Hang Ups

This week has gone well.  I went to the “Town Market” with the Americans, Michael and Erin, that we meet last week.  The market was not really much but I did get some very nice blue cheese made from goat’s milk from a local farmer.  I also made the mistake of showing too much interest in some other cheese product and the farmer wanted me to try it.  It was disgusting – when I asked what it was all he could say was “it is like cheese but before it is cheese” - so the lesson is what cheese is before it is cheese is not good.  We spent the rest of the afternoon walking the city and ended up a cute café for lunch and discussion. Jason got home late Saturday night with 2 suitcases full of US goodies for us which included refried beans, Ziploc bags, Shout sticks, blackout curtains plus some new movies.  It was great to have him home and it was like Christmas opening the suitcasesJ

 

We spent Sunday morning tending to the yard.  We are required to mow it so Jason taught me how to use the mower and the weed eater.  Our landlady has high hopes on us taking care of the yard hopefully we can make a good effort.  This week has been pretty uneventful.  I have been trying to figure out how to pay our credit card bill which is issued through our bank so you would think it might be easy since the Norwegian banking system is pretty much all online (and in many cases more advanced then the US system).  Well it ended up being easy but it took about 4 phone calls to our bank to finally figure it out.  The best part is when you call and talk to a real person I always ask “do you speak English?” and if they don’t speak English they just hang up on you!  Mind you they ALL learn English in school and most of them speak it very well and the bank has a portion of the website in English so it would not be uncommon for the customer service people to speak English but nope they can’t bother to even try or transfer you they just hang up.  So it is hit and miss if you can actually talk to someone.  The same goes for the Immigration Office customer service line – it says “for English press 2” so I press 2 – they answer in Norwegian – when you ask if they speak English the response is “a little”  - but I thought I pressed 2 for English.  Oh well…there is nobody to complain to here about customer service.

 

Yesterday I had an informal meeting/interview at Birralee which is one of International Schools here.  Our relocation person works there and suggested there might be some opportunities for me there.  So after emailing the principal my resume I meet with her to discuss the options.  She suggested there may be a job available in a teacher assistant role for me in the fall.  I need to check with immigration on all the rules but if I can work there might be an opportunity.  As you all know teaching children would not be my dream job but it would get me out of the house and it would make things interesting – it would definitely challenge me!  So we shall see what comes of that.  Plus she told me the pay for an assistant would be about 115NOK which is about $23/hour which seems like pretty decent money for a non-qualified teacher assistant.  Mind you the government will take 40% of that from me. 

 

We meet Erin, Michael and Simon for “coffee” after work yesterday and they brought with them a married couple – Carlos and Lena.  Lena is Norwegian and Carlos is Spanish – they have lived all over the world working for big oil.  They invited us to the local football (soccer) club’s match on Sunday night.  Jason will be on his way to lovely Bakersfield but I will be going to my first European football game (really my first professional soccer game).  I guess Carlos’s company has a “box” which is not supposed to be very luxurious but nicer then the regular seats.  I will report on how that goes later this weekend! Then later last night I meet our relocation people, Tonny and Anne Line, for drinks at a gorgeous pub- check out the view below (notice the sun at 9:30pm). And when I say drinks – they drank since they walked but since I drove I couldn’t drink- the Norwegians have very strict drinking and driving rules- there is basically no tolerance and the legal limit is 0.0 and if you are caught over the limit you will do jail time – there is not fines or license suspension like in the US – they mean business here – so therefore I had water at the pub.   Jason had a teleconference so he couldn’t come. 

 

First Blog in Norway

So here goes my first attempt at a blog! This one will be long since I have lots to share since we have been here for three weeks. I will try to update the blog every couple of days after this so they won’t be as long from here on out unless of course I have a great story!

Check out photos in the Photo Album. I am still working on getting more added so look for more soon.

