Together

Memories of a family reunion week, our first Thanksgiving together since the first kid headed for college 15 years ago...

Monday, Deanna arrived. Ed was not feeling well enough to get her at the airport, so I skipped the last session of my coping class at the cancer association and picked her up. Plane on time, luggage here, all is good. Pampered ourselves with a taxi rather than bus home. Deanna brought lots of American goodies for us, including chocolate chips and Ed's eBay purchases. I promptly used the Ghirardelli milk chocolate chips for making Lenny's View With A Room B&B choco chip muffins. Thank you, Lenny, for sharing your delish recipe!

Tuesday, Ed finally bought new pants. His waist size has shrunk from 38 to 34, and he has had to punch 4 holes in his belts. His pants have 3 pleats in the back where he has cinched the belts, but they were still falling off of him. He really does look slim and trim now. He keeps losing weight, which is not good, but he keeps eating all the time, which is good. He has lost 40 pounds since the beginning of the summer. The first 20 were on purpose.

At the Bergen airport International Arrivals door

Neal arrived on the same time schedule as Deanna, only one day later. Ed was at the hospital for his daily radiation, which had been shifted to afternoon from the normal 8:45 am, so Deanna and I bussed to the airport. Plane on time, luggage here, wow, two in a row! Another luxurious taxi ride home. Neal was surprised at how good Ed looks and feels. We later found out that his platelet count is low, which probably accounts for his tiring and his extreme susceptibility to cold. And it is very cold here! It's been in the low 20's F, or negative 6 C for days. But sunny! and not too windy!

Wednesday was walk around town day. Ed had his radiation later than usual again, plus he had a blood test. We had pizza, the Norwegian national dish, for lunch. In the evening, we called Ed's family, who were all together for Thanksgiving, on Skype. Then we went to see La Cage aux Folles at The National Scene. It was performed in Norwegian, but we knew the story, and it is, after all, a musical, so we enjoyed it.

Thursday was our big Thanksgiving dinner. We invited Ingrid over, and fixed a traditional turkey dinner. We had an organic turkey from Hardanger. Ingrid brought delicious stuffing. we had green beans with mushrooms in white sauce and baked sweet potatoes. It was all washed down with red and white wines. We topped it with a two-pie dessert, apple-cherry and pumpkin, both made with Norwegian butterdeig for crust, the pumpkin with whipped cream on top. This canned pumpkin was not smuggled in from the US, like previous pumpkin. We found pumpkin at one store here - it is from France, and contains organically grown Japanese pumpkins, believe it or not! Then we had a picture taking session. We tried to reproduce the last family portrait we had.

Christmas store window display

Ingrid, Neal, and a pair of waffle sellers

It was Nattåpent, meaning the streets were full of shoppers taking advantage of all the stores staying open till midnight, the street decorations were lit, students were selling waffles, and we bought a waffle iron. We joke about pizza being the Norwegian national dish, but waffles are the real national dish. They are sold at half-time of sports events, they are sold for fund-raisers, we have them every Wednesday lunch at work, they are everywhere! I guess we're going native. We have a waffle iron. On the other hand, maybe we're not really going native. We ate them for breakfast the next day instead of for lunch or snack.

A crowd celebrates the lighting of the tree

Friday evening was the lighting of the Christmas tree on Torgallmenningen. Ed couldn't take the cold, but the rest of us went to watch. It almost didn't light up! The announcer repeated, "Now, the tree will light" a couple of times, and then suggested that if we all sang, maybe it would light. Before it came to that, the tree burst into light!

Neal, Deanna and I went to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Ed was too tired, so he went to bed. After the movie, I dropped Neal and Deanna off at a bar, and started for the company get-together at a bar on the Torget. I had two SMS's from co-workers saying to bring my kids! So I turned around, talked my way past the bouncer at the bar where I'd dropped them, and went upstairs to find them. Neal said, "Thank God!" when he saw me. They had picked a real dud of a bar, and neither one could remember where I said I was going. We had a great time for a couple of hours with the crowd from work, and when we got home at 2 am, Ed was awake. He asked, "What are you doing all together?" What kind of adult kids go to the same bar as their mom? I felt lucky that they wanted to come with me, and they felt lucky that they got to go someplace with action. My coworkers seemed to really like them, too.

Ed's sleep cycle has been 1-1/2 hour chunks, followed by getting up for a bathroom and eating break. The 2 am time was one of his wake-up breaks. He thinks he's doing well if he gets 4 sleep cycles in. This week, he has cut his steroids in half, but he is still flying pretty high. He has the shakes, which we think is from the steroids, and his back pain has moved to his lower back and his neck. He's enjoying the week with Neal and Deanna a lot. He and Deanna are setting up an eBay business! The first step was to create a Google account:  The2Leitners (get it?).

Youth dare the frigid water and race down  Vågen

Saturday we hung around, basically. There was a sailboat race outside our window. We meant to go to the Gingerbread City, but it was closed earlier in the day, and the line was a mile long later in the day. Neal and Ed tried to get reservations for a traditional Norwegian julebord (Christmas meal), but you have to book that months in advance. Neal and I walked over to Bryggen, the old harbor front, and discovered that a Farmer's Market was happening! We bought all sorts of Norwegian foods and brought them home to cook and eat. We had villsau for an appetizer. Villsau is mutton or lamb from the sheep that range over the mountains. I've been wanting to try it for over a year, since finding out it is a local specialty that you can't get elsewhere in the world. It is leaner than normal lamb, and we all enjoyed it. The main dish was reindeer patties, organic carrots, plus (non-Norwegian) cranberry sauce. We also had rømmegrøt, a main-dish pudding, with sour cream. For dessert, we had lefse, like a sweet tortilla, with butter and cinnamon sugar.

Saturday night was Lysfest, Festival of Lights, down on Festplassen. The whole town surrounds the small town lake, carrying torches. They set up a Christmas tree in the middle of the lake, have a huge stage with Yule music, and top it off with a truly spectacular firework show! Neal and I went, with a thermos of gløgg, mulled wine. We did not freeze, because the people were packed around us with torches and we had hot drinks, but Ed and Deanna stayed in the nice warm apartment and took pictures of the tops of the fireworks through two panes of glass.


A gingerbread oil platform at the world's largest gingerbread city

Sunday, we toured Pepperkakebyen, the gingerbread city. All the school children in the community build gingnerbread houses, ships, busses, oil platforms, and anything else. It is put together as a city, and everyone enjoys it.



Neal and I visit the troll on Fløien

 After that, we went up the funicular to have lunch at the restaurant at the top of Fløyen. They have awesome hot chocolate. Outside the restaurant, they lit the first Advent candle, and there were lots of nisse, Christmas elves, in the forest helping kids have fun.