h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hey, thanks! I'll certianly try them out in the near future (for a couple of weeks from tuesday I won't have to cook myself though, going home to Norway for x-mas!

So which fine arts did you study? I spent 2 years at (two different) art academies as well before I started this study. Wanted to do graphic design, but I wasn't very good at it so I stopped (and I didn't really like the way it was taught either). I discovered that I like painting there as well though.

Painting, printing, sculpture and "Visual Art Theory" - a fancy name for a mish-mash of art history and basic feminism & semiology.

I did 4 years of it with a bit of graphic design at the beginning (you could go either way) but I'm far too untidy for that. In my final year I was supposed to be majoring in sculpture and minoring in painting, but I was doing installations which required equal time on both.

I also did quite a bit of work with text and writing, which led into the journalism thing.

So what's a typical Norwegian Christmas like, then?

Well, if you're a good housewife you should have baked 7 types of cookies for x-mas. My mum sometimes brews beer too (actually that's the only kind of beer that I like). On the 23rd we decorate the x-mas tree, on the morning of the 24th we sometimes get a stocking with sweets in it, sometime in the afternoon of the 24th we eat porridge with an almond in it. Whoever find the almonds in his bowl gets a marsipane (sp?) pig as a price. In the evening we have a nice meal, and later in the evening we open the presents which have been piled up under the tree.

This is the way our family does it at least. Of course, when you're little you also walk around the tree and have someone dress up as santa to bring the presents etc.

So how are the traditions in nz?

And before I leave (tomorrow) have a nice x-mas, and a happy new year.

Don't let the millennium bugs bite

Your mother brews beer!?! How do I get adopted?

Actually my mum's ok - no cookies, but plenty of christmas cakes and puds, which she usually starts making at the beginning of December.

Pretty low on tradition in our household, mostly relating to the consumption of mass quantities of food and drink. For example, it's quite traditional buy a "big-ass baked ham" as David Letterman would say, and gradually whittle it down over the month of January. This is on top of the leftover turkey, stuffing, and of course Xmas cake and pud. Fortunately my cooking skills have proved quite useful during the holiday period, and I'm looking to establish my turkey jambalaya as a new tradition.

One minor NZ tradition I guess you could say, is on the 24th, laying bets as to whether it's going bucket down on the 25th or not. Last year's Christmas was a hot sunny day, which caught everyone by surprise.

Then in the following days, everyone clears out of town and heads for the beach (if they already live next to a beach, they head to someone else's beach) to try and get as sunburnt as possible. And at the same time, they light up the BBQs and eat plenty of charred sausages - two carcinogens for the price of one!

A Merry Christmas to you and yours, and a Happy, Computer-Meltdown-Free 2000!

(PS - marzipan)

So, I'm back, I survived the millennium but no thanks to the police protection in Oslo. I celebrated new years there, and it was terribly crowded and there were very little police guarding. It's a wonder it didn't go wrong there!
I was kinda disappointed that they didn't have a countdown to the millennium there, because we basically spent the crucial moment wondering if it was 12 o'clock yet and if it was time to say happy new year or not. A bit later we discovered that it had actually been 12 o'clock already a few minutes ago. That was a bit of an anti-climax after all that millennium-hype. You might ask why we didn't just look at our own watches, but when you're standing in a crowd of people with just a few centimeters of personal space, lifting your arm into eyesight without knocking someone down is not such an easy ting to do.
So how was your new years? Did you have a a nice Christmas?

New Year's Eve, I went along with 3000 other New Plymouthonians to see the lighting of the Wind Wand (for an explantion of what a Wind Wand is, and how one goes about lighting it, read my Entry on New Plymouth at http://www.h2g2.com/A225811 and the subsequent Wind Wand thread http://www.h2g2.com/forumframe.cgi?thread=34212&forum=28888 ).

Christmas was pretty subdued (largely due to the tryptophan in the turkey). And like last year, the weather was pretty good, so the day consisted of lying around either indoors or out. Boxing Day, I got to make my turkey jambalaya, not as spicy as I would have liked but you have to make allowances for the folks.

Christmas fun included going to see the latest blockbusters, End of Days, The World is Not Enough (seen it twice!) and Sleepy Hollow (going to see it twice!)

BTW Welcome back!

Hey, I think I've seen that Wind Wand. They had this show on tv were they broadcasted celebrations from all over the world, and I remember seeing a glimpse of something that looked a bit like what you described. I'm pretty sure it was from NZ. It looked pretty cool!

Some friends of mine have been to New Zealand, they traveled around the world for 6 months and spent 3 weeks (I believe)on a roundtrip in NZ. They also bungy jumped from a bridge there over a river. I'm terrible with names though, so I can't remember exactly where they've been. Me, I was already a poor student by then with no money to go on such a trip. I also couldn't take any more brakes in my studies since I'd already been delayed and my study financing would stop then. Would have been fun though! NZ looks really beautiful!

Yes, some of the TV from our part of the world looked pretty good, in spite of attempts by the weather to put a dampener on things.

You didn't see the dawn ceremonies from the Chatham Islands and Gisborne at all? They were quite something to watch, and refreshingly simple. Hearing local diva Kiri Te Kanawa sing Pokare kareana any time is quite magical but accompanied by the first rays of the year 2000 (whether it be 20th C or the 21st) is something else.

Regrettably, around New Plymouth the local rays of sunshine obviously had a few the night before and decided to sleep in...

I don't think I've seen that no... I was watching for hours just to get a glimpse of Amsterdam (which wasn't really much to look at anyway) but I only caught the shortened reruns of the program since I couldn't watch TV at home until jan 2nd (was at a friends house in Oslo where we celebrated until then).
I bet it was much better than the stupid Oslo-song they made people sing where we were though (Oslo had some kind of jubilee as well which started on jan 1st).

The weather in Oslo was pretty OK. Wasn't as cold as I expected (either that, or it just felt less cold since I'd put on 3 pairs of tights under my pants and a thick sweater to keep from freezing). All the shoving and pushing around in the crowd probably kept me pretty warm as well!

I think I'm gonna try one of your recepies one of these days...Just a quick question -what's that Chinese 5-Spice Powder in the chicken recipe? Will they know what I mean if I ask for it in a Chinese food store?

I have no idea - I just get mine from the local supermarket in the spices section.

But just reading from the ingredients on the back it contains: star anise, cinnamon, cloves, fennel seed, wheat starch & pepper. (I'm pretty sure the wheat starch one isn't of the spices.) With the combined star anise and fennel seed , it has a very aniseedy aroma and flavour. Tastes great with omelettes or in stir-fried rice!

I think I have all the ingredients now, but the spices were a bit tricky. At last I found a spicemix for chinese mie, that contained salt,coriander, curry, gember (?), onion, soy sauce, chilipowder, cinnamon, cloves, star anise, fennelseed and pepper etc and that's the closest I got. So I guess I'll try the recipe out either tonight or tomorrow.

Sounds like an interesting experiment!

And no, I have no idea what "gember" is either.

SO...been kinda busy lately, but wanted to say that the chicken meal was really tasty! I used the spicemix for the chinese mie, and it coined a sack of dried-up vegetables too so that came in handy. So anyway, thansk for that recommendation! I'll certainly start eating that once in a while

Oh, and gember is a kind of spice, but I'm not sure what it is in English...a quick look in the dictionary reveals that it's ginger. So now we know that!

Aah! I've *reached* someone! I feel so fulfilled...

Gember/ginger is pretty handy stuff and it lasts for ages in cool, dry place.