The Move

So my last day of work at Marathon was Thursday April 24. It was a nice day and I had lots of people come say good bye – I will miss working there. Jason’s parents arrived on Friday to help us get ready for the move. We had one last open house on Saturday afternoon. During that time we went to Sam’s Club to stock up on American non- perishable goods we couldn’t live without like A1, Mac & Cheese and items that we knew were super expensive in Norway like contact lens solution and zip lock bags. Spent Sunday organizing the house into three piles and labeling everything with the hundreds of handy stickers – “Sea”, “Air” and “Storage”. Monday the packers show up and quickly pack 2/3 of the house. Tuesday they finished up packing, labeling and loading. And when I say “pack” they literally box everything including our sofas, dressers etc – it was pretty amazing. All there was left to do is clean the house and get the carpets cleaned. Luckily I had some major help from Judy (Jason’s mom) so the cleaning was not too painful. We spent the next few days dealing with home inspections, running errands etc – we stayed with some good friends Natalie and Gavin during this time since they were watching our dogs.

The Trip

Our flight left Houston around 3pm on Thursday May 1^st. It was direct to Amsterdam with a connection to Trondheim. I really love flying business class – too bad we can only afford it when it is Chevron’s dime! We maxed out our luggage capacity of three bags each. Getting the bags to and from the cars was pretty interesting. We stayed 2 nights in a hotel since we didn’t have the house keys yet. We moved into the house on Sunday. I had yet to see the house – Jason did all the work to pick it on his last trip but I had seen pictures. It is really quite nice especially for Norwegian standards. It has a decent kitchen, formal dining, big living room, basement living room, laundry room, 3 good size storage rooms in the basement, 1.5 baths and 4 small bedrooms. It has a detached garage and a large un-fenced yard with tulips (my favorite!) Now the interior decorating is another story but we can work on that. Every room has textured colored wallpaper and hideous curtains! We promptly made a trip to Ikea for a new bed for our room, some drapes, lights etc. I think Ikea might just be our favorite place here. Not only is the furniture etc inexpensive (just like in the US) but they have an inexpensive café which is really cheap by Norwegian standards.

Settling In

Jason didn’t have to work the following week due to Chevron’s move policy! So we spent all week exploring and shopping. We have hit up quite a few grocery stores – there is one on every corner literally! Some are really tiny (think a convenience store) and others are larger (think Walgreen’s or CVS) though there are a few that are like real grocery stores in the US but they also usually carry clothes etc as well – kinda like a mini Target with more food. So you are probably wondering about the food. Yes it is really expensive – basically double the price on everything and triple the price on meat and soda. And yes there is LOTS of fish but overall we have been able to get a lot of the usual stuff we would eat at home and it is not half bad. The fish is hilarious though- they have fish everything – whole fish, fish soup, fish sticks, fish balls, and the two worst: fish pudding (looks like flan) and fish cakes (not like crab cakes more like fish pancakes!) – they both are gross looking. Hopefully I won’t have to try them one day to be niceJ Alcohol is also very expensive. We bought our first duty free liquor in Amsterdam to avoid the high prices. They sell beer and some low alcohol content liqueur in the grocery stores and then there are state run stores for higher content liquor and wine. Like Texas they have to stop selling beer at a certain time and they have a great contraption that comes down from the ceiling to cover the beer aisle. They also sell half bottles of the low content liquor – not sure why but they are literally half full. Not sure why they can’t just sell smaller bottles – maybe that is just the American inventor in me.

Another good grocery store thing is the meat section. First off there is very little meat or chicken. All the chicken is one brand and breasts are hard to find but I have managed to find them. The “sell by date” is usually today or tomorrow – I guess that is why they have so many grocery stores since people have to shop every day for meat. And the chicken smells weird – I can only assume is it has less preservatives then our chicken so this is how it “should” smell but I am not really used to it yet – I kinda like the preservatives I think. Then there is the beef….it is really weird how they label it – basic translation “ground meat” not beef – meat. Hummm…so I ask a lady “is this ground beef” her answer “no” (sure does look like ground beef to me) then I ask “what kinda of meat is it?” she stares at me blankly and says “I don’t know”. WHAT! I say “is it cow?” her response “no”. Okay…we part ways. Another nice lady overhears all this and tells me yes it is beef – thank goodness! But nowhere does it say beef just meat – weird. And lean ground beef is 3 times the cost of fatty ground beef- grrr! Ground beef is also not red like in the US – it is brown but thankful it doesn’t smell funny. Now I know this is due to the fact that the US treats the meat with something to make it red but now I know what it should really look like.

