The sky has been blue and lovely and the days have been sunny.
And for all of the rain and grey days, Stavanger becomes greener more quickly than I ever would have imagined. Just a few days of sun and warmth have made the city bloom. The flower beds in towns are packed with tulips and color. The trees are blossoming and lush.
But our flower boxes were dismal and depressing, filled with the remmants of last years' greenery. So, especially since we were having guests over, that needed to change.
I had been avoiding it for just a bit because the best place to buy plants is in the middle of town. It's where the area farmers come and sell their fresh eggs and flowers, but many of them are older Norwegians who are from rural areas. This often means their English is pretty much on the same level as my Norwegian.
And I don't mean anything negative by that, at least not directed towards them. I'm in Norway, so I should speak to them in their own language. And I do try, but I've only been here a few months. It's pretty difficult and thus far, I've only had about six lessons.
But I needed flowers, so I got out my textbooks and armed with the following information:
--Numbers: I can count to one hundred. Also, the written numbers are the same.
--Colors: Rod (the o has the slash in it, but I don't know how to type it) is red, which is my favorite color.
--Polite phrases: Takk = thank you
--Indications of my skill level: "Jeg snakker litle norsk." (I only speak a little Norwegian.)
--General sign language.
I decided to see if I could do it.
The woman manning the flower tables was somewhere between 60 and 100, which is a pretty fair age range when you consider that in America, it's pretty difficult to tell any one's age given the propensity of nips and tucks and shots. Really, I am not sure what any age "actually" looks like.
In Norway, the woman spend so much of their time outdoors, sans makeup. Plastic surgery is not nearly as prevelant, so I suspect that the woman look much closer to their natural ages. But I have no idea what that could even be and there is really no way to do the math either.
She didn't speak English at all, but she slowed down her speech and used much more simple language with me. I used the words I knew (and I suspect badly, but it worked), brought out my calculator when I couldn't understand the numbers and did an awful lots of pointing, smiling and shrugging, along with my usual other funny faces.
This is what she sold me.
I was so proud of myself, that I wanted to take her photo to put here, but she smiled and refused.
She said she would break my camera, which wouldn't have been true because she was smily and lovely, but said I could take a photo from far away. So look closely and you'll see her stand and her back, covered with a white tee shirt.
Then I took my flowers home and this is how our front door looks now.
Later on that afternoon, when the pack and I walked by, she waved and I walked over and showed her the photos of what I had done with her pretty flowers.
I'm not sure what she said, but she clapped her hands, so I think it was good.
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