Marita Brukthandel

Marita Brukthandel
Drammensveien 64A, 3050 Mjøndalen

I found my new favorite second hand shop :-D. Its called Marita Brukthandel, located in Mjøndalen about 25 minutes drive from Kongsberg. Open 3 days a week, Tuesday, Thursday from 17-20 and Saturday from 11-14. I like it because its very convenient: the distance, the opening hours and the variation of the goods they have.

Here you can find almost everything from books, kitchen stuff, CDs, DVDs, LPs, clothes (some are new and still have the tags!), shoes, furniture and accessories. In comparison to the price, Marita is cheaper than Fretex (in my opinion).

One thing i love about second hand shops is that you will never know what you might find. I found this collection of old recipe books for 20 Kr.

Inside one of the books there are a few additional notes. as you can see on the picture below. It said on the top page Middag/Dinner 17-4-23, i assume its April 17th, 1923??. Look at the price of the egg (second from the bottom) in that time, it cost 0.60 Kr for 3. Now days, the cheapest you pay for 1 egg is 2 or 3 Kr.
Vintage/old stuff fascinates me :-).

More picture from Marita Brukthandel.

Things found inside pre loved books

Its fascinating to see what people use as a bookmark, and these are some of the things i found inside the books. I think its better to put something in to mark the page rather than dog ear the page (that really annoys me!). So far i never found any banknotes though :p.

But it still really excites me when i buy a pre loved book and find something like this or an inscription inside.

Kopi Luwak anyone ?

Kopi luwak or luwak coffee is probably the finest and the most expensive coffee in the world. It comes from islands of Sumatra, Java, Bali and Sulawesi in the Indonesian archipelago. What makes this coffee so special is how the coffee is processed.


Before i continue, i need to inform you that Luwak is the name of a palm civet (small creature) in Indonesia. The civet has the ability to locate the sweetest coffee berries (Arabica or Robusta) and eats them. Civets however can only digest the fleshly pulp, so when it´s "out at the other end" the beans are still intact and undigested. The undigested beans are then collected, cleaned, dried, roasted and ground. So yes, it´s literally sh*t coffee!.


Hubby loves this coffee. Personally, i cant tell the difference between normal arabica or robusta coffee and luwak coffee :D. Since it has an interesting story behind it, we always buy it every time we go to Indonesia. Last time we bought 150 gr of 100% luwak coffee for 50 dollars (around 33 Pounds) and a 200 gr packet of 5% for 6 dollars. 


This coffee appeared on Oprah Winfrey Show and also in Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman´s movie The Bucket List. 

Left: 100% Luwak coffee
Right: 5% Luwak cofee

We love to share the coffee with friends but we only tell them what it was after they drank it :p.

Walking with Shadow

Shadow is staying with us again. Since hubby´s son has so many things to do at the moment, we offered him to take care of Shadow for the next few days. I really enjoyed his company last time so i dont mind doing it again. Walking with Shadow is fun and i enjoy it very much but i am not looking forward to pick up his poop :p.


These pictures below were taken this morning.

Kongsberg Ski Center from a distance

Ski day

Wednesday and another day of skiing at Kongsberg ski center. We had very nice weather and the snow on the slope was gorgeous. I must say i am a beginner but i am getting better, just still need more practice. Unfortunately, this winter has been pretty mild so we didn't have much snow so i guess i need to wait until next winter for more practice.

The Kiddy´s slope

and that was me :-)

Secondhand book lover

My love for reading started early on at an age when i had a subscription for a kids weekly magazine Bobo. The subscription did not last long but still my mum bought me the magazine once in a while. I remember when i was in the fourth grade, my mum gave me a book for my birthday present. It was Lima Sekawan: Memperjuangkan harta Finniston (eng: The Famous Five: Five on Finniston Farm) by Enid Blyton and i really enjoyed reading it. I realized books were not cheap and being a good daughter i never asked for them, instead i rented or borrowed from friends. I loved to read books by Enid Blyton, Astrid Lindgren, Edith Unnerstad and Erich Kästner. They are my favorite childrens book authors.


When i got a job and had my own money, I would hunt those books that i had read but could never afford, it is sort of become my hobby :D. Reese Witherspoon once said "I get crazy in a bookstore. It makes my heart beat hard because I want to buy everything". I agree with her, the only difference is probably i get crazier in a secondhand bookstore :-).  For me, secondhand bookstore is more exciting since you don´t know what you might find, it´s like treasure hunting :D. I can spend hours and hours there.

Few months ago i found Edith Unnerstad book called The Urchin. It turned out it is the english version of Si Bandel (Indonesian Version), one of my favorite books :-).


Hubby said to me one day, "don´t you think its easier just to order books from ebay or amazon?". I got his point but you wont get the same excitement when you get it from bookstore. I like to be surrounded by piles of books, scanning them and finding the books that i have been looking for :-).

Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!

