Friday 30 November 2012

So, about Norway then...

The house I live in now.
See the snow on the roof??
As promised I am going to show you a few photos of where I live now and what I have done over the past few days. Don't expect too many photos though, there are only two, but I promise there will be more coming up in the next few days/weeks/months. 

So, what did I do from Wednesday onwards? On Wednesday morning I went down to work again where I was to meet a new colleague/union representative. He is actually the person who has found me my new place and was about to do a lot more for me. 

First of all he drove me to the police station where I needed to get my residency permit. I had to wait, since there were two sets of people ahead of me, but once I got to the desk, I soon had my residency permit. In the books I have it says that I need to renew it every five years, but I think recent law changes have resulted in me having a residency permit for life! In other words: I don't have to renew it, unless I leave the country for a period of more than 6 months. 

After I phoned up J, he came and picked me up and drove me to the tax office. It doubles up as a town register as well, so that was two things in one! I applied for my skattekort (tax card) and registered as a new inhabitant in Haugesund. We were then told that the social security number and tax card will take about three weeks. Which causes a few difficulties. I need to give my ssn to my boss for paycheck purposes and I need to give it to the bank in order to be able to open a bank account! So, I will have to wait three weeks before I can open an account. Ah well, I can still use my Dutch account.

From what I can gather, I will have all you can see that
has windows in
Then, yesterday morning the moving lorry from the Netherlands arrived. It should have gone to a storage facility, but it was extremely hard to agree with the storage holder about the time and in the end J stepped in again and suggested a different and free place. So, instead of the storage facility close by, my stuff is now about an hour away in a former bus garage, owned by the company and not doing much. There were a couple of things I didn't leave there though: my tv and my matresses. They are now clogging up my temporary room. Hopefully I will be able to move in tomorrow and then I think my landlord has offered me the use of his van to actually collect the things I want (Christmas stuff for example, clothes, linen, a little food and several more things)

Today I finally got a phone and even though it's only a pre-paid thing, they made an incredible fuss, even wanting to see ID! Ridiculous. Jason Bourne would have been in trouble before he had left the airport!! Anyway. This afternoon I also made an appointment with a doctor. No, nothing serious, I just need a doctor's note that I can drive: he/she will check my eyes and ears, see if I am sane enough (I guess) and then hopefully give me the note. After that I need to go back to the police and get my driver's note, which is an addition to my driver's licence and allows me to drive professionally!

In a nutshell...

5 comments:

  1. Wow, that's not very much snow. We have a lot more than that, left over from last week.
    Sounds like you have been incredibly busy, getting so many things done. Good work!
    We're thinking about you and wishing you all the best in your new homeland.
    Luv, Kay and Dick and Lindy

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  2. A Collegue asked me this week why I looked so tired. Well. That must be from reading your blog. ;-) You do agreat job overthere. So good to know your collegues are as nice as the one in The Netherlands were to you. I wish you a lovely, quiet weekend. Love, me and all the furry monsters overhere.

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  3. I think if you had managed to get here, there would have been less red tape. But that's life.

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  4. You have gotten a lot accomplished in a short amount of time! Wow!

    Hurray...you also nailed NaBloPoMo! (I think it counts even though you are in a different country--actually, you lived in TWO different countries while participating in NaBloPoMo. Now, how many people can say that?)

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  5. So much to get accomplished but it sounds like your making great progress!

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Any weighty (and not so weighty) comments are welcome!