The Susanne

New years eve tomor­row and I have added a res­ol­u­tion to my list: Drink more cham­pagne! It is inspired by this post from Ser­i­ous Eats and although I feel I indulge quite enough as it is when it comes to food I cannot say I have ever indulged in cham­pagne. In fact I’ve only tasted cham­pagne once, with my family this Christ­mas. It was a Moët & Chan­don Grand Vin­tage 2000 and it was the most deli­cious thing I’ve ever tasted. About how I ima­gine nectar from the Heav­ens to taste. I can’t afford cham­pagne of course so I’m actu­ally drink­ing the usual cheap stuff tomor­row night – but I’ll be damned if I don’t have at least another glass of the real thing in the coming year!

Third day of Christ­mas and I’m at work at the lib­rary and no one is here. I sup­pose it must be due to the shops open­ing today and every­one rush­ing to exchange their awful scarves, sweat­ers, can­dle­sticks and jew­ellry — pos­sibly even books but are there awful books? I’ve never wanted to exchange a book I’ve gotten as a present. Until now: my sister got me The Tales Of Beedle the Bard and I already have it, pre­ordered of course. I read it one night during the exam period, it was a fant­astic little break from real­ity sit­ting there in my huge fluffy pink sofa chair sip­ping hot tea and read­ing wizard fairy tales. I sup­pose I might pass it on to someone else but I quite like the idea of going into a book­store with no idea what to get and then just stum­bling upon a treas­ure. This happened to me recently, in fact: I was down­town doing some Christ­mas shop­ping and fan­cied going for a coffee some­where — of course coffee is never as good without the accom­pani­ment of peoplea good book and as I didn’t have a book with me I went into Oslo’s larges book­store and looked around for the 29kr Pen­guin edi­tions. I didn’t find them, but I found a shelf of books that looked sim­ilar, the same green covers, and I eagerly reached out for one: my hand as it came back was clutch­ing a book the cover of which intrigued me so much I instantly bought it. Human Hap­pi­ness by Blaise Pascal is, accord­ing to the back cover and amazon,

‘Created by the seventeenth-​century philo­sopher and math­em­atician Pascal, the essays con­tained in Human Hap­pi­ness are a curi­ously optim­istic look at whether humans can ever find sat­is­fac­tion and real joy in life – or whether a belief in God is a wise gamble at best.’

I liked it — it is vastly dif­fer­ent from any­thing else I’ve read and that is refreshing, and although I don’t fore­see sit­ting down to read it all in one sit­ting  it serves as a good ‘change of air’ in between the heaps of novels I’m slowly work­ing my way through this Christ­mas: I pick it up now and then and savour a tiny para­graph before return­ing to my other books. Right now I’m read­ing The Witches of East­wick by John Updike and I haven’t really made up my mind about it yet. I loved his Rabbit books three-​four years ago but this one, well maybe it’s just the sub­ject matter that bugs me. Pre­men­o­pausal divorced women are just too far out of my own frame of ref­er­ence, per­haps. Or per­haps I’ll end up loving the book.

All the Christ­mas food is get­ting to me — not one day has gone by yet this Christ­mas that I haven’t exper­i­enced intense food-​coma after meals. It’s actu­ally quite awful: I don’t over eat at all, yet the heav­i­ness of the food seems to be just too much for my poor little body. I usu­ally pass out on the sofa to wake three hours later feel­ing bewildered (where am I?) and some­what resigned (did I pass out again? now how will I sleep tonight?). It is nice, though. To be able to do noth­ing but relax all day, eat good food and spend time with my family. No wor­ries about Christ­mas weight yet, that can wait until all the ribbe, medis­ter­kaker, lute­fisk and pinnekjøtt is devoured, Christ­mas is over (after new years?) and life is back to normal and routine is restored. I am excited to start my mas­ters degree (I got the letter last week: I’m IN!) and get­ting into a new learn­ing envir­on­ment at uni.

New years res­ol­u­tions so far: 1) study every day Monday-​Friday. (that’s it)

Tonight I’m going to a Christ­mas Tree party, haven’t been to one of those since I was a kid and am feel­ing slightly giddy at the thought.

Happy Christ­mas everyone :)

My last exam is done. I now have (assum­ing I passed everything) my bach­elor degree and a very light heart. I feel quite grown up in spite of my late drunken beha­viour (last Saturday’s ‘Jule­bord‘ (‘Christmas table’) which is a Christ­mas party con­sist­ing mainly of a huge meal of tra­di­tional Nor­we­gian Christ­mas food. We were just over 90 and very cramped. I could not really get up from the table without either a) making Jo(back to back behind me) move closer to his table and suck in his stom­ach or b) climb out of my chair. Guess which I usu­ally chose! I drank a lot of ‘juleøl‘/Christmas beer and cuba libres and even some akevitt. yep. At least I wore my stun­ning Stock­holm dress!) which I frankly do not remem­ber but the fact that I don’t remem­ber it really says it all. Still, no one has told me of any embar­rass­ment I might have caused myself or others so I’m quite pre­pared to con­sider myself just about as adult as they come!

