Brews - Buddies - Bikes

Hi again,

I thought that I ought to be the first to announce the amazing news Emma and I have. That's right - we are having ... beer! On the weekend and with the container arrived, I began my first beer brewing process. I have started out with a Munton's Wheat beer. I am a big fan of wheat beers - in particular a Redback, so I have decided to give this variety a try. I also have started brewing a simple Aussie Draught beer which should be nice to enjoy after a big ride in summer. Bottling should take place by this weekend and be ready for drinking in about 3 weeks after that - although the longer you leave them the better apparrently. I have been collecting local beer bottles since arriving (emptied by yours truly of course) and have a good collection but Zac (brother) lent me his longneck bottles which I shipped over here in our container. I have about enough bottles for close to 100 litres of beer so I should be able to get a few different brews maturing to ensure that I don't run out of quality beer at any stage.

Also Pikey (Mitchell Pike) from uni in Tassie arrived in Stavanger on Monday. He is here with his company (the Enemy!) Acergy and will be here for around 6 months although it seems as though companies rarely want to let people go back to where they were sent from because Engineers are so needed in this environment. He is also a keen bike rider and is getting his dual suspension (dually) bike freighted over soon so it will be good to hit the trails with him. With Ryan here also a keen rider and Russ (very keen rider) in Copenhagen there shouldn't be any shortage of buddies to ride with and places to explore. In addition with the European summer season of cycling starting up soon there will be plenty of miles ridden on and off the roads.

My dually also was unwrapped from the container and I have been sussing out a few good trails when going on walks with Emma and Cooba. Particularly through this park called Sørmarker where there seems to be heaps of forest trails although I've been told by Bjarte the bike shop owner that there is plenty of heaps better places close by also. Looking forward to it.

Thought I would attach a couple of photos from our expeditions with Clara over the weekend. There are more photos to explore in the links section to the right.

Anyway - speak soon.

J

Contanier arrived and Clara's visit

We had an eventful weekend. Our container arrived on Friday afternoon which we were thrilled about, then my colleague Clara from Laerdal Australia arrived in Stavanger on Saturday afternoon for a work trip (equally if not more exciting!).

We unpacked our container and directed about 2/3 of it to go back into storage (we are in a small furnished flat so didn't need the furniture etc.), but about a third of it went back to our place. It was like christmas all over again (literally - we opened all our chocolates and goodies we got in our Xmas stockings!). We are now enjoying having our rug, cushions, bedding, good knives, coffee machine (joel hasn't had a good night's sleep since it arrived - constant caffine high!), and clothes. It makes things much more homely and we were getting well and truly sick of being surrounded nothing but Ikea.

Saturday we met up with Clara in the afternoon, she was in surprisingly good shape considering the 30+hr flight (via singapore, london, oslo). We had a look around town and headed to Sørmarker (a forest close to Stavanger) where we let Coobs run loose and he had such a ball. Clara just loves dogs (she has a chocolate lab Baci) so Cooba lapped up the attention and freedom to run around after a week cooped up in the apartment during the day.

Sunday we went on a fjord tour with Clara and Ryan. The weather wasn't great - wet and snowing at times, but we made the best of it. The scenery is really spectacular. I'll have to ask Joel to upload the pics to Flickr (link in the menu top right of the page) as I can't work out how to do it!

Now I'll probably get into trouble for this from Joel, but I think its worth sharing, we just found out he has received 6 awards during his final year at AMC, including Best Graduate in 2006. Unfortunately we won't be back in tassie for the graduation ceremony, but Joel's brother Zac and his wife Fraze will attend, and Zac will collect the prizes on Joel's behalf. Clever little vegemite isn't he?!

Speaking of vegemite, we're very excited to sample some home grown treats Clara brought over - 2 value packs of tim tams, a pkt of chocolate teddy bear biscuits, wine, gin, magazines. Heaven.

Hope everyone is well, thanks for your comments, we love to read them. Keem 'em coming.

Emma xo

Snow again!

