In the spotlight

13

Sofia Christensen

"Good morning, love." My mom greeted me in Russian with a smile on her face as she was standing in front of the oven, flipping a pancake in the pan.

"Morning mama." I walked up to her, planting a kiss on her cheek, before heading towards the kitchen counter and taking a seat on a bar chair next to my dad, who was filling the crepes with nutella, cocoa powder, and cottage cheese.

"Look at dad go." I switched to Norwegian as I laughed softly, watching my dad fill the pancakes with so much precision that even I couldn't do it like that. Usually I was using Russian with my mom but Norwegian whenever my dad was around because he never got the hang of the language.

"Hey, the old man still knows something." He laughed with a proud smile on his face, still focusing on the pancakes piling up in front of him as my mom was putting them away. He always referred to himself as the old man, even though he is only 55 and could deny at least 10 years from his age.

I rubbed my eyes drowsily and adjusted my glasses back to their place while dad passed me a plate with four already filled crepes on it, sprinkled with blueberries and a small amount of powdered sugar.

My face lit up in excitement once I grabbed the utensils from the side and could finally begin to absolutely devour this whole plate in under a few minutes at maximum.

"Heavenly." I pointed out the fact that it was one of the most delicious pancakes that I've ever tasted with an almost full mouth, which made my mom chuckle as she turned her back to the oven and joined us near the kitchen counter. She accepted the plate my dad was handing her over, garnished almost like mine, but he made sure to replace the blueberries with strawberries because those are mom's absolute favorite fruits.

"What are you planning for today?" Dad turned his head over to me, stuffing a whole crepe into his mouth in the process. Whenever I was thinking I ate too fast, I just had to remember moments like these where he absolutely beat me in terms of speed.

"I'll go out for a walk with Milo, probably. But we will be back by the time we leave to the theater." I explained my not-so-interesting plans for the day and noticed that my favorite little bear appeared right after I had just said his name.

Milo is our beautiful Norwegian elkhound dog, and I liked to refer to him as a bear because he quite literally weighs like one. He approached me, sitting behind the kitchen counter, shaking his fluffy body covered by silver fur with black spots near his back in excitement.

"Yes, baby, I was just talking about you." I bent down closer to him, scratching his jaw, which he accepted happily, sticking his tongue out.

"Alright, we will probably be around the sauna if you get home earlier than us." Dad informed me while standing up from his spot and walking up to mom, hugging her waist as she was peacefully eating her breakfast.

I wasn't very interested in the sauna, and since we would go to the theater together anyway, none of them would mind my idea of having separate activities. Whenever we traveled up to the north to the weekend house in this small village, I used it every time I could possibly use it for hiking around the fjord.

The village was located next to a lake, which was the result of a fjord river coming in from the Norwegian Sea, and there were several different hike routes going upwards to the most beautiful lookout spots the north has to offer, the fjords and the snowy mountains kilometers away.

I quickly headed upstairs to my room and pulled a few clothes out of my suitcase. It was below the freezing point outside, so I made sure to wear enough layers before stepping outside. I picked out leggings to wear under my extra-thick pants, three layers of shirts and sweatshirts under my furry coat, pulled out my black hat, and chose the lined boots.