The reason Easter is so big in Norway is simple, several days off work. Norwegians are very big on free time, holidays and making the most of not working. You work to live, not the other way around and its one of the most attractive aspects of life here in comparison to England. In England I beleive like much of the world the Friday and Monday around Easter Sunday are public holidays where banks and most offices etc are closed. In Norway its a half day Wednesday and then nothing is open again until Tueday. In England these days loads of things stay open on public holidays but Norwegians are not having any of that. Many of the shopping centres and I beleive most supermarkets were open for a bit on the Saturday but that was literally it. This meant that when I got a note to pick up a package from the post office Wednesday afternoon I had to wait nearly a week for it to be open again. This was also true for the Vinmonopolet, meaning nothing stronger than beer could be bought after 1pm/13:00 on Wednesday until the following Tuesday. I found all this rather frustrating and incredibly strange, how almost the whole country can close for nearly a week is beyond me but I guess as I wasnt at work either I should get over it.
What I really wanted to talk about was what everyone is doing when not at work and everything is closed. Well the answer is almost always a trip to hytten (the cabin). As Ive mentioned before many people have cabins in Norway, some in the mountains, others by lakes or the sea and others in nice country settings. My girlfriends family have the final of those choices. A lovely idilic house about an hour from Bergen built by her fathers grandfarther or great grand father, Im afraid I dont recall. Naturally made entirly of wood it was incredibly quaint with many nice walks to take in the area. Cabins differ in their modern conveniences, this one upgraded a few years ago from an "outhouse" to a standard indoor toilet, but has no shower. There were four rooms each comfortably sleeping two and a large lounge/dining room for us all to relax in. The kitchen was very small and there was only a small oven just big enough for a large joint of meat and only two hobs. Mariannes parents however were experts at creating fantastic meals with these limited resources for all 10 of us, two of which were young children.
The two children I mention are Marianne's nieces, both girls aged 4 and 8 whom I beleive have come up before. They are very sweet girls and it was great to spend so much time with them to bond and to see the Easter traditions for the children. In England typically everything is done on Easter Sunday, my brother and I would come downstairs to find a table full of large chocolate eggs which we would spend the next several months getting through. We would also always do a easter egg hunt too, which would usuallly involve hiding small chocolate balls in the garden for us to find. The norwegian traditions are only slightly different but certainly interesting never the less. Firstly the whole weekend was treated like a little festival much like it is around christmas with themed decorations and such, not nearly as excessive as Christmas of course but certainly comparible. On the Saturday the girls did an easter egg hunt just like I did as a child and it was all very cosey. On the sunday though there was still more searching to be done. Rather than just giving large chocolate eggs as presents each child/person(we all had one) has a large plastic egg that is the container. These were left outside in a basket empty and then later we went outside where they where hidden around the garden and now full of sweets. This is a very nice cosey idea and I particularly like the variety in sweets you can recieve in the egg rather than just lots of massive chocolate balls. I beleive the hiding and filling is something that is supposedly done by "the easter bunny". Now im of course aware of this creature but I'm pretty sure it was never anything I was told about as a child and was just something I heard about on American TV. I was surprised to hear this animal exists in Norway.
Finally I want to mention what we spent the rest of our time doing when not searching for chocolate. Each day we had large family breakfasts and dinner which were all immense, lamb for dinner on the Sunday being a particular highlight. We would also go out for an hour or so walk each day in the area, maybe having hot dogs with us for lunch. A huge amount of time we spent playing Yahtzee, the dice game. I actually really enjoy a good game of Yahtzee and was stunned that I didnt get more bored of it as we really did play stupidly large amounts. The rest of the time was spent just relaxing, chatting, having a few drinks, snacks and just generally enjoying family time. It was all very nice and it was a lovely way to get all the family together.
For me personally I enjoyed the food and drink lots of course as well as the nice scenic walks. It was also great to bond with the kids and start to build some uncle status. Naturally I had to speak a lot of Norwegian over the weekend. I still cant chit chat and have proper conversations but I surprised myself with how much I could use what I have and how I managed to talk to the girls who of course dont speak English yet.
I certainly consider myself a family man and my family in England are very important to me and we are all incredibly close. It was nice to have the opportunity to spend more time as a family with my new Norwegian family and the sense of belonging continues to increase. Until my Norwegian is much better I will always feel like an outsider but I am a forigner and dont feel that can or even should be ignored. I am what I am and thats fine by me. My Norwegian family have done so much to make me feel welcome that the stresses of life and worrying about language were definatly lost in the warm fuzzy feelings of family for the weekend.
A typical Norwegian easter egg filled with a variety of sweets
An example of some easter decorations at hytten.
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