We love to hang in Farmor’s kitchen.  It’s the family’s meeting place.  Not only do you get good, hearty food but great company and fond memories.  When sitting in the kitchen you can’t help but notice all the things just hanging around.  Farmor’s kitchen is full of gifts and mementoes from family, friends and visitors, [...]

‘I’ll be away’ is starting to be a pain.  I’m organising a festival at the moment and to make a festival happen you need people, lots of people.  However, this time of year is the ‘I’ll be away’ season.  Spain, Brazil, Thailand, Africa, Sweden and France are just some of the places my friends, family [...]

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 [...]

The way I was taught to know when to change gears when driving a car is to feel the car.  I guess it’s about feeling the vibrations from the revs.  Aussies tend to have beastie cars so it is pretty easy to feel the engine.  If you can’t feel then you hear the change via [...]

Marengs are just meringues.  When they are toasted in Norway they are called ‘pikekyss‘ (girl kisses).  These little cuties are not actually part of the Norwegian ‘Seven Sorts’ Christmas cookies.  But that certainly doesn’t mean you can’t have them at Christmas!

A Norwegian Christmas is filled with many celebrations and traditions, old and new. As the snow falls, the white landscape is the first sign of Christmas and Norway starts to prepare for their long season of juletid.
November
As the snow comes, Norway enters the Christmas season early with a series of Christmas parties. Work, clubs, schools [...]

One thing you may notice when traveling or comminucating internationally is that every country has their own way of placing dots, commas and other symbols. Norway certainly is no exception. Here is a short list of “the Norwegian Way” of writing:
Thousands separators:
Norway does not use commas to separate thousands, millions etc. Instead, they use spaces:
5 [...]

Half jokingly, Norwegians say that frozen pizza is Norway’s national dish.  It’s not hard to tell as pizza usually dominates the frozen food section.  In our store we have so much pizza it takes up two isles, compared to the lowly peanut butter which only has one brand, one type – Mills smooth.  But with [...]

It’s fun to have an airport close by.  This might sound odd as the first thing people think about is the noise, traffic and pollution.  But Tromsø airport is only built for light aircrafts – propeller planes and 747s.  No Jumbos are allowed to land here.  This is normal for the airports in Northern Norway.
Tromsø [...]

Discrimination runs rampaged in every country – Norway is no different.  In fact, if you are from any other culture, even English, and want to live in Norway, be prepared to be discriminated against in the most unlikeliest of situations.
Call Centres
Everyone hates it when a stranger calls up to try and flog a ‘great deal’ [...]