However, after being apart from my sense of home and normalcy for the past seven weeks, it felt like I got to open 80 Christmas presents.
Well, Christmas presents that were wrapped very tightly with strong tape, plastic, and tons of layers of paper padding.
Here's the chaos:
Bedroom - needless to say, we slept in the living room last night. Looking much better today.
So many boxes. My thumb is actually sore from using the scissors to open all of this (razor was packed...oh the irony!)
For someone who didn't cook much in my previous life, at least I was well-stocked with kitchen gear. It'll come in handy now that I love to cook.
Ahh, my love! How I've missed you...
Dear Mother Earth: I'm REALLY sorry. Really. I truly hope the people who take this away are planning to recycle it...
So, the apartment is shaping up nicely, and I'll post pics after I get everything in place next week.
Other than the apartment, errands and Norwegian class are keeping me quite busy (just finished Level 1 today, Level 2 starts Monday). Work and Norwegian class are keeping Ken very, very busy.
Also, our travels start this weekend. We're heading up north to Trondheim, to visit my good and funny friend Ingvar and his family. I met Ingvar at the University of Oregon almost six years ago. We had class together, and ended up hanging out quite a bit. Who knew we would ever live in the same country again? Awesome. Two weeks from this weekend we're heading to Dublin ($50 roundtrips from Ryanair, seriously!), then Germany two weeks after that to visit our friends Holger and Annett, who did a rotation in Portland like we're doing here in Oslo. Then we're working on Christmas plans, which so far involve visiting our friends Bryan and April who are on a rotation in London, and hopefully another friend of mine from U of O, Lars, who lives in Copenhagen. Love how small the world is! And how cheap travel in Europe is...
This week's Moment of Zen:
I asked the guy at the Vinmonopolet if they had anything from Oregon, and he showed me three bottles of Pinot Noir and two bottles of Pinot Gris. Feeling pretty complete now.
