Happy 17th of May! Today is Norway's Constitution Day! We started it off with breakfast with a couple friends (in normal Norwegian style of course - bread, brown cheese, meats and more cheese), followed by a rainy walk to the city for the parade.
The crowds were pretty intense, but not above what I expected for a parade. Some similarities to the American style parade, but still fairly different. They have the politicians (only those in office) walking in the front followed by an old fire truck or two and then the school bands come along with the boy and girl scouts, and at the end of that is the children's parade where every child in Bergen gets to walk with their school.
For dinner, Marius and I had pan-seared cod with potatoes, broccoli and carrots - pretty traditional Norwegian food. And dessert was sour cream porridge - which was topped with raisins, a little butter and sugar, and cinnamon. What a nice first 17th of May in Norway!
[The children's parade coming around with the beginning of the parade across the way]
[Bergen's politicians leading the parade]
[Can't forget to have the old fire brigade!]
[17. Mai middag for to: torsk, poteter, broccoli, og gulrot]
After 11 years with this blog, I have made the decision to retire it. I want to take a stab at vlogging (video blogging) since I enjoy editing videos so much. This blog started as a way for me to have a diary of my time in New Zealand and I'm glad I had it to go back and remember what I accomplished as a wide-eyed 20 year old. My vlogs will be available on my YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb6ZmcUcw8vZvPdfGIzNTbA Keep in touch 😊
On the 4th of July I joined the mackerel survey cruise aboard M/V Eros. It's a brand new vessel that is even nicer than G.O. Sars! However, as I found last year, most of these luxuries aren't used on the survey because we are quite tired from 12 hour work days; and the gym is the most important room when you are limited to only walking up and down a flight of stairs. The first dinner was a very Norwegian meal of raspeballer (potato and flour mixed together with some bacon), sausages and potatoes. At least the crew blasted some CCR after dinner, so that was about as "American" as it got for the 4th. I'm working the 2-8 shift, so 2am-8am and 2pm-8pm. My shift partner's name is Stine (Justine and Stine -- cute) - and pronounced like 'steeneh', not stein. On this survey I have more responsibilities than last year. This year I can add plankton sampling to my resume. And this probably sounds weird, but the one thing that has officially made me feel like...
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