stateside

Family. Food. Lots of food. Discovering new cities. Visiting old favorites. And the Dave Matthews Band. All things good for the soul.

Boston:

This city makes everyone jump for joy.

Waiting for Thomas the Train's ugly friend, Jim - also known as the T

This picture is proof that little boys may grow up, but will always be stinking cute.

Thank you for your hospitality and the loads of good food! Love to you all! See you in Copenhagen!

Borromeo sisters + J east coast road trip:

Philadelphia or bust!

On the ferry to Martha's Vineyard

Martha's Vineyard

Hanging with the smart kids on Yale's campus

Philadelphia:
The purpose of this trip was to see our incredibly talented cousin tie the knot with his also incredibly talented and beautiful wife. The weekend began with a Mehndi celebration, ended with yummy eats from the Reading Terminal, and had some pretty cool historical sites sprinkled in between.

My parents, the best example of true love, going on 41 years of marriage.

Rocky!

He travels like a pro.

Austin:
I had many, many, many reasons to fly down to Texas before going back to Norway. But, I can't lie. Dave was high on the list. I tried to explain to Matt that yearly DMB concerts is a bonding thing between my sister & I. He said, "Let me get this straight. You guys talk almost daily, yet some how become unbound throughout the year?" Mmm hmm. That is correct.

life

long

love

Home:
If I've learned anything from this overseas move, it is that change, while not always easy, is good and necessary in life. 

My family ended a blessed twenty year run on Craigway. I am so happy that the timing of this trip allowed me to say goodbye to the house that will always come to mind when I think of home.

Bye, house. Thanks for taking care of us. 

And back home to Oslo:
I left Oslo in a jacket and scarf. I came back to a 70°F beautiful sunny sky. Our first Norwegian summer is off to a great start! 

sun bathing at Slottsparken! (Palace Park)

Hemsedal, Berlin, & Prague

We traveled to three cities to celebrate our second wedding anniversary. Blessed.

Hemsedal:
A charter bus filled with Matt's coworkers doesn't exactly exude romance, but a Statoil ski trip 4 hours north of Oslo is how we began our celebration. 

It was this weekend that I decided I not only enjoy skiing, but that I'm also good at it. Good according to the standards I set for myself! I met two other beginner skiers and I'm not modest enough to not say I wasn't the worst out of us three! Therefore, I'm good at it.

Because Matt is the best husband ever, he stayed on the greens and blues with me for the first day even though I continually told him to go have fun with the other guys. Day two came around and he let out all of his energy by going off piste and successfully attempting freaking backflips.

We celebrated our first anniversary traveling down California's Highway 1 and have a similar picture with the Pacific coast background. I think it will be a thing for each anniversary. A kissing pose with a beautiful background.

We were told about the infamous Hemsedal afterski party before arriving. They said that people are standing on tables pouring beer on each other. They weren't kidding. Literally - yes, I am using the word correctly - everybody was standing on the tables with a stench of sweat mixed with beer. So much fun.

It was a tequila shot kind of environment.

Berlin:
The home of THE BEST steak. the. best. That is all I have to say about Berlin. It was that good.

Checkpoint Charlie

Brandenburg Gate

We tried to get away from the cold. No such luck.

The Berlin Wall

Prague:
We love, love, love Prague. It's the kind of magical place where the massive groups of tourists somehow add to the ambiance of the city. Not to mention you can find beer for less than $1.

Love

Love

Love!

Easter Market

Starbucks

We apparently only take pear pictures when they come free with breakfast.

the traveling pear

our first visitor!

Our first visitor is one of the superwomen in my life and also my oldest sister. She is the mother to the cutest little boy in the whole wide world. She is also a sister who makes herself available when she's needed by her two younger sisters - like when she answered all 83 of my emails asking for help with resume editing before moving to Oslo. She admirably ministers to young adults at church. And she's a successful businesswoman who occasionally has to/gets to travel internationally for work. Thank goodness because that's what prompted this short, but sweet visit. 

...We are so very happy you were able to visit and hope you enjoyed spending your birthday with us! By the way, we recently discovered an 80s bar that Matt wishes he knew about sooner so we could have taken you there ;) Love you so much! xoxo! 

While she couldn't get over the high price of the $20 sandwich, she admits the view is priceless. 

The sun also came out for a visit!

I'm pretty sure this is what the Vikings did when they spotted land. 

We treated the birthday girl to our favorite Arabic restaurant. So yum! 

Skål! (Cheers!)

Oh look. We found our other sister.

Here she is again!

The best part about these naked statue pictures is that I've had it planned since we first arrived. Whoever isn't around is the one getting teased - that's how our sister dynamic works. Unless all three of us are together. Then I'm the one getting teased. Ok fine. That's really how our sister dynamic works <3

---

ps. Check out this BIL lovin'! It's from our other sister's wedding/best party ever. Clearly! I just love the pic and thought it needed to be shared with the world.

ps again. See, cutest little guy EVER.

