Christmas mood

I am not the only one who feels the Christmas spirit already.... 

I took this photo from the window of my "office" :D

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winter colours

Nice but not to winterish :-)

I hope that the weather stays like this until our trip to Poland - great for driving :-D

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Danish sense of humor part 2

Just by the corner from our new place there is this great shop selling "natural stones for house and garden".

Yes, indeed, one of these beautiful "natural stones" is a must have in your garden! :-D




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Happy Birthday dr The Best Boyfriend Ever!!!

Fortunately the new F1 game arrived on time and was  pretty well received :-)

Wrrrrrr ,wrrrrrryyyyyyy, wrrrrrrrryyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!





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wow, that was intense!

Well, I did not really believe that it would happen, but it has happened! :D

Within the last 6 days I managed to:

1. convince myself that submitting a paper for a conference in another research domain makes sense,

2. prepare a user study,

3. the users managed to test my little software,

4. write a 10 pages paper from scratches!!!!

Not to mention creation of an introductory video for the users....

Good feedback from my superiors and a long list of ideas about improvements in my software ;-)

The conference has a 20% rate of acceptance so I really doubt that we will be lucky, but the work is done and described. One small step closer to get a PhD :-)

Hopefully now drTBBE will stop calling me: "stress ball"!

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too busy...

Main activities in November:

- unpacking boxes...,

- 6 days trip back to Bergen,

- 6 days trip to Tallinn (:-)), and yesterday,

- shopping and unpacking boxes.

And just yesterday we decided to submit an abstract for conference, for which the deadline is 9th of Dec.

I do not even have one single word of the paper written yet...

No hopes for a free weekend again :-/

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Norway -> Denmark

Ufff, 80% of the removal plan completed! Yupppiii!!! We are tired but happy... and we are together in one place again :-D

Most of the things went veeery smooth. 

PACKING

Packing, especially the last bits, were much more difficult and time demanding than unpacking. We thought that 4 days will be more than enough to close everything into the boxes and load the rented VW Transporter. Four days is really short.... Fortunately we received a great support from S&A!!! The amazing thing was that we did not even ask them to help, they just came and spent several precious hours of their weekend on packing and carrying heavy stuff around.... THANKS GUYS, you are great!!!!  :-)

UNLOADING

The new flat is on the first floor with short but pretty steep stairs to climb. Two colleagues of drTBBE were supposed to come after work to help us with unloading the van, but amazingly we were ready with everything after less than 3 hours! A SuperWoman and Johnny Bravo ;-) 

UNPACKING

Well, than will take some time... Two wardrobes, a couple of bookshelves to assemble  + about 40 diverse boxes/bags to unpack. The desk in my new office is ready and the internet connection works like a charm so in the theory there are no obstacles to work...

But to be honest, I kind of lost my motivation to work: considering the fact that when I am ready with my PhD we would probably move again - I am not in hurry, I do not look forward to the next removal ;-)

Last week in Bergen: 

 Yesterday in Viborg:

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Are we ready for this?

I heard and read quite a bit about Danes and they seem to be very liberal, self-ironic and have (awkward) sense of humor...
Searching youtube for examples brought more results than expected:

• about Danish neighbors: 

• hmmm, that's intriguing...

•  Danish view on life ?:

• And a really awkward one: a discussion about a tourism (?) advert that was banned in Denmark. The advert itself starts at 0:50...

           Really??? A tourism advert?

• apparently this movie was very popular because there are tens of parodies :-) simply write "Danish mother" in youtube ...

• a very good conclusion to the "Danish mother" video:

Let's see... :-)

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last days in Norway

Last weeks have been extremely busy but it looks like everything is planned and in 8 days we should be in Viborg with all our house belongings.
There were quite some obstacles our the way:
- legal issues: because theoretically I am not moving to Denmark yet and drTBBE has never been a resident in Norway, we should pay custom duties and the VAT tax from all out house belonging when bringing them back into EU. Insane.... Anyway, the EU borders aren't checked  that well..... and half of the problem is solved already  ;-p
- logistic issues: as a foreign person in DK, drTBBE can only get a credit card after 6 months... Most of the car rental companies accept only credit cards (no debit cards or deposits) and they must be shown before getting the car (I would have to travel to DK...). Fortunatelly drTBBE used his natural charm mixed with persistence and saved us a lot of hassle and money... uffff!