Woo hoo... the first snow has finally fallen last night. Kongsberg looks beautiful and white today. I LOVE winter!!. Hubby thinks i am crazy, he said wait until i have been living here for ten years then i will change my mind. Wanna bet ? ;-)   

Homesick

You must learn to adjust to many things when you live thousands of miles away from home. One of the things is how you cope with homesickness. These are the things that i normally do when it strikes me:

• Cook and eat Indonesian food. Doing the cooking yourself makes you busy and helps to forget about your homesick feeling. While eating indonesian food makes me feel as if i was home.
• Disturb hubby. When i am sad hubby would do anything, i mean ANYTHING just to make me laugh :D. Even tough it will make him look silly. Thats why i love him and of course i would do the same for him :D.
• Go out and meet friends.
• Calling my family back home and talking to my parents, sisters and especially my little brother sometimes helps, but most of the time it makes me miss them more and then i want to go home :-(.  So i dont do this often.

At the end of the day, it was my decision to move to Norway and now its my new home. I think that the longer i live here the more i will accept this and feel i belong here.

Quasi mai

During our stay in Italy, we hired a car so that we could drive from one city to another. Although we didnt drive much, we did listen to the radio whenever we drove (Italian radio). There were 2 songs in particular that continued to play over and over. One was Paradise by Coldplay (i love very much), and an irritating Italian song that we didnt know  who sang it. All we could remember were the words "Quasi mai quasi mai", so hubby kept singing "Quasi mai quasi mai" just to irritate me. 


Even though i hated it, hubby sang along to it so many times that it was fixed in my mind. Every morning i woke up with a tune in my head, you guessed it "Quasi mai quasi mai" and it drove me mad :D.


All this talk about "Quasi mai quasi mai" was because i started to sing it again today! It has been a few weeks after the trip and i was curious so i searched on the internet. I eventually found it thinking the title was "Quasi mai" but its not! It is Mai per amore by Gianna Nannini.

Now when i hear this song, it reminds me of nice memories from our trip to Italy. So this song is not so bad :-).     

Pea Sized Hail

I have been living here for almost 2 years and now experienced hail raining down for the first time just a few days ago. I was at friends house when i heard a loud noise caused by pea sized hailstones, I noticed the sky was pretty dark and i tought it would be just normal rain. 

Its always nice to experience new things  (good one's of course). Luckily the hail didnt cause any damage. I cant imagine if the size of the stone is bigger :-).

Asian Shops

Is there an asian shop in Kongsberg? that was the first question to hubby when i decided to move here. It's just nice to know that there's an asian shop close by, eventhough i only started to cook few weeks after i moved :p.

Now there are 2 asian shops in Kongsberg, one is on the corner at Thornes vei

and the other is at Storgata close to the train & buss stastion.

They both open 7 days a week and have spices, fresh fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately, neither has many varieties of fruits & vegetables from southeast asia. If we want these, we have to drive around 45 minutes to Drammen to one of the asian shops below.

 2 of my prefered asian shops in Drammen

Update: Both of asian shops in Kongsberg now sell more vegetables from southeast asia :D. even though the amount of stock is less but its something ^_^.

Shadow

He is hubby's youngest son's blue staffordshire bull terrier. He is 3 years old and has a blue coat. I really dont understand why they call them blue staffordshire bull terrier, to me he's more like greyish :D. Anyway, i was scared when i first met him 2 years ago, he looked scary and unfriendly but it slowly changed. He is a fearsome looking dog but really he is really gentle and easy to fall in love with.

I got a chance to get close with him early this year. Hubby's son had something important to do so he couldnt take care of him. For one and half months Shadow had to stay with me and hubby. I was the one who spent more time together with him since hubby had to go to work five days in a week. I took care of him and walked him twice a day. I started to like him and i guess he started to like me as well. Hubby even told me that when i wasnt with him he cried. He was always lying beside me and followed me everywhere i went, even to the bathroom!!!. The only time he lay away from me was when he was sunbathing but i knew that he kept his ears in standby so everytime i made a move he was always checking me out.

Shadow enjoying the sun

Now he is back with hubby's son and seems he forget about me :-(. He broke my heart hiks. I wont forget him though :-), he reminded me not to judge book by its cover.

My passion

When i moved in Norway in 2009, i knew nothing about cooking or baking. All i knew was just eating and eating :D. During the first few weeks since i lived here we ate either ready made food or went out for fast food and of course after few weeks i got fed up with it. I remember hubby told me that one of his friend's made a very good curry, So i asked hubby to invite him to our house so i could watch/learn and try new ideas. Steve did come and he did teach me how to make it ^_^ it was so easy and it tasted soooo good. So i said to myself if he can cook, then why not me. Since then cooking and baking have become my passion and hubby is very pleased with almost everything i make.

Hubby has also helped to buy me many cookbooks,baking equipment and encourages me to try new things. From the very begining i started to collect recipies from different places/friends and now have a good selection of favorite meals and desserts.

Condolences to Norway

I feel so sorry for all those who have lost their lives due to the tragedy that happened in Oslo and Utøya Island on the 22nd of July 2011. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.