Julebord at Best Western Karl Johan

During the Christmas period many hotels and/or hotel chains invite for a get together which is often accompanied by some kind of entertainment and food.

At the end of November it was the Best Western Karl Johan Hotel on Oslo's main street which invited for its "førjulstreff". I went together with my colleague Stéphanie and our French trainee Floriane.

The evening itself was ok, but there were not many business-wise interesting people to talk to. So it was basically just us three talking to each other while having some wine. Later also the dinner buffet was opened so we also enjoyed some good food.

But for the rest there was nothing worthwhile taking pictures of. So this post is quite short and little illustrating.

Tomorrow there's another invitation for Christmas dinner. Let's see what I can post then.

Sunday excursion to Bogstad Gård

It's sunday again! And it seems that it became a kind of tradition to go on an excursion on sundays or do some activities together on the weekend (no matter the weather!). Just something to get out of one's own "four walls" and meet.

This sunday's excursion brought us to Bogstad Gård, an old farm or kind of manor located a little bit outside Oslo. So we - Audrey, Moritz, Jana and I - met up at the metro station and took a metro that brought us out to the north-east of Oslo and changed later to a bus.

 The bus brought us directly to the manor.

Since it was pretty cold and windy we went straight inside the "gård" and had a look at the exposition and the Christmas stands.

 

 

In a seperate part of the farm, an old stable, there was a children's workshop. With the help of their parents and/or grandparents kids could put together some wooden construction kits: birdcases, sword & shield or wooden toolboxes. One could see how the kids enjoyed this!

Later we walked a little outside and around the stands of the little Christmas market.

 

 

But since the wind was blowing us the snow around the faces...

... we quickly went inside again to have a look at some smaller animals of the farm.

After a while we had enough of all the rabbits, (horny!) goats, piglets and sheep. We finshed off our visit with some warm drinks and sweets (traditional waffles or cakes) in the manor's café. As if we didn't already have enough food, Audrey suddenly took out the leftover from Jana's cheesecake from yesterday evening. But who could resist that cake? Noone! So not really a matter of politness and good manners we ate our own cake in this farm's café...

After quite a while we decided to leave and go back home.

The bus, though, had just left. The next one would only come in 60 minutes, so we decided walk the way back to the metro station.

And it was actually a really nice walk back - despite the cold weather and the snowy and partially icy roads. We were and laughing all the way long, so we didn't mind; we simply didn't realise the long time walking passing by.

In the early evening I was back home. And this is already the end of another great weekend.

Audrey invites for dinner

One dinner after the other... Yesterday at my place and tonight it was Audrey that invited.

I had never been to her place before so it was really nice to see where and how she lives. It's a place a little outside the city centre in the East, opposite side of town where Jana, Germain and I live for example.

Jana, Moritz and I met up to go together to Audrey's place. When we arrived at around 19:30 we were welcomed by Audrey and two other French guys that had already arrived and helped Audrey with the last preparations for the dinner. She knows the two from work, if I remember correctly.

After a quick look around Audrey's cosy home, we started the dinner with the "antipasti" that I brought along: some crackers, dips, cheese and salami...

  

Accompanied by a light salad, Audrey afterwards served the delicious main dish. She had prepared some sliced meat baked with bacon and topped with melted cheese and beside that oven-baked potates. Very yammy :-)

For dessert Jana - our cake-queen :-) - made this delicious kind of cheese-cake...

...and in addition to that Audrey had prepared a very tasty apple crumble.

Totally stuffed we continued laughing, having fun and enjoying the last drops of wine. In the meantime we also had a look to a couple of beautifully created photo books that Audrey composed from pictures of her main trips, e.g. through the US or from our Preikestolen hiking weekend in Stavanger in September.

For our terms early, we left Audrey's place already at midnight, probably because we had been to bed late after the dinner at my apartment yesterday. However, we definitely enjoyed also this tasteful evening :-)

Dinner at my place

My flatmate is gone again. So I've got the run of the place again tonight. Nothing against my flatmate, but our flat is really small. So nothing for "big" parties or for occupying the whole kitchen for hours with a dinner party with friends.

As mentioned, right now, Mari was gone. Until Friday she'll still be in America where she went to visit her son in New York over Thanksgiving. So I decided to take this opportunity and invite some friends over for a dinner: Jana, Audrey, Moritz, Germain and Tim. Tim unfortunately couldn't come, so we were at least in five.
Yesterday Moritz asked what I would cook, but I hadn't made up my mind yet. So he proposed to have "Spätzle" (a German type of egg noodle of soft texture) with pork filets in a creamy sauce. He had this idea because he still had a whole package of Spätzle left which his mom sent him once and since his time here in Norway is over soon he's trying to get rid of everything. As this dish was Moritz' proposition and receipe - and yes, I wasn't too sure about creating this kind of sauce - I accepted this menu under the condition that he would cook it.

So, after work we went to the supermarket together, got all the missing ingredients and went to my place. We immediately started cooking and preparing the main dish. The others would bring the wine and starter soon.

At 19:30 Jana, Audrey and Germain arrived. After distributing a first glass of wine to everybody, we began to prepare the starter: insalata caprese (tomato-mozzarella-basil salad).

 

By the time we finished that one, also the main dish was ready and served. It was really delicious. It tasted really well. Everyone seemed to like it.

Of course this dinner wasn't only accompanied by good wine, but also - as usual - by good conversations, a lot of fun and laughter.
In between I took out the dessert which I had brought from Germany last week: Schoko-Printen, Gewürz-Printen, Lebkuchen, Baumkuchen, Pfeffernüsse... simply all the best of German Christmas goodies. That Jana, I and Moritz (who come from Aachen, the hometown of all this delicious stuff) would like it was sure, but also the French among us, Audrey and Germain, seemed to eat more and more of it the longer the evening became... :-)

After tons of German chocolates, quite some wine and even more great chats we decided to end this evening at somewhat around 3 a.m. But well-educated as my friends are, they first helped me with cleaning the dishes. Please note that this seems to regard only the female friends... ok, well, Germain is excused, he left earlier, well and Moritz was already "busy" taking the pictures...

Thanks for yet another great evening together, guys!