Looking back...

Several years ago I did a post about the year that had passed and with everything that happened this year, I thought I would do so again. Click on the months to go to the 'post of that month'. So, here goes...

January: This month I kept up learning a new language, trying to figure out how and what and work as a tourbusdriver. 

February: It was cold in February with icy landscapes and lakescapes. It made for beautiful photos though...

March: Wuppie gave me a big worry with his hematoma (which never really healed by the way). I worried myself by becoming ill (urinal tract infection) in France.

April: I went to Norway for the very first time. I spent time in Oslo and in the Telemark region where it was still the middle of winter! 

May: I finally found a lot of photos back again. I was so happy! Remember: never hit a computer: it will hurt you back, especially if you haven't got any back-ups!!

June: In June it was time for the housing association to pester me again about the garden. I had to remove some trees that were too close to the fence or some such nonsense. I never did, since my neighbours hadn't had that note. And when I moved out in November, I never heard anything about it...

July: I got stuck in the sand. Unlike at this moment: I am stuck in red tape. I prefer the sand!

August: This was a strange month. I had a really horrific accident in France and ended up at a French police station for a day. It left me thoroughly shaken and I was off my driving game for a bit. Fortunately I got a lot of help from family, friends, colleagues, my job and a social worker to help me deal with it all and I can safely say I am over it. I also went on a job interview in Norway, which felt great!

September: I had to start driving again and was quite nervous about it. It did all go fine though and I went back to driving as if nothing ever happened. At least, after a few weeks that is...

October: Finally: news from Norway. They offered me a job and wanted me to start as soon as I could. So strange to deal with all that, but so exciting as well!

November: My old life in the Netherlands ended and a new life in Norway started.

December: Red tape and new colleagues, snow and learning to understand people. And my sister of course!

Oliebollen

We needed to do the dishes first.
In an organised fashion of course...

My sister and I felt that even though neither of us is living in the Netherlands at this point, it wasn't necessary to miss one of the best Dutch foods: oliebollen. I have written about them before, but only slightly, so I thought it might be a good idea to do one again. And I am cheating a bit, because I thought it might be fun to show you the answers I got on Facebook after I told my friends I needed a recipe. Names have been removed and turned into initials. Since the whole thing was done in Dutch (apart from the last thing), it has been run in Google Translate. 

Using J's recipe-link for the batter here

Me: We have donuts prescription. No self-raising flour, no oliebollenmix, NO sukadeviezigheid, but with raisins and beer. Bring it on! (Basically we needed a recipe for oliebollen)

B: With beer. Hm. Well. Well. Uh. Well ... Well. No. Sorry.

Mara Jellema That do not shoot! (That won't work!)
Like · 1

E: I use for years fritters mix and replace half the water with beer works fine and delicious (he uses oliebollenmix, which I didn't have)

After waiting for an hour for the dough to rise
the balls went into the hot vegetable oil

E: I only raisins for currants are hard and I'm also small pieces of apple in (Google Translate doesn't seem to like any verbs)

E: Success

J: ff Look on my posts, with yeast, but you can of beer instead of milk take part (ff = short for a minute, and again no 'using')

There were turtles and I think this is an alien!

J: In've been baking mix, ie, baking powder or baking soda or soda, all the same.

J: Das for the rise, yeast gives off carbon dioxide iok and mandate by the rice batter ... Blub blub blub (Das = It's)

Me: E: WE HAVE NO OLIEBOLLENMIX! I live in Norway and they sell not. We need a prescription from flour, milk, yeast, beer and raisins ... (the pharmacy would see me coming, of course I needed a recipe and not a prescription. In Dutch however it's the same word for both)

E: Then you follow the advice of J

The finished product! About 50-60 oliebollen
Served with icing sugar

Me: I think that it is indeed going to be. But how much milk replaced by much beer? Or just the beer and drink the milk used ... (Now, obviously I said drink the beer and use the milk: Google Translate again...)
Like · 1

E: Haha can even replace half is good and the rest do you drink

J:  Drink half the beer and leave behind some milk, for if it is too thick
Like · 1

Yum!!

Kay: The English translation of this is an absolute hoot, Mara.

I never did use the beer though. I will drink it instead!

Mara's Christmas Marathon

As you may already know, I have a great love for Christmas films and I do own several on dvd. And with several I mean around 200. You can see all of them in the photo above. Minus two because they are still in Northern Ireland: they hadn't arrived in time for my sister to bring them with her.