How cold is it?

Oslo’s climate is warmer than one would expect given its location because of its coastal position and the influence of the warm Gulf Stream from the Atlantic. On top of that, we're told this is a mild year and I've actually been a bit disappointed. I was preparing for a real arctic winter, but for the most part the temperature hovers right below freezing and there hasn't been as much snow as I was hoping for.

If you talk about the weather with anybody here, they will tell you - Det finnes ikke dårlig vær, bare dårlig klær. There is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. If you're dressed properly, the winter is quite nice and we're getting everything we can out of it.

Matt is absolutely loving the activities that go along with this wintry weather. He bought downhill skis before we left and got himself a pair of cross country skis as soon as he could after arriving. He uses both every chances he gets.

You can take public transportation up the mountain for downhill and there are cross country tracks all over. -- Don't let the face fool you. He is one happy camper.

I'm making myself learn to like these things. I told Matt that I didn't think I was made for winter sports. He lovingly reminded me that I wasn't made for any sport. It's true.

My downhill skis and I got off to a rough start. There are no pictures from this day. Nobody should have to witness the disaster that was this day. It's bad enough that I had to live through it. I was using lots of profanity as little kids and elderly folk passed me by. I was so tense that I said I needed a bleeping whiskey. I don't even drink whiskey. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

(I've skied twice before in my life and neither time was a good experience. That blue on day two in Breck 2005 -- otherwise known as BR05 :) -- didn't do me any good in the long run)

But then I tried cross country and absolutely loved it! It helped that I started with a lesson and there wasn't a possibility of falling off the mountain...

Look at me go!

This is a sport that we can actually enjoy together!

Listen to how quiet it is out there.

Well, I recently gave downhill another shot. I told myself that I can't live in the self proclaimed ski capital of the world and not at least try their beloved sport. And the verdict ... I really enjoyed it this time! I took a lesson and it made all the difference. This is not a time for modesty. I did good!!! Granted I stayed on the greens the whole time, but I was going pretty fast by my standards and was very proud of myself!

Matt was spying on my lesson.

Overlooking Oslo from the slopes.

Hooray!

back in the classroom

I got a job! I am substitute teaching at the Oslo International School. This is the ideal situation for me. I am working in the classroom, but still have the flexibility to take off for travel and visitors.

So far, I love it. Everyone is very friendly and I am surrounded by people from all over the world with such fun accents. (I am a sucker for a good accent! There was a time in college when my blonde counterpart and I may have followed a group into a bar just because they used passports as IDs!) 

The students I've taught up to now have been from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Holland, England, Germany, Spain, Prague, Israel, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Latvia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, and the US. There were even two students from Houston.

I haven't had much of an opportunity yet to learn about their curriculum, what they use to gather data, how they handle discipline, etc. The following are just some fun observations that I think my teacher friends will find interesting.

• There are 7 periods within a day. Most days, teachers get two - I repeat, two - conference periods. And some days, they don't even have a duty!

• Students go outside to play before lunch for 25 minutes. Then again in the afternoon for 15 more!

• I find transition time fascinating -- There is no lining up in straight, quiet lines to move from point A to point B. Most of the time, students transition on their own much like in middle school. If they are escorted by a teacher, they are in more or less of a line and there's lots of chatting. Of course, walls & doors help with his.

•  Yeah, walls & doors. Go figure.

• They go to ski school one day a week for the first half of the day for five weeks of winter. Ski school! 

• They use ... dare I say ... workbooks! Back home, we all know that when the teacher is out, the day is wasted. I only ever left busy work for my students and never expected the substitute to actually teach. It is the exact opposite here. I've taught whatever lesson the teacher would have had she been in that day. And the students actually completed assignments. Crazy. I know the difference here is that most students were on or above level and if they weren't, they were not far behind.

Even though these things sound appealing, I don't think I'll be able to conclude whether their system or what I'm use to back home is better. It would be like comparing apples to oranges because of the vast difference between student backgrounds. For readers who do not know, I taught students who were mostly second language learners from underpriveledged homes. The kids attending the international school may also be second language learners, but they're here because they've moved for their parents' work which is most likely for either an embassy, an oil or IT company, or something of the sort. It would be completely unfair to compare the two.

Believe it or not, I really miss teaching back home - even the stress, crap, and drama! That's not to say that I would trade what I have now. I'm not that crazy! But I miss having my classroom and 40+ students to call my own.

To my teacher friends reading this -- I'll be sending you all relaxing, score growing, alcohol filled happy thoughts throughout the testing season! Cheers!