Dog Crates

I guess I should start with a moving update. As of today we plan to be back in Houston in mid- August. Keep in mind this can change at any time. A lot of the timing has to do with how Jason's project goes. Hopefully the project will be done testing in mid-July. Then they will shut down for the three week Norwegian holiday period - we will travel to Egypt then. Then Jason will wrap up with the project team in early August. In mid - August we will hopefully be on our way to Houston. We thought for awhile it might be a little later due to a work trip to Angola but alas that is behind schedule so we need to move back first. And if you haven't been following along- our stay in Houston should only be temporary since Jason will hopefully enter the job pool at the company in October for a new job staring in December or January. He is hoping for something in operations which most likely means a "field" job. But in reality we have no idea where we will end up.

We have decided to send the dogs home to Houston to stay with Jason's parents early. The main reason being if we move internationally again the dogs must have 6 months in a country before they can be imported to another country. We don't think we will be moved internationally but it is not worth it us to risk it with our dogs. So hopefully the dogs will make their journey to Houston the week of July 12. We have a quote from our pet shipper and I now think these are the most expensive dogs ever :) We got their travel crates out this weekend to get them used the crates again. I was ecstatic when we finished putting them together and both dogs eagerly got into the crate and layed down - ahh! Dopler has been napping in his for a few hours at a time all weekend. It makes me happy to know they like the crates- it makes sending them just a little easier. But I do think that Jason and I will be beside ourselves without them :(

The Problem with Socialism...

Equality. Equality leads to union strikes. Striking unions leads to annoyance and in some cases major issues. Last week in Norway the cleaning union went on strike so many offices, shopping centers and public building are not be cleaned. This includes the dishwashers at Statoil's cafeteria so now the cafeteria is closed since they don't have any dishes. The "goods terminal" workers are also on strike which effects imports of mostly mail and packages but also alcohol.

Tomorrow another 30,000 are expected to strike in the fields of education, police, public administration and prisons. In Trondheim 48 schools have been called in by the union to strike including many daycare centers which means a lot of people won't be going to work tomorrow since they can't send their kids to school. Major groups of the police will also be on strike and my favorite - prisons will strike....the local paper says that a prison in Bergen will have to let inmates free if the strike is not resolved quickly.

Strawberry Shortcake

Strawberries have to be my favorite fruit of all time. I am pretty spoiled since I grew up in Southern California and you can basically get amazing and huge strawberries almost year around. Though the summer berries are well worth waiting for. Norwegians also love strawberries. They grow them here and you can find them growing wild. Strawberries started appearing at the stores about 3 weeks ago - currently they are from Portugal and Denmark. So I bought a few pints and made some Strawberry Shortcake- yum!

Later this summer the Norwegian strawberries will make an appearance at the grocery store. They are really small and pretty good- they have a unique flavor. The Norwegians go ga-ga for them and you literally see people fighting to get the last pint- I don't think the stores can stock them fast enough. And they only stick around for a few weeks - though with the Spring we have had they might not even get a harvest. I will try to get a picture of the chaos.

17. Mai 2010

The 17th of May was on a Monday this year - which meant no work! It was also a 5 day weekend since Ascension Day was Thursday and Friday is a extra holiday day too. We had a nice lazy long weekend after a good birthday dinner with our friends Erin and Micheal on Wednesday. Originally we had hoped to be in England for this long weekend but that was shot down by our visa issue (which is now supposedly corrected and we can travel). If you don't remember the details of this holiday here is the post from last year.

For the 17th of May we decided to head up to a little town about 40Km north of here called Stjørdal for a small town celebration. The city is near the airport and has about 20,000 residents including one of Jason's colleague- Gisle. We arrived in time to walk down to the main road to see the Children's Parade - which lasted about 3 minutes. Trondheim's parade is about 45 minutes to give you an idea on size.

Children's Parade

We walked back to Gisle's house and were treated to a traditional meal. Our meal consisted of a meatball soup called Sodd with potatoes, some crackers and non alcoholic ginger beer. It a simple meal but pretty tasty though I won't be trying to replicate it at home :) After that we headed back into "downtown" Stjørdal to catch the afternoon parade which consists of local groups and the Russers! It was pretty short as well but seeing the Russers was pretty funny.

Traditional dress

Local sports clubs

Here is a video of the Russ section of the parade. The red pant kids are general studies and the black pants kids who look a lot rougher are technical trade studies. They are handing out and throwing their "Russkorts" which are like business cards or trading cards and the kids collect them. It is not uncommon to see a 5 year old with about 100 cards. Excuse my laughing but it was pretty funny to see these little kids picking up the cards like they were dollar bills or something.

Stuck in the Snow

Sadly I don't have much to report besides that it snowed again. On May 5 we got about an inch and it stuck around most of the day- Happy Cinco De Mayo! We did have a relatively nice weekend this past weekend (it was oh 50F or so) but again this morning we woke up to snow. As you can imagine it is pretty tiring.

May 5, 2010

In other crappy news- we are officially stuck in Norway. Our visas expired on May 5 and and so now we can not legally leave Norway (and return). We have been told it will be another three months. The company is trying to help us out but I have serious doubts they will have any luck. We were told by another expat that she has been waiting since October. So it may mean no more travel for us but we don't worry I am already looking at what vacations we can take once we return to the US:) On a happy note last week was my last full week of work! This week is Ascension Week so we have Thursday and Friday off and then Monday is the most important holiday of all Mai 17! Which is Norway's Constitution Day (kinda like Independence Day without the independence part). We are hoping to head up to a smaller city to experience a small town celebration this year since we have seen Trondheim's celebration twice. Maybe it won't snow. After that we have a few more short weeks of school and then the kids are doing a year end musical so they will stop learning and spend two weeks on that- fun times!

Picnic

Last weekend- the one before it snowed (grr!) - we had nice hike with the dogs into the Norwegian countryside and had a little picnic. It was a bit chilly but still nice to be outside. The lake was still frozen over but Stretch was pretty excited by the ducks walking on top of the ice. Here are some photos.

And in case you are wondering- yes, it is pouring snow again today.

Homemade Bread and Snow

Yes I said snow! Saturday was our Norwayversary (2 years in Norway on May 1st) - it rained, sleeted and snowed all day but nothing stuck. We had a nice lunch at the place where we had our first meal in Norway - Pepe's Pizza - with our friends Michael and Erin. Later that night when we went to take the dogs out before bed - low and behold - it is pouring snow and the ground is covered. We also woke up to a white blanket....we are done- this sucks. Last year at this time we were enjoying the weather outside on the patio already. This year we have no leaves on trees and the grass is barely green. The worst part is not that summer will arrive late (if it arrives at all) is that it will be very short. Winter will begin on schedule...boo!

The morning of May 2nd

On to a better subject. I haven't been baking as much recently- partly due to a lack of time and partly due to the fact I have less opportunity to get the baked goods out of the house quickly which means I eat them all. But I have bought a new book - Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day so I am trying my hand at fresh bread. The book has a cool idea- basically you make a wet dough which requires no kneading and then let it rise in the fridge overnight then you use it. In the US I could make enough dough for 4 loaves and keep it in the fridge easily but here I can only keep about half that. I also had to invest in a pizza/baking stone which turned out to be cheaper then expected here. So here is my first effort. The loaf was slightly misshapen but it tasted really good. We are looking forward to more bread in our future!