Anway, all those films aren't just decoration, they are films I will actually watch as well. Especially (but not only) at Christmas. Which makes sense of course, them being Christmas films. Now, this week my sister is staying here with me and you might be forgiven to think that she is not such a Christmas film fan. Which is true: she doesn't go as over the top with them as I do, but she doesn't mind watching one every now and then. She should probably have gone elsewhere in that case, because here she gets to see them everyday. 

(Really, it's her own fault: she was talking about Harry Potter marathons: watching all 8 films about that wizard boy in one weekend. You see where I am going, don't you...)

So, we started Boxing Day and have watched 14 films on dvd so far. Arthur Christmas was new to both of us and we both loved it. Even though it was a cartoon, it was a lot more believable than the next film (which was also new to us), which was just a cheap story with some Christmas sauce. But we also watched the Muppets, the Grinch and the Snowman (thanks to my brother who first showed it to us: that is a definite favourite of both of us).

*Sigh*

It turned out my sister was hard to please. Now, I had picked only the best ones (ie the ones I like best), but when the film was over quite often my sister would just say "okay". Not the best, not the worst, passable! Infuriating. Of course that doesn't put me off, I have after all a vast array to try and make her really like a film. We saw the Ref (very funny, she thought so too), Unlikely Angel (with Dolly Parton: okay), All I want for Christmas (okayish), a Holiday to Remember (with Randy Travis, she liked that one), Grounded (or Unaccompanied Minors, she liked that one too), Santa Claus is coming to Town (okay) and several more. 

Don't worry though, there will be a lot more films we will be seeing over the next few days (she's leaving the day after New Year's, she will be fed up with Christmas films). There are however a few we will not be watching: Santa Claus (a Mexican monstrosity), Santa Claus conquers the Martians (another monstrosity you should only watch with a large amount of alcohol nearby) and two Norwegian films. We will however also go touring a bit more. No point in having a car here and then not using it...

Roadtrip!

The wind was blowing quite forcefully and was very cold.
I was glad about my new scarf my Mum had knitted for me.

Today was the second day we had the use of a car and we decided to get the second load of boxes. We can fit about 8-10 boxes in the car each time, so I think we will need at least another trip, perhaps two even. But before we got to the boxes, my sister and I decided to take advantage of the dry weather and do some touristy things. Like visiting a church. 

The church with it's upright stone

The church in question is the St Olav's church in Avaldsnes. It looks like any ordinary church, but on the other side is a large upright stone. According to legend, once that upright stone touches the church, the church as a whole will disappear from Norway. So, whenever the stone nearly touches the church, the top is cut off! Saving the Norwegian church from eternal damnation. I would have thought strenghtening the stone at the base would probably work better, but I do admit that the story wouldn't be nearly as good!

The stone in close-up.
It's not touching the church though.

After taking some very cold and windy photographs of the church, we walked around a bit to see what else was there. Well, a Viking museum of some sort, but the path to it was closed. We later found out it was due to excavations and archeology work. Hopefully we will be able to get to see it in the summer though. When it won't be so very windy and cold! 

Yeah, I know, the pose is wrong!

After the church we decided to head for a miniature New York. Or at least, a miniature Statue of Liberty! There are some coppermines in Visnes and apparently the statue in New York (which was a gift from France) was made with the copper from the mine in Visnes. Which in turn was owned by a Frenchman! It's a small world, isn't it?

This cat wouldn't come to me: it loved my sister!!

The next thing to do was get some food and we decided to do that in Skudenes. One of my colleagues had said it was a charming little village with a very pictoresque center. So, off we went again on our little road trip. I must admit it was a charming little village, but when it started to rain, both my sister and me got fed up and decided to get some nibbles at the grocery store and then go get my boxes. 

Åkra

View over Risøy from Haugesund Quay

As you may know my sister arrived on Christmas Eve and we have spent a nice and easy Christmas here in Haugesund. On Christmas Day we went to church, although if we wanted a full (people wise) service we probably would have been better off going on Christmas Eve. The church was really beautiful, but there weren't that many people attending. It showed again how important Christmas Eve is in Norway. Right up to opening the presents! I didn't have any real festive clothes on though: they are still in Åkra.

After church on Christmas Day we made our way back home through the sludge. I started on my pea soup, we watched television (although for some reason my sister didn't want to see any French or Swedish programs) and generally did nothing of note. We wouldn't have minded playing cards, but they are in Åkra. 

On Boxing Day my sister decided a walk would be good for her stuffy nose and out we went. The weather is expected to become quite dreary here over the next few days (rain, rain and more rain), so we took advantage of the dry. We made our way towards the water and took a little walk along the quay. By the time we were back in town however, it started to drizzle again and we made our way back home again. More Christmas films, because all my other films are in Åkra.

