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

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