Well my prediction was correct. It definitely snowed again. There is a good covering of snow all about at the moment and it does look very scenic. Its amazing how much brighter the evenings are with the ambient light that just reflects off the snow.

Cooba is once again very excited about the snow. He runs around in it just sniffing everything and ends up with white powder all over his nose (he kind of looks like a drug addicted dog at times)! Emma had to drive home from a friends house in the snow so she took it kind of easy even though we have studded tyres on our VW Polo. It is kind of eery driving in the snow as well. The snow flakes rush past the car as you are driving and it kind of looks like you are going at warp-speed in Star Wars - very cool.

I drove to work today as (a) it was snowy all around but (b) I had to come in early to prepare for a presentation I had to give to a client on the work I have been doing. That was this morning and I think it went well - they seemed happy with the information at least. It still brings out more work to do which is great as I can't stand not having anything to do. In my first week or two people were telling me to enjoy the feeling of no work - but I just couldn't do it. Now I have more work I feel much more energized and enthusiastic about everything. I guess it is important to have some form of balance though I guess.

Speaking of cold conditions again I found a photo on my camera that I took during the last snowing and cold bout. It is of one of the many harbours around Stavanger. You can see the boats in their moorings/berths and a trail where one of the boats has left its moorings and 'broken' through the ice to get out to sea. The amazing thing though is that this isn't fresh water - it is pure seawater and that stuff is pretty hard to freeze so it gives you some indication of how cold it can get. Anyway I thought it was a good photo.

Also it appears as though out container has arrived in Stavanger. We are still waiting on customs clearances which apparently should be happening soon. That means that our amazing coffee machine will be ready and installed within days! Very exciting to have proper coffee again!

Also I have been told that my permanent Norwegian ID (or social security) number has been processed. That means we can get a local bank account and then apply for home loans. It would be good to have somewhere with a garden where Cooby can run around in. He went on a rampage last week and ate some items around the house. Funnily enough (I thought it was funny at least) he only chewed Emma's things! Her brand new $500 prescritpion sunglasses, a pair of her shoes, her travel pillow, and other things were chewed up in his rampage. Nothing of mine was touched! So we went to IKEA and got a whole heap of soft toys for him to destroy. Yesterday was his first day with the new toys and none of Emma's items were chewed so he is being a good boy again. I guess he was just bored (or annoyed with Emma).

Anyway, thats about all for now. Blog ya later.

JIr

Could be an interesting ride home?

Well I forgot to mention in the post yesterday that I had a small stack on my bike yesterday. Nothing serious - just a couple of scratches but I think I must have hit a small ice patch (even though it didn't feel subzero).




















The forecast looks a little 'hairy' overnight. Snow and rain forecast this afternoon and I still have my slicks on on my bike! Could be interesting. I will take the trail via the lakes which has a gravel path and should hopefully give me a bit more grip but I anticipate that tomorrow could be a bus journey! Oh well - I will report in any injuries tommorrow!

Cheers

JIr

Update: at 3:10 pm it has actually started snowing. It will DEFINITELY be an interesting ride home!

Carnival!

This time of year is Carnival! The Carnival Season is a holiday period during the two weeks before the traditional Christian fasting of Lent. Now this wasn't exactly on the radar back in oz (except perhaps for mardi gras which I think happens at the same time), over here in the northern hemisphere its big news. My friend Monica's son Eirik went off to a party last weekend dressed as a football player for a Carnival party! And a lot of schools have a dress up day.




So I've been invited to a carnival party tomorrow night, hosted by a friend from Joel's work, Sofia who is from Argentina. I asked whether I should wear my sequinned bikini and feather head-dress, but I've been instructed to save that for a regular saturday night out in Stavanger.



I will post after and tell you all how it goes - I think its just an excuse for a girls night and some traditional sweets.

Emma.

Bin 1 of Rødvin bottled

Yesterday, being Sunday with no shops open, we decided was a good day to bottle our first batch of home made wine. After 4 weeks of wine "yeasting" and brewing (not sure if that is the correct term) our Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot was ready for bottling.