Both of us had also a very busy period at work and I can admit now - I completely underestimated the amount of time needed for organization and realization of a removal from on country to another.
Anyway, next time it will be easier :-)



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Project Denmark - our new flat

Ufff, finally we have a flat in Viborg :-)
Things were little bit slower than expected because of several reasons:

• 70% of the online advertisements of rental apartments (like this or this ) do not include photos! A short description like: number of rooms, area, floor number, location of the flat and a list fees to pay is a standard. If you are very lucky, you might get a glimpse of the house in Google StreetView but it is only available for the main streets where you probably wouldn't like to live anyway...
• housing associations (that dominate the rental apartment market) are not the best organized 'companies'... They might for example send you a list of available flats that, after you spent entire evening on selecting the ones that you might be interested in, happens to be outdated and non of the flats that you wanted to see is on the market anymore...
• drTBBE had much more busy and more stressful (and full of surprises) than expected time at work.

Another new thing that we have learned lately it the fact that in most of the housing associations in Denmark the tenant is paying the rent for the time (mostly 2 weeks) when his future flat is renovated for him. So in our case, we pay the rent from the 16th of October but we will be only able to move in on the 1st of November. As we discovered in some places it might be the other way around, you might have to leave your flat 2 weeks before the contract termination so that the housing association has time to paint the apartment and fix some small faults. I find it really awkward but every country has its own customs...

Anyway, the logistic puzzles soon will be solved and I will join drTBBE to start our common Danish adventure on the 1st of November :-)

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Girona

Last week I had a unique opportunity work with great people, applied mathematicians, from University of Girona. Sometimes our conversations weren't easy because it was pretty difficult to understand and get used to terms like: different universes, polynomial time approximation, algorithm complexity or algorithm approximation ratio. Kullback-Leiber distance (which is in fact not a true distance :)) or Shannon's entropy aren't too intuitive terms either, but I have to say that once you start to understand the basics you realize the power of  Information Theory ! Amazing!

Anyway, the time spent in Girona made me realize a couple of things:

• everyone here calls me with my name and apparently they all know it: (H)Ola :-)
• you can wear short sleeve shirts, shorts and flip-flops and still sweat in the end of September in Europe,
• people look at you, they very often smile to you and say (h)ola even if they do not know you,
• people say: 'please', 'thank you' and 'I am sorry' much more frequently than in Norway,
• Spanish language is beautiful! So it Catalan...
• Catalan food is great!!! I miss Mediterrainian cuisine so much!!!

I can clearly see now that our 'exodus' to the South will continue, sooner or later, further than to Denmark!

Girona - a town full of history:

30C, clear sky and perfect sunshine - Autumn?

Camera obscura in the museum of cinema in Girona. This museum is a MUST SEE in Girona, not only for people interested in photography!

Great business idea! Very long opening hours :-)

Assassin Creed live :D

I like that:

Actually, for whatever reason, Lufthansa also calls me per Prof. :-) I do not mind... :p but will rather focus on getting closer to my PhD degree....




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View from drTBBE's new office

No comments :-D



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A Scandinavian Romance

It's not great but not too bad either :-)

Switch on the "Interactive Transcripts" option (first icon on the right in the toolbar directly below the Play button) to watch the movie with English subtitles.

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Busy days

Busy days...
My stay in Poland was simply great :-) Even if I did not manage to do all the things I planned and I got a cold, I really needed to spend some time with my family. Good to see my parents getting along together, spend time with the grandparents...
Bergen greeted me with truly wet and grey weather so I am looking forward to move to a little bit less rainy place even more!

drTBBE arrived to Viborg today and his Danish adventure is about to start :-)
I spend long hours on processing data, programming, trying to pack a little bit in between and listening to Adele...