We even saw a Viking ship. Covered in a white tarpaulin.
The masts belong to the ship behind it!

We were supposed to eat the pea soup (which would have turned to snert) yesterday, but unfortunately it is a green soup and everything has gone soft in it, but it still has some massive great lumps in it. I want to use the blender, but alas, that is still in Åkra.

Today we will be renting a car however. In which we will drive to Åkra and pick up boxes of books, clothes, kitchen utensils and a whole lot more. I prefer stacking them up here where there's not really the room for them, then leaving them in a cold and quite wet environment. We will have the car for several days and will take some tours out as well. Just to see what's out there. Not that I know that much, but that's okay, we can discover together. 

Shopping

See: I won't starve!

I went grocery shopping yesterday. Which is easier said than done in Norway. Not that there aren't enough supermarkets around: I counted about 5 within 15 minutes walking distance and many more if I take the bus. It's not even as if they have limited opening hours: from 7am to 11pm on a weekday and 8am to 9pm on a Saturday is quite normal. The main problem is the supply. 

I was spoiled in the Netherlands, having a large selection of fruit and vegetables, dairy and meat. And not overly expensive either. In Norway it's a bit different. There is plenty of milk (skimmed, semi-skimmed, full fat, buttermilk, kefir, non-lactose, soy, rice etc to be had). But yoghurt only comes in small pots and custard is something they apparently don't know over here. So, you are reduced to buying small pots of vanilla pudding and the like. Nice, but fairly expensive.

Fruit comes a plenty: apples and oranges/mandarins are quite cheap, others you need to fork out a bit more for. Fresh vegetables however is a different matter. They have all sorts of cabbages (red, white, Chinese, cauliflower, broccoli) and root vegetables. They sell some lettuce and salad as well and of course leeks. Which is mostly the same as in the Netherlands. But where I was able to buy potted veggies in the Netherlands (leeks, spinach, endives, peas, carrots, beans), they have not such a big choice over here. They love corn and you can get canned beans and peas and I think carrots. Oh, and tomatoes. But nothing else. Not even apple sauce, which was always my go-to vegetable if I didn't want to cook. 

Meat is yet another matter: they have plenty of it, just different from the Netherlands. They love their kjøttkaker (meatballs), which are about half the size of their Dutch counterpart, which you can find everywhere. They are also big on sausages, all different sizes and tastes apparently (I have yet to taste). They have their 'normal' meat and their pinnekjøtt (stick meat). That last thing is something specifically for Christmas and I am not really sure what it is! The thing that surprises me most though is the fact that minced meat is really expensive considering. 

The worst thing though is the bread. Which is difficult in any new country, since they never have the bread you want. I have now settled on polarbrød (translated: polar bread), flat bread that has been frozen the minute it has baked. It looks like a mixture of crumpets and ordinary bread and tastes quite alright. What to put on it is another matter. But fortunately there the choice is more like the Netherlands. Except for the hagelsag (chocolate sprinkles), which is something that I can't find anywhere here, not even in the cake decoration section. 

Now, if you are reading this and thinking I am going to starve to death: it won't come to that. There is plenty out here for me to eat. Then again, if I do loose a few pounds, that won't be so bad...

And yet another...

A week or so ago I had sprouts for dinner. This was one
of the smaller ones!

The path of a new emigrant/immigrant has its fair share of bumps. But this week there was actually some good news as well. After I had made an appointment with the dentist for a check-up early next year, I thought I would try at the bank again. This time I had brought all the paperwork I had and lo and behold: not only do I have a bank account, I have a savings account as well! It worked! Not that I can use it yet, since several things have yet to arrive. But I have an account and that is what matters. 

When I got back to work, the risengrøt (rice pudding) was ready. There was sugar, cinnamon, butter and raisins and everybody was getting a bowl (or two). There were chocolates and several companies had delivered cakes! So, during my afternoon trip I started to feel decidedly worse for the wear. All that sweetness combined with very narrow and bendy roads combined with writing things down, do tend to make me kind of green. And not the enviable kind either!! 

Anyway, today was a fresh day with new routes, which was kind of funny: the instructor had never done the route before. However, he knew the area and managed to show me exactly how and what. And at the end I got to drive home! Which felt really good. At work there were more cakes (amongst which a meringue cake) and smørbrød (open sandwiches). If they do this every week, my grocery bills will definitely shrink!! Although I think it's a Christmas thing only!

I will not have so much to do the next week or so, since it's the school holiday and there are hardly any shifts. Which is both nice and not. Nice because my sister will arrive here on Monday and now I can spend time with her. Not because I would rather be working (and driving solo) and earn some money. But since that is obviously not going to happen, I will enjoy my free time!

