Trondheim is more temperate than elsewhere at the same latitude because of its position along the gulf stream. Consequently, it gets less snow than you’d expect even an hour or two further inland. This week was an exception to that rule. We heard from one unverified source that this was the third snowiest week in […]

Longtime readers will remember that a common thread of our last sabbatical year was an attempt to try as many winter sports as possible, in a blog post series we called “Gavin and Allison Fall Down.” One of these entries was the time we tried short-track speed skating. I came away from this experience with […]

Nothing gets a Norwegian fired up quite like Christmas season; it’s dark, it’s snowy, the streets are icy, and there’s nothing for it but a beer, a fire, and some Christmas spirit. Without the holiday buffer of Thanksgiving, Norwegians start decorating early, and while American often complain about Christmas creeping earlier and earlier, no one […]

I have a secret: I love throwing things in the trash. I love going to the landfill. I consider it a luxury that we have a full-sized trashcan in our Annapolis bathroom. One of the best parts of getting ready for this trip was a major purge in preparation for our renters to move in. […]

We’ve been here four months now and life has taken on a nice routine. During the week, Gavin and I work and Annalise goes to barnehage. On the weekends, we take Annalise to a gymnastics class (thanks, Trondhjems Turnforening!) or go on any one of the adventures we discovered pre-daycare. Hopefully we’ll do more trips […]

I am grateful to my employer for letting me work from Norway this year — it’s a good job, and I really like my colleagues. One big adjustment has been the time difference. Their day starts at 3pm my time and goes until 11. I am not full time under this arrangement, so I work […]

Loyal readers will remember that when we arrived, Annalise only knew the Norwegian for one word: underwear. She’s been in Norway for two months and barnehage for one, and the progress she’s made is incredible. Language acquisition wasn’t a top priority during the first month, but we did want to fill in a couple important […]

We’ve been in immigration purgatory for the past two months due to an error by the immigration office; due to this error we’ve been “granted a residence permit” but are not residents of Norway (this is somehow different?) until a second set of paperwork is processed. This will certainly get corrected, if for no other […]