God save us I'm a blogger

Right, here's my first blog.

Blog.

Blog.

Sounds like something that comes out of your nose as you wander lost thru a swamp and search madly for your hankie.

Well, as the title suggests, I am a Texas gal who lives elsewhere. Elsewhere being semantically anywhere outside Texas, but in my case, it's Norway. I moved here in August 2002, following my husband, who got transferred for his job. Before moving, I really knew nothing about Norway, except that it is really freaking far north and that it's where the Vikings came from. And I heard the food was nasty. Something about rotten fish or something.

That's pretty much still all I know. Except that I have learned the the fish is named lutefisk, and it's even nastier than I heard it was. I smelled it once, and that was enough for me to know that I never ever want to do even that again. Eating it? I can't imagine. (For a similar experience, if you picked up a rotten gelatinous fish on the beach, slathered it in butter, sour cream and bacon, and ate it, you might be close to what lutefisk would taste like. This I have heard, but smelling tends to bear my theory out.)

Being in Norway, so close to Europe and places that I want to see, I travel alot. Since my friends and family seem to want to know about my experiences, I thought i might post my stupid stories and embarrassing happenings here rather than bug them all the time with mass emails and such. THat way they can check in when they want, and see what's up. Maybe, once I get better at this, I can also post pictures of places I've been. I have lots of them. Emailing them is tedious on my end and it hogs up people's mailboxes. Now you can just come here and find the pictures yourself. I might even be persuaded to post a series of my famed "Big Head" pictures. I call them art. Others call them crap. Hey, it's a judgement call.

Since moving to Norway, I have traveled to the following places (in just under two years):

London (about 15 times)
Oxford, England (met husband there in the 80's, very late 80's, mind you!)
Canterbury, England
Various bits of the English countryside
Copenhagen, Denamrk (3 times)
Stockholm, Sweden
Shopping forays to the Norway/Swedish border
Frankfurt, Germany (4 times)
Northern Germany, visiting family (Bremerhaven and a tiny place called Neuenwalde)
Prague, Czech Republic
Marrakesh, Morrocco
The Atlas Mountains, Morrocco
Malta (the whole island, it ain't that big)
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Paris (ok briefly, but still)
The Alsace Lorraine region of Germany/France
Many wineries in the above region (yeeha!)
Orlean, France
Various bits of southern and eastern Norway
Back to the US four times, mostly Austin but also NYC for an in-laws family reunion and Missouri, where my folks live.

I figure I am on a plane at least twice a month going somewhere. I can't find a job here in Norway and I get restless. I am lucky in that i also have family in London, and so can escape there relatively cheaply when necessary. I hope our next transfer is to England. That would be cool. I'm comfortable there, I like the vibe.