At the Fre­derikke cafet­eria at uni they usu­ally serve ‘Exam steak’ around exam time. It usu­ally con­sists of pathetic thin pieces of beef (that Line appar­ently com­pared to a shoe sole the other day), a baked potato and some herb butter. And a dessert. Tonight, after waking from my post-​exam four hour nap and after my little visit to Lis­beth to exchange Christ­mas presents which we of course had to open right away as I at least do not have the patience to wait for Christ­mas (she gave me a lovely blue wool­len shawl/scarf that she’d knit­ted her­self and that I’m already com­pletely in love with, and a book: A spot of bother by Mark Haddon) I was com­pletely fam­ished from a sleep­less night fol­lowed by a morn­ing exam fol­lowed by passing out as soon as I reached home, and headed for the super­mar­ket in search of some­thing to eat. And what did I end up with? Exam steak, of course! A lovely sir­loin steak which I cooked the Gordon Ramsay way: with rose­mary and garlic and butter. I also made a delicious  sauce from veget­ables fried in butter and then boiled down twice, then strained and simmered together with some store bought veal stock and some bal­samic vin­egar and a little splash of Worcester­shire sauce, and I roas­ted a few green beans with olive oil, salt and pepper, and sliced up a couple of radishes to get the veget­able com­pon­ent sorted. Yum. That’s all I can say.

Oh, except: I’m DONE! Hooray! It’s today!

Today, I got the result from my Shakespeare final last Tues­day and I’m very happy. The b I achieved means I am guar­an­teed to get into the MA I applied for as long as I pass my last two exams. Pass! That’s all! I’m ecstatic. Now, the two days I have left to study for my renais­sance final on Friday don’t seem so insuf­fi­cient any­more. And my recent tend­ency to fall asleep sev­eral times a day whilst study­ing (in fact I fell asleep whilst drink­ing a triple amer­icano yes­ter­day!) is not such a huge prob­lem either.

Come next Tues­day my BA in Eng­lish lit­er­at­ure will be done, mark­ing a turn­ing point in my life: I will have com­pleted a uni­ver­sity degree! I will no longer be able to con­sider myself a bum or a loser as I’ll actu­ally have achieved some­thing of some sub­stance! It will also mean that I’ll be embark­ing on a new adven­ture just after Christ­mas, as I’ll begin my MA degree!

I’ve been want­ing to share some glimpses of what I’ve been up to recently, but as I’m in no mood for writ­ing the story of it all I’ll simply post the photos accom­pan­ied with an explan­at­ory line or two:

Get­ting up hours before dawn in order to get to my exam (yes, Shakespeare, yay!) and watch­ing the snow fall­ing gently from the sky, listen­ing to Christ­mas music and feel­ing happy.

Get­ting drunk at uni on Friday night for almost the last time this year and man­aging to take a photo of the world just as I saw it at that exact moment.

And then man­aging to take a photo of the beau­ti­ful tree which stands out­side the Helga Eng build­ing at uni, all lit up and pretty and very fas­cin­at­ing to my drunken mind.

Watch­ing yet another gor­geous sunset from my window and won­der­ing why there are so many gor­geous sun­sets lately

Spend­ing Sat­urday after­noon home alone, enjoy­ing a glass of wine and a beau­ti­ful book that Line gave me for my birth­day, very happy that my flat­mate was away on a ski trip so I could make lute­fisk without offend­ing her.

Yeah, that’s lute­fisk, com­plete with puréed peas, boiled new pota­toes and crispy bacon. Yum!

Last week­end at Tennsto­pet where mum and I went for my birth­day dinner, mum had lute­fisk. Swedish lute­fisk with béchamel sauce and no bacon, what an atro­city! Well, tonight as I pre­pared my lone­some dinner I felt an urge for the Nor­we­gian kind of lute­fisk. But my market didn’t have lute­fisk and – I’d already decided to have rata­touille for dinner. So, I decided to do as Pooh and just say ‘Yes please’. I con­sequently ended up with a plate full of heaven: rata­touille with a little sprinkle of parmesan just for fun, topped with a pan fried cod fillet topped with… yes, bacon! No need to say more, I believe, except that the com­bin­a­tion was unbeat­able and I recom­mend it to anyone and every­one who cares to give it a try!

I’m back from my amaz­ing week­end in Stock­holm with mum. We’ve not been able to spend much time together just the two of us for a very, very long time. Per­haps since before my sister was born! (Ok, that’s per­haps an exag­ger­a­tion but I hon­estly can’t remem­ber an occa­sion where we did spend time together with no one else there) Every time I’ve been home since moving out we’ve all been exhausted from our daily lives and we’ve been irrit­able or sleepy or stressed or… well, you get my drift. Last week­end, though, was bril­liant! We left for Stock­holm early Friday morn­ing and arrived at our gor­geous hotel at 12. We dumped our bags and went out, bought a tiram­isu cake for mum’s aunt who is 70 years older than me to the day and headed towards her place. We’d really planned to visit her on our actual birth­day (Sat­urday) but mum’s evil half sister had called and said she’d be vis­it­ing on Sat­urday so the ladies from moster Greta’s build­ing and her nurses were throw­ing her a party on Friday and we decided to join in! The party was at 3 and as we reached the end of Fre­jgatan at which corner Greta lives mum poin­ted to a little hole-in-the-wall sushi place and said she’d always wanted to eat there but never had the time. It was only just after one so we went in and had some sushi and it was the best sushi I’ve ever had in my life! Incred­ibly fresh, so fresh in fact the fla­vours of the dif­fer­ent pieces really stood out and I ate slowly, slowly, want­ing to really savour every little bite. Fant­astic! As an added bonus, the chef was dressed in the coolest outfit, com­plete with a kimono style chef’s jacket with the word sushi embroidered on it, and a head band. Simply awesome!

