A list of things I have done in my attempt to become Norwegian.

• learned Norwegian
• learned to love brunost (not hard, the stuff is great).
• cut myself with an Ostehøvel
• eaten Lutefisk for Christmas dinner.
• eaten Ribbe for Christmas
• bought a suit and worn it on 17th of May
• watched barnetoget
• shared an appartment with Norway’s sexiest woman (according to Vi Menn)
• watched all episodes of ‘Pompel og Pilt’
• bumped into the King at an art exhibit (okay, that was accidental)
• learnt to snowboard
• gone cross country skiing in frogner park
• watched a lot of ‘Typisk Norsk’ episodes
• spent an entire afternoon watching curling
• gone to several hundreds of ‘visninger’
• eaten Rømmegrøt
• made fun of the Danish language
• gone sledding on korketrekkeren (several times)
• been on Galdhøpiggen
• gone over bessegen
• bicycled from Oslo to Stavanger
• signed myself up for styrkeprøven
• joined a gym
• gone on countless hytteturer, especially around easter
• learned about kardemomme by
• learned about janteloven
• been in a reality show on national TV (only for a little while)
• started a sizeable colletion of imported alcohol in my kitchen
• complained about beer prices
• learned to accept beer prices as a fact of life

That’s just off the top of my head, the list is woefully incomplete. And even after all that, I still feel I have a long way to go. My list of things that I haven’t done is probably as long. And the list of things I’m not even aware of that are part of every Norwegian’s common culture is even longer. It’s hard to become truly integrated.