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.
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