It’s obvious that one of the difficulties of learning a language is that there are a lot of words to know, and until you know enough, you can’t really say anything. Our Norwegian class gets around this by teaching vocabulary in clumps about specific topics. Naturally, these topics are chosen on the basis of what […]

I wrote previously about the fun things I get to do in the mornings while my colleagues are all sleeping. The flip side is that I do have some late nights, especially during my busy season, which runs from January to mid-April. The central organizing feature of my work is the annual 90-day legislative session […]

If you had any doubt about the cultural role of skiing in Norway, the promotional video for the recently-concluded Nordic Skiing World Championships sums it up nicely: “You wouldn’t build a house with two planks, yet somehow we’ve built an entire nation.” Gavin and I like to ski, and one goal for this year was […]

To answer some immediate questions, the title is completely true in that on paper, for a week, I am part of the US ski jumping team. It’s also not at all true, in that I do not jump, coach jumpers, provide any support to any jumpers, do anything to contribute in any way to the […]

We’ll go ahead and dispel any suspense from our last post about the championship: the professionals were a lot faster. The world championships (in Norwegian, verdenmesterskap, usually shortened to VM) began this week. On Wednesday night, there was an opening ceremony in downtown Trondheim. Annalise was asleep so we didn’t go, but we could hear […]

I (Allison) went into the back end of our blog to edit our last post about the World Championships and came upon a draft Gavin had started, entitled “I hate this pillow.” The post was left unpublished, so perhaps he decided this wasn’t newsworthy. Perhaps he thought it was an overshare. Nevertheless, he must really […]

Gavin and Allison Fall Down is a recurring series where we try Norwegian winter sports and recount our shortcomings for your amusement. Previous editions: curling, ski jumping, bobsledding, cross country skiing, dogsledding, short-track speed skating: Allison and Gavin, short-track speed skating: Annalise Trondheim is abuzz with the biggest thing that could possibly happen to this town – the nordic skiing world championships […]

Let’s check in on everyone’s Norwegian skills. Annalise is doing fine. What about Allison? Allison is also doing fine, though she demonstrates it less often in song form. Norwegian is Allison’s fourth language, and she’s pretty good at memorizing things like vocabulary. I am much less fine. In high school, I was required to take […]

Trondheim is more temperate than elsewhere at the same latitude because of its position along the gulf stream. Consequently, it gets less snow than you’d expect even an hour or two further inland. This week was an exception to that rule. We heard from one unverified source that this was the third snowiest week in […]