When we’d fin­ished our lovely meal we pro­ceeded to moster Greta’s five bed­room apart­ment. Yeah, five bed­room! It’s huge. She was very happy to see us and although we were sad to see her so old and tiny (after all she’s 24+70=94 now!) she was her usual sweet, funny self and we all had a great time. After­wards we headed over to Gamla Stan for some dinner and ended up eating at a Thai place with awe­some food and cool décor. On the way there we stopped by a little boutique where I picked up the most stun­ning dress I’ve seen in… well, ever. I love love love it and can’t wait to wear it!

Next day arrived — my 24th birth­day, YAY! — and we slept in. The amaz­ing hotel bed even sur­passed my own, lovely cloud that hugs me every night as I climb into it and drift off to sleep. The hotel bed though, oh my good­ness! I never could have guessed that such com­fort­able mat­tresses exis­ted! Leav­ing it was very hard and had it not been for the fact that I had a day of birth­day fun ahead of me I’d prob­ably just have stayed there. Leave it I did though, even­tu­ally, and rushed down just in time for break­fast. Pickled her­ring, a soft boiled egg, a glass of apple juice and three cups of deli­cious coffee. Yum!

After filling up on fuel for the day we headed to the ‘Les archives du coeur’ exhib­i­tion at Stockholm’s Kon­sthall, but on the way we of course had a little detour as we dis­covered an amaz­ing little vin­tage shop where I found the coolest little hand­bag for only 65 SEK. I’d prob­ably have to pay ten times that in Oslo, just for the bag being old! It’s simply gor­geous, a very dark blue with a rose pat­tern lining! I love it. When we got to the art hall we recor­ded our heart beats for the exhib­i­tion and I was a little con­cerned when I had to keep moving the stethoscope  around in order for the record­ing to work. Appar­ently my heart was just too unruly to cooper­ate, I wonder if it was because of all the excite­ment, it being my birth­day and all! Finally, though, the heart recorder lady was sat­is­fied and we pro­ceeded through the rest of Boltanski’s very moving exhib­i­tion. There was one piece in par­tic­u­lar which touched me. Having gone down a flight of stairs we entered a large, dark room. All the rooms of his exhib­i­tion were pitch dark with pier­cing light from video install­a­tions or pulsing light bulbs but this one was only dimly illu­min­ated onto the fronts of hoards of fig­ures dressed in dark woolen coats. They were wooden frames, each fitted with a coat, a desk lamp func­tion­ing as a head, a sensor and a voice record­ing which played as soon as anyone approached. On first enter­ing the room I was actu­ally scared. I felt like I was about to enter into a period of awful night­mares every night triggered by this sight. But after stand­ing still in the entrance to the room for a while I star­ted feel­ing safe again and moved around the room, listen­ing to the fig­ures telling me ‘I’m tall’, ‘I’m in love’, ‘I’m a social democrat’, I’m an artist’, I’m ugly’… I left the room feel­ing that no work of art had touched me quite so much for as long as I could remem­ber. And I still feel that way.

I didn’t want to ask per­mis­sion to pho­to­graph the exhib­i­tion but I did take a photo upstairs in the lobby where they had a lib­rary! Oh my oh my, had I not already been head over heels in love with this place I def­in­itely would have fallen hard as soon as I spot­ted the little, gor­geous library:

After the exhib­i­tion we went shop­ping for a little while until our dinner reser­va­tion at Tennsto­pet at 7.30. It’s such a cool pub and res­taur­ant that it needs sev­eral photos to do it justice. I had pheas­ant for dinner (we ate in the res­taur­ant) but next time I’m def­in­itely eating in the pub and having Gubbröra (‘old man’s mess’)!  Gubbröra is a kind of  her­ring hash with anchovies, egg, onion and dill. Sounds deli­cious, no? I can’t wait to have some, with a lovely cold beer, at Tennsto­pet the next time I’m in Stock­holm! The place itself is worth a visit though, just for the amaz­ing atmo­sphere and cool interi­ors. It’s quite old, over 100 years, and is dec­or­ated in dark woods and plaid wallpaper.

The next day we had to get up very very early and get on a flight back home. I spent the next two days in a coma and only awoke this morn­ing in time to go sit my final exam in Shakespeare which I think went ok. I didn’t do bril­liantly, but I’m hoping for a C. That’s better than nothing.