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| Entrance to my flat |
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| View outside my door, neighbour's car |
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Other houses, this is the view I get outside of my door                      |
Sunday, January 23, 2011
Photos of the Stabekk area
I haven't posted many photos since I moved so today I finally took some photos of the surrounding area. Stabekk is a mostly residential suburb with a couple of shops. Population of around 6000 plus. It's a posh area and has the highest income per capita in Norway, according to Wikipedia (but since I've moved, maybe not ;) ). According to Wikipedia, Stabekk residents are frequently portrayed and stereotyped as snobs in Norwegian culture.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
The most random way to meet a Norwegian girl, and shopping for ski clothes
So tonight I had dinner at Asgeir and Jessie's place, they're a married couple, and friends from Australia. Jessie's Malaysian and Asgeir's Norwegian. They've moved to Norway like I have. Dinner was salmon, carrots, potatoes and broccoli. Healthy and good, just the way I like it I also met another friend of theirs from Uganda, her name is Winnie. Not sure if it's spelt that way but that's how it's pronounced, she's really friendly and nice. We played a board game too, I can't remember what it's called but starts with an R ends with a K. :) It's similar to mahjong, not that I even play it but that's how Jessie says it is. I finished last but that's okay, I sacrificed myself for the greater good, we played 4 games and everyone won except me. I think the chocolates and tea more than sufficed for the losses that I endured. :) After hours of board games we left at 11:30pm.
On the tram Winnie and I were just saying it was sooo hard to meet a Norwegian. Well my experience so far is that the friendliest people that I've met are all foreigners. Not to say that my experience counts, I've only been here 2 months, but... she's been here 2 years, so... yeah. It's not usual to have the same friends throughout your entire life. Once you hit adulthood you don't really make any more friends. That's the way it is, apparently. Anyway, she had to get off a few stops later.
Then the most ironic thing happened. I was sitting close to the exit/entrace of the tram and these group of Norwegian girls just boarded the tram. They started speaking to me and I of course said "jeg snakker iker norsk". Then they switched over to English and asked me where I was from and I told them Singapore. One of them then said she was there on exchange for a year just last year and said she had the best time of her life there and yeah, we hit it off from there. Her other friend asked me how to say "You're hot" in Chinese. Haha. I told her how to say "You're beautiful" instead. Honestly at that point I could not remember to save my life, but come to think of it now I remember how to say "You're handsome". I think one of her friends took a photo of me with her, although I cannot be sure if that photo was taken. But anyway, I exchanged contact details with one of the girls and well, it looks like I have my first Norwegian friend. I thought that was just one of the most random things that's ever happened to me. Sometimes I think, well this must be one of the reasons why I left Australia. Or, who knows? Providence.
Another random thing happened, at the train station I was just walking around because there was half an hour to go, and I saw this elderly woman kick something into the train tracks. She saw me and smiled and then said something in Norwegian and I was again saying the only phrase that I know... "jeg snakker iker norsk". :) She then spoke to me in English and we chatted a bit. Her husband was there too. You know, small talk like where I'm from and what I do and talked about Australia and travel. They've never been to Australia and think it's a really scary place to go because of bugs and snakes and all that. She kept saying black widow black widow. :) I told her she should just not watch the news and just go to Australia! Not sure she would go though, they are going to the Canary islands in March and even a 5 hour flight is too long for her. :)
I didn't get back till 1:45am and I'm still wide awake. Too much tea I think. Although it took me 45 minutes to walk back here I'm not even tired. I must be a lot fitter since I moved here, I walk up two hills everyday at least just one way to work.
Oh I bought some ski clothes too today. Gloves, Ski jacket, Ski pants. I figured I'll be going skiing some point, might as well buy the clothes now. The pants were women's ski pants. They were cool, that's my excuse. Actually no I didn't know they were women's till I searched online.
And that sums up my interesting night.
