Norwegian Language Blog

Just 2 days ago, one of Norway´s leading actresses, Eva Wenche Steenfeldt-Foss, more commonly known as Wenche Foss, passed away.  Foss was born in 1917 in Kristiania (the old name for Oslo), Norway to her mother, Alfhild and father, Christian (an engineer).  Foss made her debut on the stage in her early 20s in an operetta called Taterblod.  Two of the theaters she was a part of were Carl Johan Teater and Centralteateret.

In addition to acting in theater, film, and on television, Foss was also a remarkable singer.  She was a mezzo-soprano who starred in several major theater performances, including Kiss Me Kate, Hello, Dolly and Cabaret.  As part of her on-screen roles, Foss combined her acting and her vocal talent into voice acting!  She was the voice of Enkefru Stengelføhn-Glad in the 1975 film, Flåklypa Grand Prix.  Commencing in the 1940s, Foss became very involved with Nationalteateret and the Oslo Nye Teater, for whom she played roles in several of Ibsen´s plays including Hedda Gabler, Rosmersholm and Peer Gynt.

Perhaps because she was so well-loved for her acting roles, Wenche Foss had quite strong political opinions, especially for a woman during that time.  She completely supported gay rights and actually spoke out against the Christian Democratic Party for their opposition to gay marriage and gay rights.  A progressive thinker indeed, Foss once said that the Christian Democratic Party should never have developed in the first place as religion and state should not mix.  She was very influential in encouraging openness in the Norwegian people, despite her own personal struggles.  Foss gave birth to a child with Down´s Syndrome and later in life suffered from breast cancer.

Wenche Foss received several prestigious awards for her excellent work as an actress and her integrity as a brilliant individual.  An award held by few other Norwegian civilians, in 1972, Foss was named Commander of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav (a Norwegian Order of Chivalry) and 16 years later in 1988 she was promoted to Commander with a Star.

The Star of the Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav

Another award she received was the Order of Dannebrog, an Order of Denmark, which resulted in a campaign by Christian V of Denmark to break the absolutism of the monarchy.

Order of Dannebrog Star

Yet another award that Foss received was the Red Cross Badge of Honor.  And to top it all, an artist named Per Ung created a statue of Foss, which Queen Sonja presented outside of Nationalteateret in 2007!

Please see here for a beautiful article depicting Foss´life.

And here is a link to a blog written in Norwegian about Foss.

When you think about fashion in Norway, do you kind of group it in with “the rest of Europe” in terms and styles and trends?  I typically do.  The only fashion stereotypes that I have heard before about Europe are that there are a lot of gothic dressers in Germany and in the Netherlands the girls where t-shirts and belts.  I am most likely way out of the fashion loop when it comes to all of this, but I’m interested in it anyways.  If you have any stereotypes that you would like to share, or just fashion trends in Norway you have noticed, please do!

From the time I’ve spent in Norway, I remember seeing a lot of leggings, modern-days mullets & faux-hawks, and last but not least a lot of tattoos.  I think almost every person I know in Norway in their mid-20s has at least one tattoo.  Most have several, and they are typically quite visible.  A couple of my good friends have full sleeves and imagine this-they don’t get disapproving stares from passersby.  Not only are this but many employers don’t have restrictive rules about tattoos either.  I know that in a lot of bigger cities here in the U.S. tattoos are more common and it is more acceptable if they are visible, but that is not so much the case where I live in the upper midwest.

I got a tattoo in Norway the last time I was there and because I live in the U.S. I got it on my ribcage (a location I like, no doubt); I never would get a tattoo this big in a visible place.  I would like to personally highly recommend the tattoo artist that designed my tattoo and executed it perfectly.  I literally gave him a vague idea of what I wanted: a nautical star with a rope around it and then the latitude of Tromsø, where I lived for a few months, tattooed above it.

The tattoo shop I went to is called Second Skin Tattoo and it is located in Finnsnes, in northern Norway.  The artist is a Scottish man named James.  He is amazing.  He drew on me a vague outline of what he was envisioning and then began to work.  His wife, who works in the shop with him, stood above me and stretched my skin out while James tattooed for an hour and a half.  The finished product, I told him, was “exactly what I wanted without knowing that that’s what I wanted.”

Click here to see the website for Second Skin Tattoo:

It’s probably unlikely that you will be in Finnsnes, Norway for something, and even more unlikely that you will be there and find yourself desiring a tattoo, but if you do–go to James!

I’ve never been big into comics.  My brother would read them ever Sunday morning from front to back and laugh hysterically.  I’m not sure why I never got into them, but I can say that I am more interested in Norwegian comics because they present at least a bit of a challenge.  I find that reading comics in a second language, similar to reading poems, can be difficult.  If you are interested in Norwegian comics, you should definitely check out Pondus.  Pondus, written by Frode Øverli, has brought laughs to Norwegians since 1994.  It has even been translated into 10 different languages!  Pondus entered newspapers in 1996 and became a monthly publication in 2000.  Not many other comics have made it to the point of a monthly magazine.

One of the reasons Pondus is so popular among Norwegians, and Scandinavians alike, is because it seems that he represents the average Norwegian man.  He loves fotball (soccer), is a stand-up family man, and says far less than he thinks, even though he has opinions about everything.  Øverli uses Pondus and the strip to make fun of things and people that it may praise the next day, so nobody and nothing is safe from a little ridicule here and there.

Pondus and his wife, Beate have a son, daughter, and dog named Bjarne.  Jokke is Pondus´best friend. Jokke is dating Camilla, with whom he has a baby, Gordon (funny name for a Norwegian name, isn´t it;) ?  Click here to go to the Pondus homepage.

This is part of Pondus´debut in Finland.

Click here to be taken to the Pondus section of Dagbladet newspaper.

I apologize if you cannot read the small print, but then you just have to go to the website or read it in the newspaper!  Pondus is in 80 newspapers in Norway:)