Big white!

Winter officially arrived! :-)
View from our kitchen window:

Some things change... other don't

Yes, that is for sure: things change...

The Best Boyfriend Ever is older again....
His birthday cake: delicious bread&jam cake (BTW: jam of albicocca+rosmarino=mniam! :-)

Trees, or at least one tree, is blooming in Brussels in the middle of December even if the teperatures were around 0 deg Celcius:

But I also hope that some things will stay as they are:
Thanks for great weekend Guys!!!

Skiing season

In theory it is started, but there is not too much snow this year, at least not around Bergen...
However, it is not a problem in here :-)

Homemade pizza

You need 2 hungry Germans and one Pole, a bit of patience (half an hour for the dough to grow) and a pinch of imagination to make leftovers from the fridge looking nice on the top.
What you definitly do NOT need to make pizza is the baking paper. It stuck to the dough and it was almost impossible to separate them. The fact that I'm writing this post proves that baking paper is not poisoning :-)

Lysfesten i Bergen

Lysfesten, a festival of lights celebrated 4 weeks before Christmas, has a very special atmoshpere. People with their families gather around a pond in the center of the city. The Christmas tree in the middle of pond and some neighbouring trees are decorated and illuminated. People hold torches and sing Christmas songs... Everything finalized of course with fireworks :-)

Two loose comments:

• for the first time in my life I have seen fireworks at 5p.m. :-)
• for the first time I have seen so many people in Bergen (and Norway) :-)

source: http://jpsfoto.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/lysfesten6.jpg

Two Poles more in England, just for a weekend

Almost 5 days in England: Oxford and London :-)
Very positive and intense days...

Great time with some good old friends:

Joanna - head of the most hostable family ever (Michal, thanks again for your room!!!!) and the best boyfriend ever in Abingdon.

The best boyfriend ever and Tomasz is Tate Modern.

Some good food: great buffet in Chinatown and Indian food on Brick Lane :-)

and some very good beer:


plus some 'extreme weather conditions' looking a bit like ordinary November weather in Bergen:
Great time, definitly too short though...

Very intense weekend of our friend

Our friend Pablo managed to finaly reach Bergen after ~12 hours of travel. Very brave and tireless traveler!!! Driving, flying, getting a bus and a train and one more time flying and... there he was on the Bergen Airport :-)

During this very intense and definitely too short visit we were able to:

• talk, talk, talk, probably also about you :-p,
• see some interesting/nice/ugly/old/ new places,
• drink very 'special' norwegian coffe in a souvenir shop. That was very 'unique' considering the fact, that most of the caffee bars are opened between May and September only...
• try different forms of fish and potatoes,
• taste some norwegian (and not only norwegian) beer,
• have fun,
• discuss the potentials of fitting norwegian landscape into the frame of the LPIS... no, just kidding!!!!

Very famous and exciting 'rock carvings' :-) 3000 years old Viking ship....
even if they look like drawings done by 6 years old Ingrid one month ago :-)

No, this is not the usuall view from our window. Photo taken from behind of the waterfall.

Bryggen (UNESCO haritage in Bergen) by night.

Dear Pablo, please, next time come for much longer and try to choose some faster way (that is not too difficult anyway ) :-)

Crash course of Norwegian culture ;-)

I will start a course of Norwegian on Wednesday :-)
Not only because of that I've spent some time digging on YouTube, trying to find out who is the most popular norwegian singer, band, actor etc.

Well, I have not found what I was looking for, but something even better :-)






...the typical norwegian costume = "grilldress" :D
... skal vi pule, da? = will we f..k then?



We have a sort of heavy metal neighbours next door and indeed sometimes they listen to some disco music :-)

Osterfjorden

Today I've discovered that there are some people who read this blog !!! I was seriously wondering about that since it was never commented... Anyway, I was even told to write more often :-)
So here I go:

Some photos from our trip to Osterfjorden – amazingly quiet and wild area

Slottet - 180m of vertical wall:
View down from Slottet (photo taken by the bravest Boyfriend ever):

Around 200m msl - water and the ground already frozenView on the Osterfjord:

Mo - lovely village with a sandy beach!!!!One of the waterfalls. They are specially common after some days rainy days ;-)

Undisturbed silence:

the best gift for newcomers in Bergen :-)

The best boyfriend's ever celebrates his name day today!

Happy name day Honey !!! :-*

The most practical gift for newcomers in Bergen - proffesionall wellies :-)

Quizz

One photo presents our new carpet, the other - a clump of moss. .. :-)

Archipelago west of Bergen

Half a day off, specially on sunny Monday, was a very good idea :-)
Armed with a bar of chocolate and the guidebook we spent some nice hours on the coast west of Bergen...

Views from the top of Turøyvarden:

It was pretty windy...

and even the best (and the bravest of course!) boyfriend ever was afraid that his favorite cap would be blown away...

so he changed it to a woolen hat quite quickly.

