Ok, Norway, how are we doing...?

Dear Norway,

It's been a while since I first crossed your border with the intention to build a new life here. Almost three months ago, actually. And I thought it would be a good time to have a little chat about where we're at. You and me, I mean. I don't necessarily expect an answer from your side, with you being such a big country and all that, but I thought it wouldn't hurt to let you know where I stand.

Slowly but surely the initial Canada-blues are wearing off. They have far from disappeared, but I have come to the conclusion that my feelings about Canada are getting in the way of me getting to know you. It truly serves no purpose to keep comparing you to Canada, other than to make me feel miserable. I know this, because I have basically done exactly that for the first two months. And no, you hardly ever came out as the winning country in my comparison. Which is not surprising when you take into account that I left some rather irreplaceable features in my life behind in Canada. The best friends I ever had for instance. My girls' amazing, innovative school. My volunteer career, Costco, the dog beach and Green Leaf Sushi. Just to name a few...

However, that does not mean that I would not be able to like you! Because if I stop comparing, I can take your, well, your everything at face value. And once I made that switch, I realized you had a lot to offer! And that I had been behaving like a sullen, sulking teenager whose phone was taken away by her parents. Now I realize that the phone will still be there whenever I need it (aka when I have saved enough money to fly back for a holiday) and also that my phone won't care one bit if I go and enjoy myself without it. Does that metaphor still make sense? I don't know, but then neither do my feelings most of the time.

Instead of writing a more standard list of pro's and cons, I decided to share with you my list of quirks and funs. That sounds a lot nicer, hey? Also, you can decide for yourself whether a topic falls under "quirk" or "fun", because often, it is a bit of both! In this particular blog I probably only have room for one fun-quirk, but over the next couple of weeks I will write some more blogs to add to the list.

Hope you enjoy it! And again, sorry for the rough start...

Med vennlig hilsen,

Roos

It's cool to be wool!

No fibre is more ubiquitous in Norway than wool. To the point that I was able to locate the woollen underwear in the supermarket before I was able to locate the cheerios. Heck, I was even able to find the knitting books in the supermarket before I found the cheerios! Those of you familiar with my knitting fetish can probably guess how utterly thrilled I am to have landed in the land of wool. To live in a country where knitting is not only considered the favourite pastime while waiting for their kids to finish band practice, but where my knitting may actually be an essential skill in improving our family's survival chances during the winter. Knit up, tally-ho!

I never once imagined, though, that there would come a time in my life where I would have at least one full load of wool-laundry per week. Or that 95% of that laundry would be pink for that matter! But here, I seem to have both! When we arrived at the start of summer, there was little reason to wear our thermal underwear, but that changed quickly come August. And with Eluin in barnehagen, there is no escaping the woollen long johns anymore!

At the end of the first full week of Eluin at barnehage, we were kindly requested to make sure that Eluin had enough woollen undergarments to have her going to school in wool everyday, as well as at least one change of wool. Sweet sheeps, that is a lot of wool! Ms. Baba Black-Sheep has her work cut out for her here! And of course Ms Baba deserves a fair wage for the shedding of her coat, so the request from the barnehagen was rather pricey... Luckily, I know finn.no like the back of my hand and in no time I had found a sweet grandma who was selling off some of her granddaughter's hand-me-wools. Added benefit was that I did not have to worry about Eluin making any stains that would not get out, because all garments had a nice selection of those already. Unfortunately, I was not able to get the iron-in-name-tags of the previous owners out, so I just added Eluin's to the mix. If she ever develops multiple personality disorder, at least we know exactly when it started...

With Eluin taken care of, it was only a couple of days before the weather changed to subarctic and Nori and I started wearing wool, too. Now, in Canada I had already bought some woollen undershirts and thermo underwear at Costco. They have since been Nori's preferred type of clothing and I like them, too, when things get chilly. However, Jura turns into Ms. Itchy-and-Scratchy and Menno is simply too cool for wool. That's right, we'll talk to them again in a couple of months. If they have not died of exposure in the meantime, that is.

In all honesty, though, I don't the same love for wool as Nori does. Frankly, I need a distraction not to feel the itch for the first 15 minutes I am wearing my woollen undershirts. Even the garments that are supposedly made of fibre exclusively harvested from the underbellies of newborn lambs still give me the itch. After about 15 minutes, though, it's not that bad anymore and I relish in the warmth of my little sheepy. There is really nothing that makes you warm, without overheating, like wool.

However, there is a catch... And one that I have yet to find a solution for. Because the woollen undergarments (I love the 1920's feel of that word!) I got, are exactly that; undergarments. They are thin to the point of see-through and more formfitting than I would find comfortable in normal clothing. As such, I wear my woollen shirt as a baselayer, on top of which I add a normal shirt or sweater. Which is great when you are indoors and sitting on a couch. Or outdoors and sitting on a couch. That works, too.

The trouble begins, however, when I engage in exercise. As soon as I do and start generating some actual body heat, things go haywire under my top layer. Whether it is the transpiration or mere temperature, I don't know, but the result is that all of a sudden this nice cosy sheep I am wearing, turns itself into a porcupine. The itch is BACK, with a vengeance this time! So imagine me climbing a hill in the forest or going for a run and all of a sudden feeling like I am breaking out in hives. The kind of skin-tingling, spiders-crawling-all-over kind of itch. Like the little lamb I'm wearing has tried telling me sotto voce before, but now has no choice but to make me physically feel how much she needs to breathe and run free in the meadow again!

I so far have deduced that that is the problem. Apparently the layer I wear over top prevents the little sheepy from breathing, because as soon as I strip said layer off, the itch subsides and I feel comfortably toasty again...except for one small detail. I am basically now walking around in my underwear. With the right angle of lighting, one can not only see the colour of my bra, but pretty much every dimple in whatever body-part that is supposedly covered by wool. So now what? I know I need to wear wool. It is really comfortable and the warmth is surpassed by any other garment I own. The two younger girls are totally fine when just wearing their wools and long-johns for at least a couple more years.

But how does this work for adults?! Do I layer with more wool on top? I have seen ladies wearing woollen shirts that look like half-zip fleece vests. Or just a woollen jumper over top. Is that my future? If so, no problem, just hand me my knitting needles. But I also see ladies wearing normal clothing on top of their thermo-shirts...how do they do that? And, am I right in thinking that it is not-done to just wear a woollen baselayer shirt in public if you get too hot, or do Norwegians actually not care as much about these sorts of things once in the woods and overheated? Or perhaps I am just the only one who ever experiences the increased itch once my body starts to heat up... If that is the case, I probably just need to wait for winter, at which point my body will no longer heat up. Problem solved!