Happy New Year! It's 2015. How odd!! I really still can't believe that yet another year has gone by but I'm thrilled to see what God has in store for this year. I've loved being able to live in Norway. Christmas was white and all the trees were perfectly covered in layers of snow so they looked almost like ice covered coral in the ocean. Basically I feel like I'm living in this perfect snow globe which reminds me of the Pixar short..
any who besides living in a snow globe it also feels a bit like Narnia because everything is covered in snow and I keep thinking wow this looks just like pictures on christmas cards or like the fake perfectly manicured trees at hobby lobby but then I have to remind myself that all of those things came from this and not the other way around. Also, it's like the misty mountains because to me our base is surrounded by all these "mountains" that everyone here calls hills and before the mountains there's the huge lake and all the mist comes up from the lake and makes the mountains look huge every morning. It's lovely.
Christmas here was so nice! I stayed at Laken's house. She's the person who told me about my school when I stopped and met her at her booth during a missions conference at Beltway in Oct. 2013. She lives here in Norway with her husband who's Norwegian. She's from the same town I'm from and we went to the same high school at different times and she's been a total life saver since I moved here. It's like having this super cool big sister that is okay with hanging out with you and giving you advice. She's one of the coolest people ever and her husband is awesome too. So anyways I spent christmas at there house here in Norway and got to hangout with them for a week. We got to go ice skating outside which probably would have been super fun except I'm still learning what it means to dress warm here. Apparently there's no such thing as bad weather just bad clothing choices. Unfortunately it's pretty easy to spot me because I was one of the only people there without a hat or gloves or proper scarf.. (I'm sorry mama I learned my lesson) So yes my feet froze off but then we went to the indoor swimming pool which wasn't just a hole in the ground with a roof. It was like this huge gorgeous new water park with pools for everything and even a spa and they got me a spa pass and it was heavenly after almost dying of self induced hypothermia. We got to play with Laila, Laken's baby, for the first time in the pool and she was absolutely precious. Then for dinner we had rice pudding and it's tradition to put one almond in the pot of porridge and whoever gets it in their bowl wins a marzipan pig if they can keep secret that they have the almond the whole meal. And I got the almond!!!! It was super cool. That was on Christmas eve's eve. Then on Christmas eve we had traditional Christmas food of Norway like Ribbe click on these words to see Traditional Norwegian Christmas Dinner and then we opened presents one at a time around 8pm that night. Then on Christmas morning we woke up late and just hangout and fixed traditional American Christmas dinner. It was so nice.
Lately I've been a tad bit homesick. I think it's completely natural but nonetheless it's not a cup of tea. So thank goodness for good country music and southern tv shows. I hope you all are doing well and enjoying your new year.
xoxo- Matisse
Ps. I leave in 8 days for my 2.5 month trip to southeast asia. I'm super stoked/nervous. It doesn't feel real yet but I guess that's how it goes. Yay for adventures. If you could go anywhere in the world to adventure what country would you pick? Please comment below:) I'd love to hear from you