Anyway, the wind was stronger than 10m/s (windsocks and anemometers on the side of the road :-)) and it was pretty difficult to hold the camera still. That is why the photo stiching in panoramas is so poor.
The view on the ocean... amazing :-)

Looking for positives ;-)

Today I've spent more than 2 hours in a waiting room of the Imigration Office, full of refugees and emigrants from many exotic countries and....their kinds... at least 4 per one mother, one louder than another: screaming, screeching, yelling... WOW!!

Anyway, even if my maternity will be now postponed even more, I have the final paper confirming my work/residence permit!!!

Now only 3 weeks of waiting for the final ID number and ....I will have to notify all the places where I have registered with the temporal ID number, means:
+ the telephone company,
+ my bank - new credit card will have to be issued!,
+ car registration office - new registration card for our car will have to be issued!

Well, the administration staff should not be worried about their positions, there are always plenty numbers to change, papers to update etc...

Ok, some positives now: after heavy rain the view from my office looks like that:

Bergensk

Bergensk dictionary:

Bossrom = garbage room :-)

Sunshine and first whitefrost

Bbbbrrrrrrr!!!! 2 degrees Celsius in the morning!!! And it is only begining of October...
The good news is: we had 2 days of sunshine in here :-) The bad news is: the Best Boyfriend Ever missed them (he went to PL) ;-) The next sunny days are forseen around springtime 2010!!! Black humor...
Anyway, I have taken very nice photo of myslef in the sun :-)
It was taken on the way to a hairdresser.
I found the address of a Polish hairdresser in the internet. It was just 3 blocks away from our house, on my way back from the office....
For this 40minutes that I've spent at her place I was feeling like being in Poland again: her kids running around on the playground shouting in Polish, her husband passing by the office, asking when the dinner will be ready (!!!! as he would not have hands) and a polish TV station in the backround showing 1564. chapter of a polish soap opera...

As usuall, the haitcut does not look as it looked on the photo, but that is quite international problem... or maybe it is just me?

Lazy weekend :-)

Finally, after several days of looking for furniture, buying and assembling furniture and finally unpacking boxes and suitcases, our flat looks more or less like ready :-)
There are still some holes to drill but.... we have time... It is a lazy weekend...:-]

Double efficiency!

So far everything went pretty smooth! Our car was imported, inspected, insured and registered! And all this in one day :-)
Another great news is: beeing an administration officer it is possible to be helpful and kind to the clients :-) Apparently noone told about this to the adminstration in Poland...

Anyway, everything goes easier when you are two...

Warm welcome

The Best Boyfrind Ever is comming today, precisly in 80 minutes :-)
11C and raining... well, the welcome will be very warm anyway!!!!
Looks like were are just about to start phase 5 of our project Norway :-)
I run to the harbour!!!!

Day of gold medals?

It supposed to be a 2.5 hours walk with one hill only... In the end I was on 3 peaks and came back home after more than 6 hours....
I heard already that whatever is not concrete and rock in Norway is a swamp. I can confirm it now! From the GPS track you can see that I tried several paths, most of them very beautiful, but also very wet... The field on the photo below is covered with a layer of water. Fortunatelly I did not test how thick the layer was :-)
Anyway, the nature:
and the views were definitly worth it:
And on the last peak I was given... a gold medal!!!! The first gold medal in my live!!!
P.S. Polish volleyball team is playing in the finals of the European Chempionschips. Will we get 2 gold medals on one day?

Update: Yeeeeeeeessss!!!! For the first time in the history of European Volleyball Championships: gold medal for Poland!!!

Super news from Italy!!!

I wanted to go to sleep earlier before hiking tomorrow (yes, it looks like full day of sunshine tomorrow!!!) but have just received this great news:

M and C got engaged!!!

I kept my fingers crossed for long time already and finaly I can say:

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

Specially to M kisses and congratulations from the pink Bunny :-)

P.S. M and C, please remember that we need to book the flight tickets for your wedding quite in advance ;-) Just kidding...

Music- and light theraphy

The truck arrived yesterday! It is really amazing how many things we managed to collect during these 3 years... wow... it took us (the removal company people and myself) quite some time to unpack the kitchen. Most of the other inventory will have to wait until we buy some furniture.

Anyway, after 1 hour fight with meters of cables and 2 remote controles I was able to listen to our brand new audio system :-)
So here I am: sitting in front of the energy lamp (yes, I already need it!) and listening to relaxing music (soundtrack of 'Vicky Cristina Barcelona' - highly recommended if you like spanish guitar!)...
I'd better finish writing and focus on serotonin production ;-)
P.S. TBBE arrives in 8 days!!! On that day the lamp will not be needed :-)

Second day without one drop of rain!

well, not the second day in row, but in total since I'm here (20 days)...
Any wherever I look around, I see good places for take-offs...

No hope for flying anyway...

The good news is: the truck with our inventory should arrive tomorrow!
Yuppi!!! That means that I will not have to decide anymore what I want more:

• eat something warm
  
• or drink tea, coffee etc.

I have only one pan in the moment... :-)

Final "goodbye Italy"

Phase 4 of our project Norway was successfuly completed yesterday!

The Best Boyfriend Ever (tBBE) left Italy for good and after 22hours (!!!stuborn...%^&£%%) of driving alone arrived home (PL) safely.