So what else have we done- joined a very nice gym, gotten library cards (I have already read 4 books!), eaten out more then most Norwegians, received Jason’s visa and finished applying for mine. That was quite the experience as well. Immigration happens at the Police station – I guess since they have no crime they need something to do. Jason had come the week he was here to take care of his visa but the office was closed all week due to the fact they had “gotten behind”. Nice! So Monday we arrived bright and early at 8:45am to stand in line until 10am when we can get a number. There is no order to the line and it is pretty much chaos. Finally they open up so we can get our number – we are 28 (even though there were only about 12 people in front of us – Norwegians don’t really believe in lines). Forgot to mention the immigration office is only open from 10am- 2pm on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday- that’s it! So we wait our turn – while waiting we meet a nice English guy who works for Schlumberger – we exchange numbers to meet up later. We are nervous when it gets to our turn since there has been a lot of confusion about our visas and what we really need to do. When we get to window we are amazed the lady looks at our passports and says “we have been waiting for you” - No Joke! She quickly gets all the paperwork she needs- takes Jason’s passport and says his visa will be ready on Thursday and they will process my paperwork and let me know via the mail soon. So although the line and the office hours are ridiculous we were very impressed with the service.

The Dogs!

So for anyone who has talked to me regularly you know that the dogs were my biggest concern and quite frankly have been the biggest hassle to deal with. They stayed with Natalie and Gavin until the Tuesday after we left. I am sure the loved every minute of it! They were picked up Tuesday morning for a vet visit and then taken to the airport. By 4pm they were off to Frankfurt on a direct 9.5 hour flight. The handler said they were very calm in their crates at the airport. They stayed in Frankfurt for about 6 hours (they were walked and had a big kennel area) then flew on to Oslo. The agent in Oslo was going to pick them up and drive them the 8 hours straight to us (there is no plane big enough for them that flies to Trondheim). So we get a call – Lufthansa lost all paperwork and the Oslo vet can’t clear them tonight. So they will stay in the Oslo airport kennel for the night or until they can clear customs. At this point I almost lose it! The paperwork is all originals (customs requirement) and the paperwork was so hard to get! I can’t get originals again for weeks! The pet shipper says they will usually release the animals with copies if the airline loses the paperwork. I left all the paperwork with Natalie in Houston just in case – so I call her franticly – Natalie is super efficient and has already mailed it! So she runs back to the post office and is able to retrieve it just in case we need it (what a wonderful friend!). Jason and I are very worried all night but luckily first thing in the morning we hear that Lufthansa found all the paperwork and the dogs will clear customs around noon! Whohoo! So after a long car trip through the heart of Norway the dogs arrive to us. They were actually not really interested in us but boy did they want to see the houseJ So we show them around and then show them their beds – they are quickly sleeping.(We had thought ahead and shipped over their beds in the air shipment – sadly it took longer then expected so we had no dog beds. So we went shopping the day before they arrived – we found $500 dog beds which we were not going to buy! Then Jason found children’s mattress at Ikea for $30 so we got two of those – the dogs seem to really like them.) When the dogs arrived they smelled horrible! So the next day we gave them a bath – they were not happy about that or the hairdryer after the bath but boy did they smell better! They have settled in nicely – we have kept them on a routine and they seem to being doing really well. Dopler loves the cool weather which is fun to watch. We did have an issue with their sleeping schedule though. We had them in the hall outside our room (we found out the first night our room is too small for them to sleep in it – they make too much noise!). But they were waking up at weird hours and they had two accidents in the house. Then we realized the sun was waking them up when it rises at 3am! So we put them in the bathroom (with the lovely heated floor) and put some shades up. Now they are sleeping better and no accidents.

