Defended!

I must admit, because I did not know what to expect, I was expecting the worst: a sequence of questions pointing into weaknesses of my PhD work. And instead I got a very constructive discussion about both, the strong and the weak parts. Plus a very positive atmosphere and a couple of jokes! And the after defence discussion was even better!

Summa summarum - a very enjoyable day !!!

And the feeling of having the 3.5 years process completed - priceless... :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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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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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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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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Annoyed!!!!

I noticed that already in the beginning of my expat adventure in Norway but now it started to bother and annoy me for real!!! I know it is another culture and I am only a visitor who stopped here for a little longer so I should respect the culture and assimilate... Right... Sorry, I simply cannot!!! I cannot understand why people do not say 'Hi' or 'Helo' when they enter your office or turn their head in another direction when they see you on the street!!! Not to mention how seldom it is to hear 'please' in here!!!

These are the small things that stop me from feeling like home in here. I was curious if I am the only one who is bothered by this behaviour and guess what: I am not!!! :-)
Have a look here: 10 tips on surviving in Norway (point 4) or here: Norway is a small town

Anyway, as usually I try to see the positives as well: that is another reason to work hard (and fast) to be on time with my PhD and take off to another, maybe slightly warmer country!




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Long weekend

About 6 hours after we came back from Utah I picked up Duarte at the airport :-)
This incredible Portuguese guy lives now in Finland so we could exchange our observations about living in Scandinavia!
Duarte's visit was not only fun and relaxing but also a great cure for the jetlag: after about 48 hours almost without sleeping we talked and drunk until the morning of Saturday :-)

Great time!!! Thanks Duarte!!!

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painful 10 km

Another cross-country skiing attempt :-)
The track, Jonshøgdi - Fossdal - Jonshøgdi,  is described as green (the easiest possible) and should take 2 hours (10km).
It took us 3.5hours and brought me a lot new bruises ;-)
How on earth do you control these skis while skiing down?

Charm of the landscape was a very good compensation though, even for the muscle pain today...

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skiing weekend

Our weekend started at 6am on Friday! The big plan was to reach Hemsedal (4-5hours driving in winter) before lunch and use the afternoon for skiing. 40km before the destination we were stopped at the bottom of the Hemsedalfjellet and told to wait for kolonnekjøring, that is driving in a convoy, right after a snowplough.

When wind is too strong the road disappears few meters after the snowplough (example photos). 

After about 2 hours of waiting we found out that the road will be closed completely until the next day. The only solution was to drive around... 180km. The entire travel took 9 hours...bad luck!

Anyway, the evening was great!!!! TBBE tried the night skiing and I decided to try this instead:

The weather got better and we had great time out in the nature! Skiing was great and almost without serious muscles pain (partly thanks to the hot tub and sauna) :-) 

I found out that some parts of the blue pistes in Norway might be 'very dark blue' but I didn't fall down even once! Even some red pistes (mostly taken by mistake) weren't as scary as they would have been last year :-)

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cross-country skiing - first try

Finally!!! Two hours of cross-country skiing in Kvamskogen!!!
Pretty short, I know, but considering the fact that it was the first time and that we went to bed at 4am on the day before and had 6 hours of sleep only - not too bad in the end.
The day was sunny, the area - beautiful and going up was much easier that we imagined.
TBBE is snowboarding so having two pieces of wood tied to his feet was a completely new experience for him. And, as usually, he did very well :-) In fact he was much better in going down then I was!!! It was pretty icy and we did not have too much control over the speed. I gained a couple of new blue spots but I do not want Spring to come soon anymore :-)

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short trial of fishing...

The weather forecast for Sunday said: "sunny with clouds".
I guess that expression "sunny behind the clouds" would have been more accurate:

After more or less two hours of waiting for fishes to bite our lures (even once!) and for the sunny weather to come we decided that we are not that patient in the end! I want Spring to come!!!! 

buying cross-country beginner's ski pack in Norway

The big plan for today was to try cross-country skiing for the first time in our life.
Unfortunately we did not make it... and here is the story:

Introduction
There are big chains of sport shops in the Bergen area. After short market check (strangely, the choice of skis is pretty limited here) we decided to go for a standard beginner's kit from one of the sport shops.

Chapter 1.
Thursday afternoon, Shop A - no boots in my size (36). We are sent us to Shop B (20km far away) with a promise that my boots should be there

Chapter 2.
Thursday evening, Shop B. My boots are available (from the baby's shoes department), but unfortunately they do not have skis in our size. We buy the boots and 'reserve' the right skis in Shop C (city centre) to be picked up on Saturday.

Chapter 3.
Saturday morning, Shop C. We are there with the right boots, the skis are there waiting for us but unfortunately  they run out of bindings fitting our set. (AAA!!!%^!!!$^$ Wrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!) The bindings are available in Shop D (15km far away + 15minutes queuing to park the car!).

Chapter 4.
Saturday afternoon, Shop D. We are there with the right shoes, with the right skis and the bindings are there. We have them mounted and ask about the right ski poles. Unfortunately they do not have the right ones for me... AAAA!!!!! Wrrrrr!!%%$!!!!

Epilogue
The missing ski poles for me do not matter anymore because it is already 2p.m. and it will get dark very soon...

From the author:
Most of the sport shops in Bergen lack the ski bindings because of the delivery problems. The same is valid for the wood (for wood stoves). My guess is that the bindings and the wood are on their way here in one truck that is stuck somewhere on the icy roads right in front of the truck that brings salt (also difficult to buy) to our lovely city!



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All the best in 2011!!!

After very busy Christmas period we had a couple of lazy, slow and peaceful days back in Bergen :-)
Exactly what I needed: some time just for myself and TBdrBE :-) Books, movies, walks, no plans, no meetings or deadlines :-D
Batteries are charged again!!!

Almost dancing at the New Year's Eve:

My favourite Christmas gift already installed in our kitchen window :-)

All the best in 2011!!!

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a cold, wood & fire

TBBE came back just in time to practice a bit before he will become a doctor. He was playing a nurse (a very good and patient nurse) while I had a very bad cold ;-)

In the meanwhile we had another weather record in Bergen - a cold record. November 2010 is the coldest since 1919!!! Lucky us to be here in that grateful moment!!! Wow! ;-)
Anyway, probably because of the low temperatures (-5C to -10C) we were driving around the city yesterday trying to find a shop that would have any wood in store. Mission completed after almost 2 hours.

And I have almost burnt our house with that wood today.... I did nothing unusual, just added an extra piece of wood to the wood-stove to warm up our flat faster and suddenly there was a fire within the tube connecting the wood-stove with the chimney... Large fire, plenty of smoke outside - our adrenalin level increased significantly...
Fortunately after applying some decent amount of water everything came back to normality. Well, almost everything, the wall about the wood-stove isn't white any more...


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Colours :-)

Suddenly it stopped raining and all the greyness disappeared :-)

First day of winter!

Winter arrived!!!

and it looks like I get the first winter cold in this season :-(

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