It being the first time we had bottled a brew, we had to plan out the process so we had everything ready at the go. Firstly it involved sterilising the siphon and then the cleaning areas. Once this was sterilised we had to then sterlise and rinse all of the bottles (30 x 0.75 litre bottles) and let them drip dry.

Then came the actual task of bottling which required siphoning the wine into the bottles (using a somewhat awkward siphon) followed by the corking (with the ridiculously stuipid corking device we purchased). It took some time, and after a lot of blood (not quite but nearly with the stupid corking device we had), sweat (a lot of it from force required to use the stupid corking device we had) and tears (I'm sure there will be when we find out the price of a proper and painfree corking device) we had managed to bottle and cork all of the bottles.

We actually had about a glass left over ( coincendentally ;-) ) after bottling so we had to try it out. First impressions were actually a lot better than we had forecast. It certainly has a lot more depth than a lot of the wines we had bought over here (mostly from chile and france) so hopefully as it matures in its bottle over the next couple of months it will be quite 'ballsy' and a nice drop to have with friends.

Anyway that was Bin 1 of our first brew which is yet to be named by the way. If anyone has any naming suggestions please comment below as we can't really think of any suitable name. Bin 1 doesn't seem to do it justice - although if it turns into a sweet vinegar then maybe it is suitable!

We also have Bin 2 in the fermentation stage which is actually a Shiraz. Hopefully we have similar success with this one, but we will certainly get a better corking device to bottle this one. I still have a bruised palm from the force required to push the corks in.

Anyway it is nice to know that we have plenty of wine at our disposal in case of emergencies so please don't be scared off by the price of alcohol in Norway as it is free at Løkkeveien 85. Our container is due to arrive in the next day or two also so that will mean I can then commence my beer brewing.

Fingers crossed I don't get arrested and deported for producing alcohol on a large scale here in Norway.

Ha det.

Offshore Safety

As you might have read below, I attended an offshore safety course last week. This was in a nice area of Stavanger called Hinna down one of the fjords from downtown Stavanger (Sentrum). It is located just near the new and impressive Viking FC stadium where the Stavanger Vikings (football team in the premier league in Norway) play. Subsea7 sponsors the Vikings so there is a good chance I will get to see a few of the games this year although they almost got relegated last year due to poor performance. I hope they don't take after the Tigers back home!!!

Anyway because of the harsh conditions in the North Sea and the emphasis on safety in the offshore indutry in Norway, they have these "Survival Suits" that we are required to wear when we go offshore in a helicopter. The suits are quite amazing and keep you completely dry except for your face (but then there is a face shield) and provide amazing flotation - so much so that you actually can't submerge yourself (unless you jump into the water from a height which is what we did). They also have these rebreathing sets on them as well which enable you to breath underwater for over a minute (for example if the helicopter ditches in the sea and then capsizes upside down you can continue breathing whilst you punch out the windows upside down and escape). In Australia this is called HUET (Helicopter Underwater Escape Training) and is quite good fun as you can see by the video of Ryan being submerged and capsized - he is the one in the front of the chopper with the orange head!!!




Here is some photos of me in my survival suit.

We also had to practice evacuating platforms by mustering into lifeboats and liferafts. Some people are bloody hopeless and so slow that it would make it pretty dificult to survive in an actual emergency but you have to ensure everyone gets aboard in order to escape safely. The pic below is a good shot of the escape boats (the one hanging high up on an angle is called a ski-sled boat and is actually launched from that position and then lands in the water bow first becoming fully submerged and then shooting up well clear of the platform). The photo also gives you a good impression of how cold it was with the snow on the hills in the background - click on it for a close up view.

We also did firefighting training which involved putting out different fires.

Anyway it was a pretty exciting course, good fun, and we learnt a lot about practical safety.

Blog ya later!

JIr

News from Emma

Hi all,
Just a little quick noteto say hi and that I hope to add a post now and then so Joel doesn't hog all the limelight :)! Everything is great, Cooba says hi. I don't think he's missing the 38 degree heat you guys have been having back in Melbs.