Dopler getting settled in

Uniquely Norway

• Nothing is open on Sunday – the only exceptions are restaurants and the plant store. Really nothing else….and no they are not a religious country they just believe you shouldn’t work on Sunday. And nothing is open on holidays either – they don’t do Labor Day Sales – holidays are not an excuse to shop since nothing is open. We found that out the second weekend – Monday was a holiday and so therefore everything closed on Saturday at 4pm. No signs just closed. You would think “well at least this is a major holiday” – NOPE – not one Norwegian even knew what the holiday stood for. Another thing you can’t get on a weekend? A plumber….so same weekend…our hot water heater stopped working! We call the landlady – who is in the Canary Islands. We troubleshoot with her with no luck – she makes some calls – no plumber can come until Tuesday (this is Saturday!). So we have no hot water – something to be said for the US’s obsession with 24 hour customer serviceJ Well the landlady’s son comes by on Monday to check on the hot water heater – after several tries we realize there is a switch in our kitchen that controls the hot water heater and we had turned it off since we thought it was for the heat. Great – we look like dumb foreigners now! To our defense the switch looks exactly like all the other heat switches in the house, it is not labeled and it is NOWHERE near the hot water heater which is in the basement. So problem solved – mental note: never touch that switch again. In case you are wondering cold water here is like ice water in HoustonJ
• The trash system! You have to sort out plastic, paper and rubbish into three separate cans by the street. No problem I can handle that right? Well it takes some getting used to but it’s not too hard. The issue is they only pick it every “fortnight” – WHAT! So as best as I can figure they pick up the rubbish every two weeks and the paper and plastic every fourth week. All I can say is they cans have been full since we got here.
• Utility Service. We had our internet hooked up last Friday (thank god!) That went fairly quickly considering how long we heard it could take. I think it helped that our relocation guy also works for the internet installer. I learn that we will only get our bill once a quarter and it is not too expensive only about $80 a month. And unlike in Houston the internet company provides the wireless router which is nice. I inquire about our electricity bill – we also only pay that every quarter – but get this you take your own meter reading (which is in your house) and send it to the company and then they bill you. Only in NorwayJ
• Washer and Dryer. Chevron bought us new ones through the landlady. They are really nice and after figuring out how use them (directions are in Norwegian) they work really well. Only issue- it takes over 4 hours to wash and dry a load of laundry. But it does actually dry the clothes which is what worried me. And unlike how I did laundry in the US I have to sort by type of fabric and color. Cotton has its own cycle as does synthetics, wool etc. And they don’t have liquid bleach here- just a different detergent for whites- weird.
• The gym attire. Leggings everywhere- men and women – young and old – thin and not so thin! I don’t think they own shorts – they all have on leggings (running tights) all the time. I don’t think it due to modesty (since they don’t have private showers!) I think they like to be hot – no really I think they do. But the gym is nice. I took my first spinning class in Norwegian – I think I didn’t look stupid and understood the important stuff. Norwegian classes are interactive though- people talk back to the instructor and yell!

Well that is about all to report for now. Jason has been in Lafayette LA all week at a training course. He gets home tomorrow with a suitcase full of US goodies! It has been a little lonely without him but all in all okay. I need to get some structure to my days without him though – it is easy to sleep late and then read all dayJ I did take a shopping trip today to a “mall” south of town and on the side of the highway I saw a huge moose! It was really cool looking – just eating a tree – I can’t believe how big it was – I wouldn’t want to hit that on the road – it would kill you! Tomorrow I am heading to the Farmer’s Market in downtown with 2 Americans who work at Schlumberger who we meet though the guy in the Police Station. They just moved here as well so maybe we can become friendly with them.