On the tram Winnie and I were just saying it was sooo hard to meet a Norwegian. Well my experience so far is that the friendliest people that I've met are all foreigners. Not to say that my experience counts, I've only been here 2 months, but... she's been here 2 years, so... yeah. It's not usual to have the same friends throughout your entire life. Once you hit adulthood you don't really make any more friends. That's the way it is, apparently. Anyway, she had to get off a few stops later.
Then the most ironic thing happened. I was sitting close to the exit/entrace of the tram and these group of Norwegian girls just boarded the tram. They started speaking to me and I of course said "jeg snakker iker norsk". Then they switched over to English and asked me where I was from and I told them Singapore. One of them then said she was there on exchange for a year just last year and said she had the best time of her life there and yeah, we hit it off from there. Her other friend asked me how to say "You're hot" in Chinese. Haha. I told her how to say "You're beautiful" instead. Honestly at that point I could not remember to save my life, but come to think of it now I remember how to say "You're handsome". I think one of her friends took a photo of me with her, although I cannot be sure if that photo was taken. But anyway, I exchanged contact details with one of the girls and well, it looks like I have my first Norwegian friend. I thought that was just one of the most random things that's ever happened to me. Sometimes I think, well this must be one of the reasons why I left Australia. Or, who knows? Providence.
Another random thing happened, at the train station I was just walking around because there was half an hour to go, and I saw this elderly woman kick something into the train tracks. She saw me and smiled and then said something in Norwegian and I was again saying the only phrase that I know... "jeg snakker iker norsk". :) She then spoke to me in English and we chatted a bit. Her husband was there too. You know, small talk like where I'm from and what I do and talked about Australia and travel. They've never been to Australia and think it's a really scary place to go because of bugs and snakes and all that. She kept saying black widow black widow. :) I told her she should just not watch the news and just go to Australia! Not sure she would go though, they are going to the Canary islands in March and even a 5 hour flight is too long for her. :)
I didn't get back till 1:45am and I'm still wide awake. Too much tea I think. Although it took me 45 minutes to walk back here I'm not even tired. I must be a lot fitter since I moved here, I walk up two hills everyday at least just one way to work.
Oh I bought some ski clothes too today. Gloves, Ski jacket, Ski pants. I figured I'll be going skiing some point, might as well buy the clothes now. The pants were women's ski pants. They were cool, that's my excuse. Actually no I didn't know they were women's till I searched online.
And that sums up my interesting night.
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Rice cooker = good, red tape and floods = bad
This evening I bought a rice cooker from clas ohlson, a shop that sells a wide variety of goods, they are located at Oslo City, which is apparently Scandinavia's largest shopping centre. It's 5 floors high (I'd sure love to visit the smallest one. :)). The rice cooker costs 199 NOK, and apparently that is cheap. It's the most expensive rice cooker I've ever bought, hands down. Or paws down.
I'm hoping it would play a jingle while it's cooking rice but sadly I think that answer would be no. I'll probably use it tomorrow to make some food.
There's also a public hospital in Oslo City. Funny that they built a hospital on top of it. I didn't see any wandering patients. So maybe they're not allowed to wander around.
Earlier in the afternoon I was at Sunil's place watching soccer, the match between Chelsea and Blackburn. It was a match dominated by Chelsea from start to finish, Blackburn had no chance. Frankly I wish I hadn't watched that match, Blackburn were really 2nd class compared to Chelsea. It's the first time I had watched a premiere league match in years. Although I did watch the world cup this year.