The truck with our inventory in somewhere on the way to Oslo. Difficult to say where since the truck driver wanted to go angling on the way there :-]

A goodbye story:

Just before leaving Ranco tBBE was accused of leaving garbage in a prohibited place. Yes, the sheriff of Ranco (yes, the one hunting usually for some unfasten seat belts or not working bulbs close to the roundabout in Uppone) found a bag full of paper in front of the “platforma ecologica” and was able to trace back the wastes (old envelopes with our names). By a chance sheriff met tBBE in the Comune of Ranco and announced that this violation of the law costs 150Euro... The fact that they only collect paper once every 2 weeks and there is no other/better place than "platforma ecologica" where one could leave wastes did not help.

So remember: before throwing your wastes in Foresteria, look around!!!

Sheriff is watching! :-)

First night in the new flat :-)

The plan for the first evening was to try some norwegian beer while watching the Lord of the Rings.
In the end I watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona and had a cup of tee.

Why?
Tee: You cannot buy any alcohol after 20:00 in the working days and after 18:00 during the weekend! I was at the cassa at 18:10!
Vicky Cristina Barcelona: In order to see some sunny place (Barcelona & Oviedo)!!!
Have a look at the weather forecast here in order to understand...

Busy days...

Last days were pretty busy, but fortunatelly there is also some progress:

Norwegian ID number:
Today I have received my temporal ID number (D-number). Only 5 working days when I was told to wait 2-3 weeks. Well done!

Bank account:
The magic D-number gives me a possibility to open a bank account!!! Not everywhere of course, and not in the bank that I would like to choose, but at least I have a possibility. And it will take only 10 days to have it working (wrr)!!!

Tax card:
I was kindly informed that I will pay 36% of my salary to the Norwegian state. Fortunately the Norwegian State does not want all my spare money and it decided to give me a discount on the taxes in the first 2 years. So the effective tax to be paid is ~32% ...and believe me, I dot earn SO much!
These numbers are very motivating to use my full rights to the unemployment benefit and the maternity leave at the end of my contract (yes, this time I will!).

The flat:
- our new flat seems to be fine and big enough. I probably on write so because I do not know the neighbors yet and the flat is almost empty (the truck with our inventory should arrive in some days),
- on the next day after I had signed the rental agreement, the Best Boyfriend Ever (tBBE) found an advert of a furnished flat in a good location, generally looking twice better than ours and only slightly more expensive,
- I asked tBBE not to show me these kind of things anymore ;-)

Final removal:
- Mrs. Mariola, our contact point from the removal company, has a 3weeks old baby and she is forgetting some things, even the important ones (like should we pay the VAT or not),
- tBBE is very happy - all the new toys that we bought arrived on time (the last one only today!) to be packed on the truck on Monday, (well done!),
- we both hope (me and tBBE) that Mrs. Mariola will not forget where to send the truck ;-)

tBBE:
- looks great via skype videocall :-),
- is tired and stressed (no progress in his PhD for last ... days),
- between 1st and 16th of Sept will travel more than 3400km,
- will hug me in 18 days!!!

First visitor !!!!

Sunday passed definitly too fast!!!
This was mainly because of the great company of Lo :-)



On the way from the local attraction - acquarium, I discovered that me name is not unique in here:

Ufff, probably we have a flat!

Yes, yes, yes!!!!

Most probably we have a proper place to stay for the next years!

Ufff, I feel much better now... and Lorenzo is coming tonight – just perfect timing for celebration!

Definitely, I like Saturdays!!!

P.S. I have seen a lot of different types of rain in here, but I discovered today that there can be a beautiful sunshine and pour rain at the same time :-)

Public data

Everything is public here!
I have entered name of one of my colleagues and added "Bergen" in google search engine. Result: a point on the map indicating his address together with his home and mobile number!!!
After several minutes of searching I was also able to find out how much he earns.

That is scary!!!!

Anyway, probably this is the reason why you have to wait 5 months in order to get the residence permit - they collect all the data and enter them into google databases ;-)

One of the sunny days!!!

I hope it was not the last one this month ;-)

I took the opportunity to walk a bit around and actually I felt kind of weird wearing a jacket when most of the people around had just T-shirts on them.

The photos below were collected during the walk and thay are not showing any posters or postcards. (Yes, there are some flowers here, Mom!)

First day at work ...

...was very positive ! Ufff :-)

I received a resonable dose of the administrative information and will get quite strong support with fixing all the formalities on arrival: registration on the police station and the request for the tax card. The laptop together with all the accounts were ready...
Really well organised...

As I was told, representatives of 27 different nations are working at CIPR. Including myself there are 1.5 Poles... I haven't met the 0.5 Pole yet ;-)

Reactions on the fact that 'Ola' is a shortname from 'Aleksandra':
* 'Ola'? It sounds rather Spanish...
* 'Ola'? What does it stands for?
* 'Ola'? Oh really? We use it here as well ... for males!


About the weather:
It is very difficult to decide whether it is still summer of already autumn:

But actually it is not important, you will get wet anyway ;-)

Here I am!

It is pretty difficult to call it a 'warm welcome'...
On the other hand it can only be better ;-)