A Taste of Norge

My time in Norge (Norway) has come to an end and I am writing this from the Oslo airport waiting for my flight to Hamburg, Germany, where I will spend a week with my family. I haven’t had much time to write since the wedding as I’ve been busy tasting Norway... literally. Eating is something we have done a lot of this week. I cooked Lene and Sven Marius a traditional ‘Australian’ meal. Yes, an Australian meal. I’m sure all the Australian readers are thinking what I thought when I offered to cook one – what the hell is an Australian meal? Well, I cooked Steak with a mushroom sauce, creamy mashed potato with parsley, honey carrots, steamed greens (green beans, asparagus and snow peas) and a roquette and parmesan salad. It was hearty and tasted like home, so I guess I passed. Then they returned the favour and cooked me a traditional Norwegian meal. It wasn’t the season for Reindeer (the original choice of meat) so we ate Elk instead, served with gravy, a creamy sweet cabbage stew, Norwegian forest mushrooms and carrots. It was delicious. Sven Marius also keeps a keen cellar so we have been drinking delicious Spanish and Italian complimentary wines with each meal too.

There has been roughly 5kilograms (perhaps a conservative estimate) of candy left over from the wedding, in addition to the wedding cake and two other delicious creamy chocolate tortes. The night of the World Cup final our dinner and celebrations consisted only of excesses of cake, candy and beer. Being in the Northern European region the obvious team to barrack for was Holland; however everyone in this region hates Holland so we barracked for Spain instead.

The wedding cake is now finished and the candy bowls have large holes in them. Lene and I consequently decided we should do some exercise. The weather took a turn after the wedding, and so we braved the grey skies and enjoyed a 6-7km walk along the Norwegian coast. I thought food had momentarily escaped us, but alas there was an abundance of wild berries along the track which we stopped to taste. These ranged from tiny wild strawberries to blueberries to raspberries to red currents and to a few more types I don’t know the names of. Given the summer holidays here, ice-cream shops also line the streets and wharves in the little coastal towns. Norwegian ice-cream is made from pure, locally produced cream, rather than heavily pasteurised milk. As you can imagine (and anyone that knows my love of ice-cream can surely imagine), this was another delight I was unable to refuse. To make matters worse Lene and Sven have a strawberry farm. Hence we picked gorgeously sweet strawberries directly from the field. It’s very Nordic and German to cover the strawberries in masses of sugar and eat them with milk and/or cream, and fresh sugared strawberries were often eaten after dinner.

Food aside for a moment, one notable event this week was that I learnt to drive on the right side of the road. It wasn’t as hard as I imagined, but I didn’t enjoy narrow streets or oncoming trucks and motorbikes. I often drifted too far right, but we managed to get home unscathed. We spent my last day in Norway out on the boat and had many laughs, relaxing moments and moments of adrenaline battling the open-ocean waves. We stopped in Oslo’s New-York-Central-Park-equivalent on the way to the airport and ate more ice-cream whilst inappropriately giggling at the museum of naked statues. Yes you heard right, lots and lots of naked people. That’s Oslo for you. Despite my suitcase being a few kilos heavier (probably to match my waistline), my bank account being a little lighter, all-in-all this has been an amazing trip. I absolutely love this country and somehow it really feels like ‘home’ for me. The culture, the environment, the people, the activities, the jobs, the progressiveness, the lifestyle, the career opportunities... After another beautiful taste of Norway I just can’t wait to come back and devour this place. Excuse the pun. Next stop, Germany.