Food

Bergen

I was in Bergen on a short business trip and I thought I´d write a couple of posts about this town I love so much. An old Hanseatic harbor situated on the West coast of Norway, Bergen has got charm galore. The city center is contained by 7 mountains and preserves a small town atmosphere with wooden houses, narrow streets and lane ways, a meat market and a fish market, coffee shops and stores. It expands before your eyes as houses seem to be clinging to the mountain back. Nature is majestic and so is the architecture. And the people are so much more polite than the average Norwegian, you wouldn´t believe it!

Bergen was my adoptive home under a 3 months´trial in 2012 and I fell in love with it at once. Unfortunately, the weather is pretty bad due to the town´s geographical position- it´s raining cats and dogs and not only once in a while, either. And since I wasn´t in luck yesterday, I had to do my best with my camera and frozen feet and defeated the rain and my need to stay indoors by the fireplace.
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Monday Mood Board

Because it´s Monday and I got the blues. It´s just one of those days- the weekend seemed too short, I didn´t feel like waking up, the rain outside certainly doesn´t help, I can’t bear the thought of walking Sammy and I don’t feel like getting dressed. And to make things better, I spilled half of my coffee cup on the couch. (Now we really need a new couch!) So here´s what I wish my Monday was like!

1. Wish I could stay in THIS bed all day.

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Last days

During the last days I´ve been thinking elections, revolution, patriotism and how my life would have been if Romania was a country one could go back to. As in living there. Not that I necessarily would do that, but I wish it were a viable option. I was barely able to sleep and I felt light and full of color. I felt a sense of belonging in all this story, a feeling I often miss both as a foreigner here and in my line of work. You see we, interpreters, are neutral, we don´t belong in any camps.

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Entertaining light

One of my most favorite activities is entertaining! And what better way to do it than by serving the goodies you´ve just brought home from your holiday? This evening was a bit spontaneous, it happened the day after we came home from Paris. We invited our neighbors and friends Annette and Ryan and their dog, Emi over for a chat. Emi is Sammy´s girlfriend, so she had to be present, too!;-) Over a glass of wine and some vivid impressions from our trip, we devoured saucison (the half dried French sausage), macarons, French cheese, Norwegian jams from the Farmers´Maket, rillette de canard (duck meat spread) and fresh baguette. It was informal and delightful! We should do that more often, we concluded! What do you serve from your trips abroad?;-)

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Monday again

This weekend has been a bit overshadowed by the fact that I´m working out of town this week. Not only is it an ugly trial, but I´m living in a small town with literally nothing to do after hours. I was hoping to do a bit of reading, but taking my laptop with me was uninspired, there´s so much on the mighty internet more alluring than Shishkin. I really don´t like Shishkin, the way I don´t like many of the contemporary writers that everybody else is so crazy about! Makes me wonder if there´s something wrong with me. I just don´t buy anything beyond reason, call me sad, but I really don´t. I need people to stick to whatever normal people do and feel and books to depict just that. Surreal is no good in my book. Does it make sense?

Anyway. This weekend was uneventful, but cosy, we had lovely weather and took our mandatory trip to the woods with a happy Sam, made some good food and watched a lot of Netflix. On Sunday it was time to be urban, take Sammy to the Botanical garden and have coffee with friends in lively Grunnerløkka. He´s such a sociable soul, he loves being outside with us and our friends, even if that only means sitting beside us and barking at the passing dogs. 😉

Last night I arrived at my hotel at 11:30 pm, so there was no time for sightseeing. Today was a splendid day, the court room was spacious and had thousands of windows overlooking the sun and I literally died in my cashmere sweater in our little interpreting box! (but it was from Paris!!) No time for much sightseeing today either, although I did spot the city center walking back to the hotel. By the time I´d lunched on a nice sunny terrace, all the shops were closed. The whole town seemed to have gone to sleep, it was so depressing I went in for a nap myself. It seems I should be done here by Wednesday, so I might as well try to enjoy tomorrow as much as I can. Maybe I´ll get a haircut and a massage. Or maybe I´ll just buy a sandwich and soak up the sun. 😉

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Chanterelle stew

Yesterday I paid a visit to the local organic marked at Stortorvet and couldn´t resist buying some fresh corn, apples and chanterelles. I don´t know about you, but I love me some chanterelles in the fall! Although I´ve only made this stew the last 2-3 years, it´s one of my classics by now! Not only pretty and yummy, but very easy to put together, too. I usually serve it with pan-fried chicken and rice.

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Birthday picnic in the woods

Yesterday was great. The sun was shining yet again and our friend, Hege, celebrated her birthday with a picnic trip in the woods. We took the subway and met the crew at Frognerseteren, a venerable restaurant on the top of the hill. After enjoying a coffee or a glass of wine in the sun, we started walking towards Songsvann, our final destination for the picnic. We were 6 adults, a child and a dog. Sammy was happy to explore the surroundings, he jumped up and down, drinking water from small creeks, engaging us in his silly schemes and sniffing every dog we couldn´t prevent him from meeting.;-) On the way I picked some blueberries and served them to the others from Sam´s drinking cup. 😉 They were sweet and tasted like summer. When we finally arrived to a table in a sun, everybody started unpacking the goodies. Food never tasted that good, I tell you!;-) We had bean salad, cheese and bacon pie, cheese and fig jam, chocolate cake, banana bread, chips and drops. Yummy! After filling our tummies, we tok the subway back to the city. We were tired and our feet had started aching when we realized we´d been outside for 6 hours! Now that´s what I call a Sunday trip!

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Boeuf Bourguignon

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I made this dish today for the first time and it was such a success! The recipe is from a national Norwegian newspaper called Aftenposten, I only made minor changes. I served it with bread and white wine. (although French baguettes and red wine is probably better ;-))

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Sunday treats

After a boring morning of billing and accountancy, we´re now off to the city to treat ourselves to some dim sum and a movie. Meanwhile I was checking Pintrest to get some inspiration for my birthday, which I´m celebrating with a cocktail party in 3 weeks´ time.;-) Here are some suggestions.

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Santorini

I couldn´t wait to share my travel adventures with you! I would have already done it from Santorini (although it might have come across as a bit pathetic!), but the internet connection was rather slow. 😉 First and foremost: Santorini is every bit as wonderful as the travel guides will have you believe! Its picture-perfect appearance greeted me every morning and I really couldn´t believe my luck of waking up to such a sight!

Our first day was very stressful since Vinsanto Villas, where we´d paid for our stay in advance, had double-booked and tried to pass a shitty hotel in the middle of nowhere as an upgrade. That made me so furious I was literally ready to jump on the guy´s face when he calmly told us there´d been a mix-up and besides the hotel was renovated, just not our room! haha! How funny is that?! In the end they moved us to Nomikos Villas in Firostefani (we were supposed to stay in Imerovigli) and covered the difference. The villas themselves had nothing wow over them, but our room was spacious and clean, we had a pool, a bar and air condition. And, best of all, we had our own private balcony with stunning views of the caldera!

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