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Project: Denmark

Project "Denmark" is already running and things should go faster and faster every day now..
Here is the sketch:

•  we drive to Poland next week :-]
• drTBBE starts telework from home on the 1st of September,
• I come back to Bergen and start to pack slowly what hasn't been packed by now,
• drTBBE drives to Viborg before the 12th of September, takes care of all the paperwork, Id numbers, permissions and looks for a new apartment,
• as soon as the new flat is set up we will arrange our removal from Bergen,
• we will settle down (at least for a couple of months ;-)) and start our new adventure in Denmark!!!

Because we gave already a notice to the owner of our current flat, the removal should take place before middle of November!  We have to work fast!
For some reason I am not too worried and started to really look forward to all these new things coming :-)
But first, a visit to Poland!!! I cannot wait to see my family and friends again :-D




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Denmark, WE are coming!!

Ufff, It looks like there should be no major problems for me to move to Denmark and to do teleworking !!!

Of course I will come to Bergen regularly for a couple of days but overall me and drTBBE will not have to live separately at all :-] Well, ok, maybe a bit in the 'transition period' but by the end of the year latest our removal procedure should be completed...


Lucky us!!! I am very happy to have such understanding and flexible supervisors!

Happy PhD student is a efficient PhD student :-]

There are some darker sides of the story as well: I will miss my colleagues and probably struggle against feeling of isolation:

but let's give it a try!!!

Project "Denmark" has been officially kicked-off!!!






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Big changes coming...

And so it happened: drTBBE got a very interesting job offer at the University of Aarhus in Denmark! :]
Even if I was totally crossing my fingers for his success, somehow I haven't realized all the consequences...
But one should not miss an opportunity like this so here we are now, planning our gradual removal from Bergen to Viborg, DK...
There are thousands of options to take into account, hundreds of ideas to consider and check and so little time to plan it all. drTBBE should start the new job on the first of September and we wanted to go to Poland for a couple of days so there is no time to waste! No more lazy weekends with book reading or hiking, at least for some time :-/
Anyway, cross your fingers for us tomorrow, I will try to convince my supervisor that I could be a very efficient and happy PhD student doing telework from Denmark...

Another thing is, I was checking how much effort I would have to make to extend my beginner's level in Norwegian into beginner's Danish but it looks pretty unrealistic after watching these movies:       :]
4min movie:

2 min movie:

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Anglo-EU Translation Guide

I wonder how much truth is actually in this translation guide (found by drTBBE)...
Looking at the second last row and thinking about all the "minor corrections"  made by my British Supervisor (thanks god that he made them, our papers sound much more reasonable afterwards, maybe even  professional ;-p), I guess that some of the translations are pretty correct :-]

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new Kindle

Here it is: my replacement Kindle!

I must say, I was very surprised with how fast Amazon customer service works :-)

Only 4 hours after my phone call to them I received an email that my replacement Kindle device had been shipped!!! It was shipped (on the 1st of August) from Kentucky, US and it travelled pretty fast all the way down to Bergen airport, where it arrived on the 3rd of August in the morning. And then problems started...
First, UPS called me to ask if I was at home. I said that there will be someone at home all the time and they could come whenever they wanted, but they wanted me, me personally.

No problem, I said, and changed the delivery address to my office at the University building. Obviously they could not deliver the package to another address on the same day so they said it would be delivered on the 4th of August.

So on Thursday I tried not to leave my office for longer, I did not go to eat lunch with my colleagues and kept my mobile ready in case the courier boy/girl wanted to contact me. Nothing.... Silence...
In the afternoon I checked status of the package delivery on the UPS website and found out that my new Kindle was already delivered!!!!