Issues on red tape. Where do I even begin. Monday I was supposed to go for a tuberculosis check. When I turned up the doctor told me that since I was already working I was supposed to go for a chest x-ray instead. So on Friday I made an appointment for that and I'll be going to Ullevaal University Hospital on 14th of Feb. I just wonder why didn't the police tell me that when I went to collect my work permit? It is very annoying when you go from one place to another and they keep telling you different information. Also I am still waiting for my national id and tax number, without that I cannot open a bank account. To anyone who wants to work in Norway, make a note of that. :) I have waited more than 7 weeks now. The person at the tax office thinks my papers are lost or misplaced somewhere and had to resubmit my application, and the ridiculous thing is you do not get a reference number or anything and there is no number you can ring to even find out what is happening, you just have to wait. :)
But the good news is I have a really good manager at work, she's the manager of my manager actually. I have not been reimbursed for moving here yet and the team over in India did not inform anyone that the bank did not allow for transfers to Australian bank accounts, so she was really angry with that and sent out an angry email. She also sent out an email to her boss's boss who is the VP to let him know what's happening. I put in the reimbursement form more than 6 weeks ago :) so it should've been paid quite a while ago. The process is just horrid. Anyway she's getting my salary paid into my Australian bank account from the time I arrive till the end of Jan so that's really good. Although I suspect it would be only partially what I am getting since I don't have a tax card at the moment but that's still really good that I'm getting paid, finally. I've been working for free since I got here. :) The money's supposed to turn up in my account next week so we'll see! She also lent me some of her money and of course I'll give it back to her when the money's in my account.
Wednesday I missed out on dinner at work because 20 people showed up without signing up for it. :( Yes work provides free dinner on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the dinner is really good. It's like going to a good restaurant that type of good. Other than that it's not been a really tough week. I wrote my first piece of code this week that's been checked into main source. Even wrote unit tests (And if you're not, you should be!) for it using Rhino Mocks. Rhino Mocks is an easy to use framework for anyone who wants to write unit tests in c#.
Speaking of dinner, tonight's dinner which was rice with grilled duck cost me 162 NOK. Had it in a small restaurant in Oslo City by the name of Nam-Nam. Haha. The people working there speak Cantonese and Norwegian. Pity I don't speak either. :) So, today's expenditure totals out to be
Dinner 162 NOK
Rice cooker 199 NOK
Bus back to Stabekk from the City 40 NOK
Total 401 NOK (70 AUD)
Sunil was telling me he goes out every weekend to drink and spends over 1000 NOK each time. That's excessive in my opinion. If you lived like that over here and you weren't making a lot you would be living paycheck to paycheck. Then again I'm not really a drinker, I'm more of a food type of person. Speaking of which I think I shall go have some chips now. :)
There's also a public hospital in Oslo City. Funny that they built a hospital on top of it. I didn't see any wandering patients. So maybe they're not allowed to wander around.
Earlier in the afternoon I was at Sunil's place watching soccer, the match between Chelsea and Blackburn. It was a match dominated by Chelsea from start to finish, Blackburn had no chance. Frankly I wish I hadn't watched that match, Blackburn were really 2nd class compared to Chelsea. It's the first time I had watched a premiere league match in years. Although I did watch the world cup this year.
Floods! Oh floods in Brisbane, I was completely absorbed with floods this week, since I used to live there just before I came here. It's amazing to see the places where I used to live now completely submerged underwater. So far about 18 people (as of Jan 16th) in Queensland have died, and that's really sad but what's even sadder is over 100000 people getting killed in the stupid Iraq war which is preventable. Anyway that is another topic. It's going to take a while for Brisbane to recover, unfortunately.
Check out this video link on the floods.
Issues on red tape. Where do I even begin. Monday I was supposed to go for a tuberculosis check. When I turned up the doctor told me that since I was already working I was supposed to go for a chest x-ray instead. So on Friday I made an appointment for that and I'll be going to Ullevaal University Hospital on 14th of Feb. I just wonder why didn't the police tell me that when I went to collect my work permit? It is very annoying when you go from one place to another and they keep telling you different information. Also I am still waiting for my national id and tax number, without that I cannot open a bank account. To anyone who wants to work in Norway, make a note of that. :) I have waited more than 7 weeks now. The person at the tax office thinks my papers are lost or misplaced somewhere and had to resubmit my application, and the ridiculous thing is you do not get a reference number or anything and there is no number you can ring to even find out what is happening, you just have to wait. :)
But the good news is I have a really good manager at work, she's the manager of my manager actually. I have not been reimbursed for moving here yet and the team over in India did not inform anyone that the bank did not allow for transfers to Australian bank accounts, so she was really angry with that and sent out an angry email. She also sent out an email to her boss's boss who is the VP to let him know what's happening. I put in the reimbursement form more than 6 weeks ago :) so it should've been paid quite a while ago. The process is just horrid. Anyway she's getting my salary paid into my Australian bank account from the time I arrive till the end of Jan so that's really good. Although I suspect it would be only partially what I am getting since I don't have a tax card at the moment but that's still really good that I'm getting paid, finally. I've been working for free since I got here. :) The money's supposed to turn up in my account next week so we'll see! She also lent me some of her money and of course I'll give it back to her when the money's in my account.
