Northern lights...no. Aquavit? Hell yeah.

So...bad news....I didn't see the northern lights. Nota hint, not a sign, not a mere wisp. Nada, nuthin. It was a clear and cold night, but there weren't nuthin' happening of a magnetic, light show, freaky sort of nature. I checked. Muchly.

Damn.

I DID, however, get to join in on a true, real, honest to God traditional Norwegian Julebord, and it was an awful lot of fun.

Our building's yearly Julebord is a joint effort, coordinated by the building committee and joined in by the whole residency. We all sign up for something to bring and gather at one person's flat for pre-drinks and another for the dinner. So we had martinis at this one woman's flat (gin! Ack! I haven't had gin since 1989...it hurt me badly) as an apertif and hung out there for an hour, then up to the other flat (our neighbors across the way) for the dinner.

If you didn't know already, when Norwegians gather for a party, they PARTY. So after the gin (ACK!) we had wine, beer, aquavit and cognac. Oh, yeah, and for food? Let's see...there was pinekjott, sausage, sausage, mashed turnips (yum! my first time and they were good!), potatoes, and some other stuff. I brought a dessert, chocolate cake from a very traditional Southern American recipe. I think it confused everyone by its very chocolatyness (and the pound of butter it calls for) but they all ate it and seemed to like it. Hey, it's chocolate, not many people turn down warm gooey chocolate.....

The closest I can describe pinekjott is lamb spareribs. It's a very traditional Norwegian holiday fare, and pretty good. Thankfully, lutefisk was not on the menu....I smelled it once and know I could not ever eat it. There are some traditional Norwegian foods that I am pretty sure you just have to grow up with in order to like...luckily pinekjott is not one of them.

Anyhow we chowed on the food and our host poured me generous amounts of aquavit, which, luckily I also like. I generally tend to like any herb liquor...ramazotti, aquavit, slivovice, schnapps,etc. You are supposed to drink aquavit with most traditional Norwegian meals, as the food is fairly heavy and can be greasy, so the liquor is supposed to cut the grease and help your tummy along. In the old days it also protected against food poisoning by killing any bad germs. The Aquavit went down easily, as did the wine and the beer.

Everyone there was very nice about using English when they thought we might need a little extra help, but I acquitted my self fairly well with my Norwegian, even joining in some word games and such. Rich did well, too, and managed to use the one word he knows well, "Takk!" as his word in the alphabetical word game, getting a big laugh at his short, yet precise answer.

In between all this hilarity, I did manage to drink some water and take a few breaks with the booze, and so am proud to say I am not hurting much today. It might get me a little later (I get delayed onset hangovers now, they hit around 2pm) but I think i've escaped it for the most part.

So, I may have missed out on the northern lights, but it does not mean I had a dark night, by any stretch of the imagination.

SKOL!