Update 20 - Part 2 (Xmas)

The Christmas Season

One Saturday night Rich and Maren cooked us a 3 course Norwegian dinner. We had Gravlaks (marinated salmon) for entree, reindeer strogonoff for mains!Fish and Chips! Yum! This was at an Irish pub. First time we've been able to eat fish and chips at a pub here...I won't tell you how much it cost :)The first time Jeff has seen HP sauce (he's from Austin...does that explain it?)More photos of the warm Autumn/Winter from our balconyA cup of hot gløgg that Will and Ingvild made (Norwegian Christmas drink with red wine and nuts in it)A mince pies night at Will and Ingvilds.It's the first time we'd tried homemade fruit mince pies and they were delicious!The guys got into another Norwegian alcohol called Aquavit. It's over 40% and surprisingly easy to drink. Dan loves it :)Santa visited us at work and gave us presentsWe missed seeing the northern lights over Oslo the other week because we were in bed sleeping. So now Dan regularly checks the skies just incase.Mmm oysters kilpatrick. We make a lot of the foods we miss from back home.Decorating the Christmas treeChristmas 2006After the warm start to winter it suddenly got cold enough for frost...frost?? We'd never seen frost this thick!One night we went for a midnight walk to try and see the northern lightsWe had no luck but we got this cool photoIt hasn't been snowing either...the ground is still white from the frost!The trees behind our apartment are now bareThis is Dan's birthday morning. It's about 8.30am...and yes, it's EXTREMELY hard to get out of bed.Dan's foggy birthday...with lots of frost :)See how thick it gets?We went out for dinner at Kokopelli again to celebrate Dan's birthday?Still white...The grass blades look like they're crumbed and deep fried...mmm.Dan's new sunA gorgeous winter sunsetLast weekend we had a scallop cookoffWe each made 2 different sauces. We both agreed that the simple soy and melted butter scallops were the best.On Sunday (Christmas Eve) we moved our lazy butts out to Sognsvann to see what it looked like up there.This time last year the lake was covered in snow. But this year we were surprised to see it was perfect for ice skating!It was freaky to walk on the ice and see the bottom of the lake underneathI'm on a big frozen lake!This is where we swam in the summerWe enjoyed piping hot hotdogs from our flasks :)This broken ice pool looks like an ulcer!We walked to the other lakePeople had been iceskating here tooIt still amazes me that this is just frost :)We love it out hereOn our way back we saw something that looked like a fire!But it was just the sunset :)

Christmas Day 2006

Ok so here's how our Christmas Day went. First we started off with a stew on Christmas Eve...then we stayed up to midnight to call home.While waiting to call home we had a bathThe next morning we opened presents. Dan got me a new camera! I couldn't believe it! And Mum gave me this book...thanks Mum!Here's my new snazzy camera...it was a great surprise :)For lunch we had champagne and ham and cheese and olives and avocado and mmmmCheers!Somehow this alaskan caviar had gotten into our shopping bags? So we thought we'd try it since we'd probably paid for it! It wasn't too bad.You could almost call it a white christmas :)For dinner we had a roast lamb with roast veges and homemade gravy (the reindeer was too big and expensive).Then Dan tried to whip cream for dessertAnd we had frothy cream with apple crumble. Then we watched a movie...and that was Christmas 2007! We missed you all :)