Wednesday I missed out on dinner at work because 20 people showed up without signing up for it. :( Yes work provides free dinner on Mondays and Wednesdays, and the dinner is really good. It's like going to a good restaurant that type of good. Other than that it's not been a really tough week. I wrote my first piece of code this week that's been checked into main source. Even wrote unit tests (And if you're not, you should be!) for it using Rhino Mocks. Rhino Mocks is an easy to use framework for anyone who wants to write unit tests in c#.
Speaking of dinner, tonight's dinner which was rice with grilled duck cost me 162 NOK. Had it in a small restaurant in Oslo City by the name of Nam-Nam. Haha. The people working there speak Cantonese and Norwegian. Pity I don't speak either. :) So, today's expenditure totals out to be
Dinner 162 NOK
Rice cooker 199 NOK
Bus back to Stabekk from the City 40 NOK
Total 401 NOK (70 AUD)
Sunil was telling me he goes out every weekend to drink and spends over 1000 NOK each time. That's excessive in my opinion. If you lived like that over here and you weren't making a lot you would be living paycheck to paycheck. Then again I'm not really a drinker, I'm more of a food type of person. Speaking of which I think I shall go have some chips now. :)
Monday, January 10, 2011
Watched 'The Tourist' with a Manchester United fan, and other news
This evening I watched 'The Tourist' with Sunil, he's the friend whose apartment I stayed in whilst I was lost in limbo during the period between the Hotel and my present place in Stabekk. He is from India and has been living in Norway for a year. As usual I took my 40 minute walk to Lysaker train station where I met him and his friend (whose name I cannot remember at the moment, starts with an S. I'm getting old.). We went to Sunil's apartment for a bit, bought the movie tickets then went to Burger King to have dinner, not because we wanted to. We were going to a Thai restaurant but it was closed. Sunday seems to be shut down day. Nothing was open, the city was quite dead. The cinema that we went to was close to the National Theatre.
View Larger Map
If you rotate to the left a bit you will see the cinema, of course this was taken a while back when the Hangover was showing.
Since we were there a full hour and a half early we talked about Norway. It's always interesting to hear about what others have to say about the country they live in. The biggest bank DnB.no charges fees for every transaction from your account, and if you take money from the ATM after hours you get charged an additional fee. If you ring customer service you will have to pay per minute and all of it is in Norwegian. :) Oh and they can get the pin wrong, Sunil was sent the incorrect pin and he couldn't get money out from the ATM. Not only that he has to wait 6 months to get the digits on his Visa electron. :) I have this feeling that Norway takes a we do not trust you approach. :) His friend was telling me that they would not even provide you with an ATM card until the first paycheck is deposited. Plus they will charge you fees if you do not hold a minimum balance. So the moral of the story is, do not open a bank account with DnB.no unless you love throwing NOK around. Sunil also told me you have to pay 30K nok just to take driving from scratch. That's pretty expensive.
The expensive theme is getting boring now. I should talk about something else.
Sunil and his friend thinks Norwegians are shy. It's not him that's just saying that it's also other people who have been living here, so maybe there is some truth in that. According to him, it's quite common that once you have your childhood friends you rarely make new friends when you're an adult.
We also talked about how compressed the wage structure was, everyone almost makes the same amount. And previous interview experiences. Sunil was working in the US in Silicon Valley, I thought was cool. However he supports Manchester United which is definitely not cool.