Another day

I was a good boy:
I was allowed out and got back in!

Another day rolled around. Another day of learning new routes and rehashing 'old' routes. Trying to get everything into my head as well as I possibly can before I can finally start driving. It's annoying, but I heard on the grapevine they had similar problems in Bergen with foreigners coming in as well. I have also heard that more Dutch are expected to come and work here, so I think I had better make a little to do-list for them. I will give it to my manager who can then send it to them when needed. Save them and the company a lot of bother!

This morning I had to learn a partly new route. I sort of knew it, but not the whole stretch. But when I arrived at work, it turned out the driver who was supposed to do that line, didn't know it at all! So funny. In the end shifts got switched and I managed to learn the route. 

I have noticed a big difference in drivers as well. Not so much their driving style (a Dutch driving instructor would have a massive fit), but more the way they are towards me. Never bad mind, but some are very chatty and others just keep schtum. And when they do talk to me, I really have to pay attention. Some are easier to understand than others. I had one who was doing his very best not to mumble and to speak in clear and simple sentences (he was a great teacher). Then there was one and the only thing I got was something about a ghost wearing a skirt and carrying a stick and I needn't stop if I ever saw her. 

The easiest to understand seems to be a Polish driver. He is also new to Norwegian so he isn't using any difficult words as yet! The hardest to understand is a Danish driver, since his Norwegian is very heavily influence by Danish. Although I do get more now than I did in the beginning. 

Red, white and blue

Almost sixteen years ago we met. The first day for both of us in a new job. I asked her name, which I promptly forgot (I do that, I try repeating and it works a bit better, but I still forget names). I liked her and thought she would be a good friend. When we started working however, we didn't see a lot of each other. But somehow or other we did become friends. She had a husband, two sons and some cats. I had two cats. We both loved going to the sauna and did so with another friend and my sister. 

They loooove Peppermaggot!

When I found out Wuppie and Linette weren't going to be able to come with me to Norway, she stepped in and took them home. They are now living the life of a god in France: food, cuddles, the lot! But, she isn't only somebody who looks after my cats, she also felt she needed to look after my patriotism. Something red, white and blue was in order. She posted it on Facebook about a week ago and I thought it looked like washed out old grey sports socks. Not very nice. Little did I know they were for me.

Well, the socks she knitted for me look a lot better in real life than on the photo on Facebook. They also fit to a t. Pepperfly, you are a great friend, not only keeping my cats warm, but also my feet and my patriotism. 

Thank you!!

Not my day

After the joy I felt yesterday on receiving my social security number in the mail, I feel very deflated now. When I went to the police two weeks ago about my driver's note, I wasn't yet as used to Norwegian as I am now and it was pretty hard for me to understand everything. So, when they told me I needed a social security number, I understood. And about the doctor's certificate, I got that too. I knew I had to fill out the application form as well and that was all I understood. 

So, I walked to the police station this morning to hand in my paperwork and was told that something was missing: proof of good behaviour! And the one I had, was two years old and wasn't acceptable, it had to be new! I felt quite down after that. But I felt I could get what they wanted and went on my way to the bank to open a bank account. Where I was told that not only did I need my social security number and some form of ID, I also needed my tax card and that hadn't arrived yet!

I walked back up the hill and got on the phone to the Netherlands. I needed to fill out an application form ànd the police here in Norway needed to fill it out as well! I printed the lot, walked down the hill, got permission to miss work in order to get that driver's note and went to the police again. I explained about the hows and whats and they filled out the form. I walked back up the hill.

I scanned everything in and emailed it to my last place of residence (where I had to apply). I then walked back down the hill to get at least a bit of training in. After going along with a route where everything I thought was wrong (I thought left, he went right; I thought straight ahead, he went left etc etc), I made my way to Amanda (a mall) and finally got me some curtains. I took a bus back home and walked up the hill again. But when I opened my email, there it was: the files I had sent were too big! They have a 10mb limit and my file was 10,2!!

I am at a bit of a loss right now, but I can sort of feel where this is going: I will need to go back to the Netherlands to get my application in! I certainly hope not, because that will cost me money I would rather save. It certainly is extremely annoying and I probably will need some chocolate to get over it!

(By the way: if I do get it sent, it will then be sent on to the Ministry of Funny walks Justice, who will do a check and hopefully send me the Proof of Good Behaviour very soon. I then have to take that and go back to the police station here to apply for my driver's note. Which will take a further two days. I will be lucky if I get to drive before 2013!)