It was delivered to E. Erikxxx. Who the f... E. Erikxxx is, I asked myslef, and why on Earth did she/he pick up my package?

By the time I found E. Erikxxx in the catalogue of people working in my building (one floor lower than my office, doors next to the elevator) it was already 3:14 pm. All the admin personnel at the University work until 3 pm in the summer... No other choice to find out where my Kindle is than waiting until the next morning...

Probably I do not have to mention how furious I was in that afternoon... I called UPS to ask why the courier boy/girl: did not call me if he/she could not find my office and why did he/she leave the package to a person with totally different name. According to the UPS internal regulations they are allowed to leave the package wherever in the building because the only thing that has to match in their delivery address in the building number!!!! I did not even hear "we are sorry"... I was about to explode.... I believe that the courier boy/girl were simply to lazy to look for my office and they left the package with the first person that they had convinced to take it.

On Friday morning I went down to ask E. Erikxxx why did she sign for my package and where my Kindle was. She was absolutely convinced that she did the right thing because this poor delivery boy was so in hurry and he could not find me so she wanted to ease his life. Buhahahaha... how stupid you have to be to do that and to say that a loud!!! Courier people are paid to find the delivery addresses and the recipients!!!!!!!!!!!
My package was already prepared to be sent to the IT Department where I am officially registered as a student. If I was there one hour later it would have been shipped forward. E. Erikxxx did not think about giving me a call or sending an email (both: email and the telephone number are placed next to my name in the students catalogue) before sending it to another building....

Conlusions:
In countries with decent courier services it is possible to get a Kindle replacement in 2 days from contacting Amazon. Norway is not one of these countries.
UPS Norway sucks!!!!!!!!!
Some admin people at the University are morons...


Anyway, I got my Kindle right before the weekend. Rainy weekends with good books aren't that bad....




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faulty Kindle screen

After not even 4 months of using my Kindle broke down :-(
It happened without any particular reason: many black stripes appeared suddenly on the screen and they kind of spread around with each device reset.

I have to admit that I got really upset. Not only because it was a birthday gift from drTBBE but also because I liked my Kindle so much! I was very positively surprised when I called Amazon and they told me that they would ship the replacement within next 24 hours. Let's see what will happen....



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Radøy

Couple of images from our Sunday's trip to Radøy. Great company, beautiful landscape and amazing Norwegian nature + pretty god weather = very relaxing Sunday :-)

In addition to walking we even were running to avoid goats and their monster horns
;-)  

May Summer last forever...

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Folgefonna glacier

Long time no blogging... Too much work and time spent in front of the computer so I decided to avoid my laptop at home as much as possible.

Last weekend we went for a blue ice glacier hiking trip. That trip was a 30th birthday gift for TBBE so I was 'only' 1.5 years late with the delivery :-)
Anyway, we had a lot of fun! The Folgefonna glacier is only little more than 2 hours driving from Bergen but we stayed around Jondal for two nights camping. Veeery relaxing weekend I must say, with good weather and beautiful views :-)

Hardanger fjord:

10p.m.:

 

 11p.m:

 Way to Folgefonna glacier:

 Seek and hide ;-)

 The darker bits covering ice/snow are ashes that arrived in May from Island:

 A bit of climbing :-)

The glacier trip itself is definitely something to recommend for people who do not have any glacier experiences. It takes about 6 hours and you get all the ice gear. Our guide, Knut, was also pretty keen on telling facts and stories (also with a historic background) and share his experiences :-) Fun!!

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Extreme Veko 2011

Too many things going on around stopped us from going to Extreme Veko 2011 earlier that on the last day of the festival. Anyway, we were still on time to see some of it:

- (pretty scary) wild water kayaking:

- spectacular airshow with a lot of orange smoke:

- skydiving:

- precise landing ... not always precise enough and then most probably very painful ;-) :

- emergency parachutes in action:

- a bit of synchro acrobatics:

But everything above is nothing compared to this movie (again, found by drTBBE):

Insane!!!




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