In other news, the person who I returned the fitness card to aka my neighbour sent me an sms today thanking me so that was nice. Also the investigative journalist is now a friend too. The one from Alternative Jul. That was a nice surprise. I guess not all Norwegians are cold.
The movie was the usual predicable hollywood style type of movie. It costs 100 NOK to watch a movie here. The cinema was quite spacious and could seat 500 people. Almost all the ads were in Norwegian of course. I counted 1 out of maybe 10 ads that was in English. Would be nice if there were English subtitles for us uneducated ignorant foreigners. :P
Off to bed and to a tuberculosis test tomorrow!
View Larger Map
If you rotate to the left a bit you will see the cinema, of course this was taken a while back when the Hangover was showing.
Since we were there a full hour and a half early we talked about Norway. It's always interesting to hear about what others have to say about the country they live in. The biggest bank DnB.no charges fees for every transaction from your account, and if you take money from the ATM after hours you get charged an additional fee. If you ring customer service you will have to pay per minute and all of it is in Norwegian. :) Oh and they can get the pin wrong, Sunil was sent the incorrect pin and he couldn't get money out from the ATM. Not only that he has to wait 6 months to get the digits on his Visa electron. :) I have this feeling that Norway takes a we do not trust you approach. :) His friend was telling me that they would not even provide you with an ATM card until the first paycheck is deposited. Plus they will charge you fees if you do not hold a minimum balance. So the moral of the story is, do not open a bank account with DnB.no unless you love throwing NOK around. Sunil also told me you have to pay 30K nok just to take driving from scratch. That's pretty expensive.
The expensive theme is getting boring now. I should talk about something else.
Sunil and his friend thinks Norwegians are shy. It's not him that's just saying that it's also other people who have been living here, so maybe there is some truth in that. According to him, it's quite common that once you have your childhood friends you rarely make new friends when you're an adult.
We also talked about how compressed the wage structure was, everyone almost makes the same amount. And previous interview experiences. Sunil was working in the US in Silicon Valley, I thought was cool. However he supports Manchester United which is definitely not cool.
In other news, the person who I returned the fitness card to aka my neighbour sent me an sms today thanking me so that was nice. Also the investigative journalist is now a friend too. The one from Alternative Jul. That was a nice surprise. I guess not all Norwegians are cold.
The movie was the usual predicable hollywood style type of movie. It costs 100 NOK to watch a movie here. The cinema was quite spacious and could seat 500 people. Almost all the ads were in Norwegian of course. I counted 1 out of maybe 10 ads that was in English. Would be nice if there were English subtitles for us uneducated ignorant foreigners. :P
Off to bed and to a tuberculosis test tomorrow!
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Work permit approved plus some randomness
My work permit's approved! I am now officially authorised to work here for 3 years. Tomorrow morning I'll be going to the Sandvika police station (again) and hopefully for the last time to get another stamp in my passport. Now if only they would hurry up and approve my national id so I can open a bank account!
On to some randomness, this morning whilst walking to work I picked up someone's fitness card that was sticking out in the snow. I googled the name behind the card and turns out it's one of my neighbours, they live about 650 metres away. I sms'd and later rung them to make sure it was the right person, so tomorrow morning before catching the train to the police station I'll take a detour and drop it off in their mailbox. I even wrapped up the card and put in some chocolate pieces because I can. Oh, the random things I do for strangers.
On to some randomness, this morning whilst walking to work I picked up someone's fitness card that was sticking out in the snow. I googled the name behind the card and turns out it's one of my neighbours, they live about 650 metres away. I sms'd and later rung them to make sure it was the right person, so tomorrow morning before catching the train to the police station I'll take a detour and drop it off in their mailbox. I even wrapped up the card and put in some chocolate pieces because I can. Oh, the random things I do for strangers.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Christmas Present from work
Another thing I forgot to post before Christmas, this was the present given to us from work.
What would PETA say? It's a good present nonetheless, well I think it is!
It's a reindeer rug! It even comes with a note that says this.
What would PETA say? It's a good present nonetheless, well I think it is!
New Year's Eve
I spent New Year's Eve with the following people.
*Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Or rather, I forgot their names and had to make it up or guess the spelling. Bah! I'm getting old.
We had dinner at Hermann's house. Other than Wouter I didn't know anyone else but it was a rather interesting night. Of course I had no idea what to expect, Wouter said to bring some food or beer but everything closed early so I bought chips and nuts thinking everyone else was going to do the same. Instead everyone else cooked food. The food was very tasty. There was guacamole, different sauces, mexican chicken with curry, mushrooms, bread, mexican chilli chocolate with chicken, tzatziki and more good food. I caught the bus 31 from where I was to Hermann's place with Wouter and Özlem. It seems like everyone knew everyone from couchsurf which is a website.
The memorable moments were..
- Wouter (Dutch, I work with him on the same product at work)
- Özlem (Turkish, she is Wouter's girlfriend)
- Hermann (Mexican)
- Anne (Hermann's wife, Norwegian)
- *Hermann's Mexican friend (HMF, he is working on a Phd in Maths)
- *Mischa (HMF's girlfriend, Russian).
*Names have been changed to protect the innocent. Or rather, I forgot their names and had to make it up or guess the spelling. Bah! I'm getting old.
We had dinner at Hermann's house. Other than Wouter I didn't know anyone else but it was a rather interesting night. Of course I had no idea what to expect, Wouter said to bring some food or beer but everything closed early so I bought chips and nuts thinking everyone else was going to do the same. Instead everyone else cooked food. The food was very tasty. There was guacamole, different sauces, mexican chicken with curry, mushrooms, bread, mexican chilli chocolate with chicken, tzatziki and more good food. I caught the bus 31 from where I was to Hermann's place with Wouter and Özlem. It seems like everyone knew everyone from couchsurf which is a website.
The memorable moments were..
- During dinner we made racist jokes about Russians, Mexicans, Chinese, Japanese, Black people and everyone under the sun.
- We had a dinner with all minorities except the Mexicans who were the majority.
- There was also lots of karaoke (Queen, Bon Jovi, Kiss, as far as my memory can remember) and drinking.
- Wouter saying how in Thailand they couldn't hear the difference between V and B and they said his name as Bouter. Wouter said bout means fart in Dutch.
- Wouter said how the curse phrases in Dutch are like, "get cancer!" and other disease related phrases. You can also say things are "cancer good". Or something like that.
- Hermann was saying the first time he met Wouter he told him he had a nice ass (in Dutch).
- I had two shots of vodka which is insane, I normally don't even drink. I had some beer too and champagne. The aftermath was bad, I spewed several times, it really didn't feel good. Good thing I don't do this everyday, my life bars would be halved.
- Going downstairs to the neighbours (who are the landlords) and wishing random strangers Happy New Year and seeing fireworks everywhere.
- Walking back home with a blistering headache at 3am from the bus stop.
- Everything else that I cannot remember.
I came home and could not sleep a wink till 5ish am, too much coffee I think. But overall it was good, and definitely something to remember. I woke up late on the 1st of Jan and 2nd of Jan because of the bizarre Apple iPhone alarm bug.
2011 here I come.
Stabekk apartment
So I've moved again, to my final stop for a while (hopefully). These are pictures of the apartment I'm living in.
Kitchen, with oven, microwave and fridge (it's underneath the microwave).
Living room
Living room (different angle)
Hallway / Dining table
Entrance on the left and ahead is the bedroom. Bathroom to the right.
Bathroom
Bathroom (again).
Bathroom (last one).
Bedroom door, and wardrobe.
Bed.
View from hallway.
Entrance.
Entrance drawers.
The total size is about 36 square meters, the price? 8000 NOK per month. Or 1348 Australian dollars. It's a lot more expensive than what I paid in Australia. The plus side is I get to walk to work, it's about half an hours' work down the hill. I get to walk 5km a day to and from work. I moved on the 31st of December aided by my kind landlords Olaf and Åse. They even paid for my groceries that day and gave me champagne and chocolate for New Year. Where would you find people like that?
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