A part of the Norwegian staple diet, brown goat’s cheese has to be tried to be believed. Technically, I seem to remember, it’s not a cheese, but whatever. The reason it’s brown is that the sugar in the goat’s milk is caramelised in the production. Hence it also tastes somewhat like caramel. Only somewhat, though.

To confuse the issue further, not all goat’s cheese is made with goats’ milk. Basically there are three varieties (in order of ‘rank’ to ‘mild’): ‘Geitost’ (goat’s cheese), made with goat’s milk only, ‘Gudbrandsdalsost’ (Gudbrand’s valley cheese), made with a mixture of goat’s and cow’s milk and ‘fløtemysost’ (uhm, whatever) made with cow’s milk only. All are made by the same process, though.

Ooh, look: It’s available to purchase over the net.

– Good morning, self. How are you?
– How am I? Hm. Difficult question. Less tired than I was five hours ago. Must have broken a barrier or something.
– But a bit cranky, right?
– Just a tad. Feeling asocial. Very glad to be alone in the flat. Sent the boyfriend home to sleep at some point in the very early morning and ended up telling him not to come back. He took it nicely. Good thing too. Definitely too cranky for company, and he certainly doesn’t deserve being shouted at.
– I see he left the espressomaker?
– Mmm. Espresso. Look, it makes just the right amount to fill the nice espresso cup, uhm, coffee mug, whatever.

Reading the paper this morning I found a story which exemplifies something of Norwegian rural life. Norway’s an odd country geaographically. Long and narrow, with fjords and mountains galore dividing one valley from the other. Not to mention large areas being pretty much uninhabitable. This has meant that a lot of communities ‘on the edge’ have, historically, but also currently, been pretty isolated. Hence the relevance of the story. Apparently, in the little village of Hellemobotn in Nordland, the 150 inhabitants have thus far had one phone booth between them – as in: That’s the only phone in the village. When it rings, whoever’s nearest has to go pick it up and locate whoever the call is for. As one of the inhabitants says, luckily the children enjoy doing the running to pick it up…

But now the village will be put on the mobile network map, a new transmitter or two going up, I assume, so all 150 will now be able to get a mobile phone.

I’ve finally managed to get some work done on the css for nmwl.no. Almost there now, just a few more tweaks and I’ll be ready to start sending the links to a select few – and possibly post it here ;)

But now I’m going to do the dishes. I need to move about a bit to loosen my back up again. It’s muttering.

Good thing about Life in Norway: Holidays in Sweden…

We went to Sweden a lot for holidays when I was a kid. Almost every year, in fact. A few years we went to Denmark instead. That was good too.

I know this doesn’t sound like it’s a benefit of being Norwegian, but believe me there is a logic here. Sweden – or at least Värmland – is a good place to spend your childhood summers. It’s familiar because it’s a lot like Norway, on the other hand it’s sufficiently different to be exciting – and it is, after all, a different country. They speak a language you can understand – and they understand you – very reassuring when you’re off exploring in case you get lost and need to ask for help. In addition, most Norwegians have been reared on Swedish tv-series based on Astrid Lindgren’s books, and they all have an atmosphere of summer, holidays and fun. This, combined with all those long summer days of doing nothing, makes it very weird nowadays when I have to deal with Swedes at work, as I unconsciously associate Swedish with holidays and dealing with it in a work-context is all wrong.

I collect a lot of stuff. Books, of course, but also… uhm, no, better not start. Let’s just say I have a hard time getting rid of things. However, some collections are odder than others.