3 January 1985 (first time I wrote the new year!)

Dear Everyone,

Here's a box of stuff from Norway - My post-Christmas Christmas gifts

• White brush - They wash and rinse dishes differently in Iceland and Norway. Jøren uses one just like this.
• Rubber scraper - a slikkepott (pot licker) I gave one just like it to Jøren for Christmas. She needed it. It's made in Norway.

  Now every time the Paulsens or the Bjornstads rinse dishes or lick pots they can think of each other!

• Tourist brochures about Oslo [oose low], Kongsberg, Numedal, Finse, Norway. Remember that the purpose of these brochures is to exaggerate a place's virtues and to ignore its deficiencies so as to make it appear a paradise where tourists everyone just has to go, where they will forget all their problems, where they will have the time of their lives and spend as much money as possible.
• A Norwegian flag. A gift from Rolf to me for Christmas. Jøren gave me some socks she knit and which I'm wearing right now.
• A thermometer in Centigrade only - so you can begin to use and get used to the metric system.
• A yellow folding meter stick - A green 30 cm ruler - This I bought in Å and is for me. The words mean “Earth, Air, Water. Protect our Resources.”

• Inside the large Kongsberg/Numedal brochure - a drawing of the stavekirke - the church in Numedal where Greger and Anna were baptised.
• A guide to the Bergen Aquarium. Very well written.
• A sign I used when hitchhiking to Å
• A Berlitz book “Norwegian for Travellers”. I never really used it. More useful would have been a dictionary and a concise grammar. In the places I went there was always someone who spoke enough English. I feel badly that so many Europeans have taken the time, trouble, effort, and energy to learn English, to overcome the language barrier, and I have done nothing or very little. I quickly add that my trip so far would have been much more interesting and enriching and informative if I had known Icelandic and Norwegian. I am greatly handicapped but thanks to the efforts of European education I can survive.

  I think Berlitz capitalizes on people's fears. To learn a language requires time and desire. You can't just buy a 5 buck book. Other countries, other continents may be different.

• Many postcards from Uvdal, Numedal where Greger and Anna, my great grandparents came from.
• A receipt from “Sit In”, a store in Oslo.
• Two family trees I made to help me understand my relation to Knut Morten, Lars Ole, and Bodil and Jøren. [[ see the cards below ]]
• A bottle cap from Ringes Juleøl - Ringes brand Christmas Beer.

• A jar of bringebær jam. Jøren picked the berries wild in the nearby hills and made the jam. Our name for it is raspberries. They have many many berries - jordbær (strawberries), blåbær (blueberries), moltebær (cloud berries), and bjørnebær (black berries - not bear berries!), plus others. All delicious. [[ see postcard of moltebaer below ]]
• A calendar from Rollag, a nearby community to Numedal Valley. See the Berlitz guide page 181, 182 for the day, month names.

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