Well we made it ... and I managed to finally post!!!

Hi everyone,


Welcome to those of you that are new to this blog. I will try and keep it "word-light" and let pictures do the talking, but will probably blab on from time to time ... like now for instance!


I also encoruage you to leave comments at the bottom of the blog by clicking on the 'comments' link below.


Anyway we made it. After a long 30 hour series of flights, we made it to Stavanger Norway. Poor little Cooby had to put up with being stuck in a cage for that length of time, but we were informed that the baggage handlers in Melbourne actually took him out for a walk before he jumped on which was great. Even though he was stuck in the box for that length of time, he didn't "soil" the cage, and was so happy to see us at the other end. Knowing Coobs, I think we were more worried and anxious than him. We actually got to see him loaded onto the plane through the departure lounge at tullamarine which was nice.


We met Ryan (for those of you who don't know he is a mate of mine from the Australian Maritime College in Tas (a Perthite!) who is also working at Subsea7 here in Norway) at Bangkok airport where we had the same connecting flight to Copenhagen and then Norway. We actually had a bit of time at Copenhagen so we went into the centre of town by train and had an expensive (we'll get used to it in time) but delicious coffee at some bar. We had a bit of a look around but were getting frozen by the bitterly cold wind so we ended up not doing too much and made our way back to Copenhagen Airport.



(Ryan and I enjoying some jetlagged Danish Pastries in Copenhagen)














(Emma in front of her shop in Copenhagen)











After getting Coobs, we made our way back to our appartment which has been provided jointly by Emma's company Laerdal Medical and mine Subsea7. Emma's company provided a car for the first weekend also which was good to get all of the groceries and bits and pieces needed for living but it was a furnished appartment so most things were provided (except for hot water for the first 2 days!!! - thanks Ryan for helping us out).


I (and Ryan) didn't start work for a few days so for the first couple of days the 4 of us (Emma, Coobs, Ryan and I) basically wondered around town checking things out and getting the well known ex-pat "sticker-shock" from the prices of everything. As an example, we found "cheap" beer at the supermarket (yes you can buy it at the supermarket - but only before a certain time in the evening, and even earlier on saturdays, and it is actually closed on sundays) but the "stubby" was 550ml (or as these crazy noggies say 5,5 dL (decilitres and they use a comma instead of a dot!!!)), and it cost around 8 bucks ozzie ... for one stubby!!!! So the next trip was to the wine and beer brewing shop to suss out how much the brewing products are. Zac (my brother) was a champ and lent me his (kindly given to him by Fraze) brew kit, so I will be all set up when our container arrives. In the meantime, Emma and I have started making some wine. We bought some containers for the wine "brewing" or gjærining as they call it here - try pronouncing that after a bottle of our Bin 1 Cab Sav Merlot - and we put all the ingredients in and are nearly ready to be transferring it to our second clearing container for secondary fermentation. We will let you know how it goes, but if it goes well you might be getting bottles of Bin 1 for christmas, birthday, and any other presents!





(Emma, Coobs & I walking around the lake near our appartment one of the 1st mornings we arrived)









After about a week in Stavanger, my "commuting" Bike arrived by airfreight. Despite the fact that it rained for 8 days straight when we arrived (it is amazing how wet and how much water there is in this place) and then started snowing for the next week - Ryan and I managed to get out an about to discover how wet the rain really is and explore a bit of Stavanger. It is truly a beautiful place. Lots of little twisty cobblestone streets, tiny little white (it would be good to buy shares in plain white paint) wooden houses everywhere, and amazing steep snow capped mountains and deep fjords all around us. There is also a beautiful harbour which has a great fisketorg (fish market) where you can get fresh atlantic salmon steaks for around $20AUD a kilo which is a lot cheaper than kylling (chicken) so needless to say I think we won't have any shortage of fish oils in our systems!

Work is great. Subsea7 is a great company and is located around 13km's (or 1.3 Norwegian miles - a Norwegian mile is 10km's - I thought it was only seppo's that had bizarre units!) from our appartment so take only around half an hour to ride to work - although with the weather you definitely need a shower at the other end. Ryan is a keen rider as well and lives right in the centre of town in a beautiful appartment above this cafe (which has wireless broadband so we can utilise that at night after work with emma's laptop if we need to) so we ride together to work which is good and provides more motivation to avoid the work bussene (close to free work bus). Subsea7 seem to subsidise just about anything. Winter cabins, summer cabins, busses, lunches, and they even are going to give us about $1000 AUD and heaps of cool riding gear for just riding to work!!! Nuts!!!

After the first week of snow, we managed to get out and go skiing up in a place called Sirdal. It is an amazing drive up there through 3 amazing tunnels through the rocky steep mountains covered in snow. There are amazing frozen over lakes with snow everywhere and little streams that just reek of atlantic salmon. Might have to come back in summer for some dinner from the fly! Here are some pics of Emma and Ryan "enjoying" the cross country skiing up the hills. and sitting down to some hot chocolate and lunch.

Have you ever swum in the north sea whilst it snowed on your face??? Well I have. It wasn't something I had planned (who would) but doing an offshore safety course in the middle of winter in Norway probably isn't the best idea if you dream of the Carribean! We have these amazing survival suits in the North Sea which you have to wear when flying in a chopper to the rigs and ships. They allow you to float around in the North Sea for around 6 hours with only mild hypothermia although I am not too game to try it out.


So I am sure I have missed out heaps of stuff but I will write more posts as often as I can (keeping them brief of course) and attach plenty of pics for good measure.

Till next post - keep smiling.

JIr