recognised unless it has been pre-arranged for a party or event.  This has put me in an unusual position.  I want to follow my traditions (as they ‘die-hard’) but I also don’t want my Norwegian family to feel uncomfortable about me giving them unexpected gifts every time I see them.  So a compromise was necessary and a new tradition born.

When I first met Farmor I found out that walnuts are her favourite.  She always has a tub of walnuts on the kitchen table and often her salads and cakes are dressed with walnuts.  Walnuts – they are inexpensive, small, and don’t impose!  So the next time I saw Farmor I gave her a ‘visiting gift’ – walnuts.  They were a hit!  Ever since I’ve had great fun finding different varieties of walnut products to give to Farmor – walnuts in honey, walnut oil, walnut candy and chocolates, walnut bread, walnuts from different countries, etc.  Whenever I see a new walnut product I get all excited and know how much Farmor will just love them.

Still when I give my walnut visiting gifts they are always unexpected, but they are very much appreciated.  It’s fun to see Farmor’s smile when she is presented with a new unordinary walnut gift.