A Song of Food and Ice

We’ve been having a wonderful time here in The Netherlands with Monisha’s family!  On Sunday we got to watch Monisha’s cousin’s David and Thomas win a doubles match in the local tennis tournament.  Afterwards we went over to their house for dinner. Monisha’s uncle Paulo prepared Thai curry, and his wife Agatha made poffertjes for desert. Poffertjes are small sweet Dutch pancakes, often served with butter and powdered sugar. Paulo is the first of Esther’s siblings Nolan met. He lived up to expectations, staying quite true to what Nolan’s been told about him. First, there was never too long of a moment of silence.  Second, after Paulo and Monisha had a 1+ hour long conversation about whether slugs and snails are different animals, Paulo spent the rest of the evening bringing it back up. Paulo continues to insist that the snails in his garden leave their shells to go find new shells, and that’s why you see slugs, or shell-less snails. Right now we’re staying with Moni...

To the Netherlands we go! It was a bit sad to leave Norway, but it’s great we have so many wonderful adventures ahead of us.  Amsterdam is only a two hour flight from Oslo, and since we’re still in the Schengen area we didn’t even have to bring out our passports.  We haven’t actually had to use them since entering Iceland.  Even there we only took them out for about 30 seconds when one lady asked us one question before we entered. After arriving in Amsterdam, we took the train to Driebergen. We had planned to stay at Monisha’s uncle Arvind’s house first because we were only supposed to overlap with him for one day before he left for India.  But, his son (Monisha’s cousin) Alex had back surgery for a double herniation, so Arvind left early.  We are still staying at his house however, with his partner Monica. And what a house it is! They have a huge beautiful garden surrounding it.  In the garden are multiple streams, ponds, and fruit trees. They also have ...

Ah! Here we are in Holland, and we realized we forgot to write about a lovely afternoon we had on one of our last days in Norway! Quick post about a memory we don’t want to forget. Dan lives very close to a local brewery with a mini golf course. The three of us walked over and spent at least an hour at the bar. It was early afternoon so we were the only people there, and the bartender Eric gave us a full beer tasting experience. The original goal was to find a beer that Monisha would like. Monisha didn’t necessarily agree to this goal…but was certainly appreciative of the effort. Actually, the fifth or so beer Eric gave her a taste of was a fruity mild tasting lager that shockingly she kind of enjoyed. We also got to taste two different kinds of aquavit (sometimes spelled akvavit?). We could distinctly taste the anise and caraway this time. The more expensive one that Dan and Eric raved about was also the one that we enjoyed less. So I suppose we don’t have quite the full appre...

The ongoing highlight of our last two days in Oslo was an unexpected one: unbelievable Thai food. Dan’s wife Suttida is Thai and she lived in Thailand until just a few years ago. We were lucky enough to stay with them on days Suttida wasn’t working, and she cooked us the most delicious Thai food either of us have ever eaten...by far. And that means a lot because Thai is one of both our very favorite cuisines (Monisha’s #1 favorite). For lunch on our first day with them she made a spicy green curry and sweet and sour shrimp. Thankfully, they toned down the spice level for us. Both of us really enjoy spicy food, but Dan and Suttida enjoy a whole new level. They have a Thai chili plant in their house already, but Dan wanted to grow something even spicier. So now they have their own Moruga Scorpion pepper plant. That’s the second spiciest pepper in the world. The second day she made satay chicken with a coconut milk dipping sauce and a cucumber vinegar dipping sauce. This is a...

Back in Oslo! We’ve now realized that we will be going to the Oslo airport SIX times during our two weeks in Norway. It’s almost starting to feel like home base… On our first day back in the South, we met up with Ole Andreas, his girlfriend, and his brother Dan. He took us to a place called Fangene På Fortet meaning “Prisoners of the Fort.” It’s sort of like a mix between a game show and an escape room.  There are a bunch of rooms with individual challenges. Some rooms require athleticism or technique, some require strategy or puzzle solving.  Each room awards some number of points for successful completion or partial completion.  The goal is to score as many points as possible. Our name?  The DREAM TEAM. With a name like that we felt a bit of pressure to perform well.  In the hallways between rooms are scoreboards showing the rankings of all the teams that are playing or have finished playing that day.  We had a somewhat slow start, falling into a bit ...