It's been a social week!

As my friends, classmates and flatmates start to prepare for the end of the semester there is a need to gather together and celebrate friendship.
Flatmate DINNER party! My week started with a potluck dinner with my flatmates, me and the asians. I made chicken enchiladas (which they said were very "exotic") and was quite an interesting cooking experience...I never knew it would be hard to find cheddar cheese in this world, we have such an abundance of it in the U.S. In addition to the enchiladas, we had salmon miso soup (the real deal) and some exotic chinese veggie dishes, wood ear mushrooms & silver ear mushrooms, with names like that...it's got to be delicious. And it was...these unique mushrooms exploded in your mouth, with the tantalizing taste of ginger & garlic. We joked that we could have fed an army...but we all agreed not to feed N. Korea's army. Whenever we gather in the kitchen, the conversation quickly moves to politics and this evening was no exception. At the end of dinner, we laughed as we all discovered none of us were happy with our home country's government.

GIRLS' Night!

Wednesday night we pulled off one of the first famous girls' night. There were about 8 of us and we were hosted by our token Norwegian classmate who opened her lovely home to us. We fixed a large salad and Jo made the traditional Norwegian drink served during the holidays, Glogg, a spiced mulled wine with raisins and almonds. Of course there was a lot of dirt shared too...that is the purpose of girls' night! The boys in our program just couldn't understand why they weren't invited. I tried to explain that in the U.S. the girls gather in true sisterhood spirit and cook, laugh and talk while the men gather (in true brotherhood fashion) and drink, smoke and play poker.