Simple things

One of the areas where we're lucky is that I don't think either of us are extravagant shoppers. Sure, I give Gretchen a hard time about buying shoes, but the fact is she usually gets more pleasure out of finding a good sale than buying an expensive brand name, so I really can't complain. Take last week's holiday. Since Gretchen had a few hours layover in Amsterdam, she took the train back to Haarlem just to buy an 8 euro beaded necklace she saw in the window of a closed shop that she had to have--and I think finding it made her as happy as almost anything else on the trip. I'll take that over shopping for diamonds any day.

As for me, I only had one shopping goal for the trip. It's perhaps a bit juvenile, but I really wanted to find an official Norwegian football (soccer) team jersey. Norway is pretty patriotic and soccer seems to be popular, so you think you'd find them anywhere, right? Wrong. I tried both sport and souvenir shops in Oslo with no luck, and by the time someone told me I would have to go to a particular football supporters' shop, it was time to go to the airport. Luckily when we were in Bergen we found a shop that sold jerseys, although even then we had to go way to the back of the store to find them tucked away in a corner. I was really expecting to find them in every store, but I guess they have different ideas about merchandising in Norway than in the States. The bottom line is that while I'm not sure when I'll wear it--and Gretchen will almost certainly ridicule me whenever I do--I finally got my jersey. (Who knows, maybe if they qualify for the World Cup--which is in Germany next summer--perhaps I can score some tickets and put my jersey to get use. It really is the little things in life that make me happy...