News lately - well the new tenant who was renting my flat in Elwood for all of a MONTH has broken the lease and moves out tomorrow. Not a great introduction to being a landlord! Fortunately the rental market is 'crazy' (leasing agent's words) so I've found a couple who are moving in on Saturday. I wouldn't fancy moving house in 38 c heat, but each to their own.

Work is going well, possiblity of some travel to the US (San Fran) and UK (London) during March and April. We also hope to get across to Spain in May to visit Brett and Sam who are heading over to these parts for a wedding in London. We're tossing up what to do for Easter - we really took for granted all the dogsitters we had available back in Melbs! So we might stay close to home and explore around Norway with Coobs.

We can't complain about the weather lately - for the most part its been pretty clear and dry. Saying that though its still been really cold. There's no shortage of water here, it's kind of depressing actually, just a fraction of the water that falls here would make such a huge difference with the drought back in Oz. We're happy to send some over in exchange for Milo, tim tams and Samboy salt and vinegar chips.

Our wine is coming along well, we siphoned it from one bucket into another to 'clear' it - basically chuck out all the sediment that settles at the bottom. It should be ready for bottling this weekend. Very exciting. We had a little taste as we were clearing it and the verdict was 'not bad'! Joel is certain its going to be award winning - I'm reserving judgement. But it'll be fun anyway. Suggestions so far for the name: Vino de panna (you'd have to know Joelsy from school days to understand the origin of that one), and Irish Cousin. Any other ideas?

All the best,
Emma.

Ice Skating at the Beach

Last weekend we went for a drive down to Sola beach. It is only about a 15-20 minute scary (see previous post) drive away from home. It is actually quite a pretty beach - certainly nothing like the Perth beaches or the beaches down the surf coast of Vicco, but lovely all the same. Apparently the only beaches in Norway are actually in this region and there are some even more beautiful beaches along the coast a bit further.


Anyway it was a pretty cold day (around a top of negative 5 degrees) so we were not surprised to see some ice on the ground around the beach. I was not expecting to see however a group of about 20 people ice skating on the frozen water/marshy area on the shore side of the sand dunes. This freaked me out a little bit and the large and thick icy sections on the sand from where the waves washed up was also a bit bizzarre. I also thought I might have been in Esperence WA where the sand was white as white can be, but no, it was just the snow which was covering the sand from where it had snowed around a week ago.

Cooba had fun and it was quite funny to see him running along the beach and trying to stop before a little stream and skidding all over the ice - very cartoon like. But he enjoyed it.

Anyway, here are some more happy snaps from the beach. If you click on the one with the frozen marshy section you can see the ice skaters playing ice hockey at the beach!


Ha det bra.





























JIr

Euro Driving!

That's right. We got ourselves a car. In true European fashion we got ourselves a piece of German engineering. No not a BMW or an Audi ... but a VW Polo. We have actually had it for over a week now but unfortunately have had limited chance to get to work and actually post about it.


It drives really well even if Emma and I don't! It is left hand drive and has both the winter tyres with metal spikes for driving in the snow and ice as well as the summer tyres.



However, the road rules over here are crazy. Obviously the driving on the wrong side of the car and the wrong side of the road is bizarre enough, but the road rules are also a spin out. Essentially if someone pulls out from a side street you have to give way to them, unless you are on a priority road which is crazy hard to identify. So you can be cruising along at 60, and someone pulls out and you have to stop for them or risk a $1000 fine! Also there are absolutely billions, if not hundreds of zebra crossings all over the place where people are calmly walking along the side of the road and suddenly they decide to cross and you have to slam on your brakes to avoid them or similarly risk a $1000 fine. Luck we have ABS brakes, but it is actually quite fun to do this as a pedestrian and watch everyone slam on their brakes! A fun game to play!



Anyway, if we don't manage to kill ourselves or pedestrians we plan to do a bit of weekend driving and explore the wider world of fjords, valleys, mountains, ski fields, ferry crossings, islands, etc etc that will have us plenty busy on the weekends.



Here is a pic of the happy family in front of their car - also in front of our house (or out the back actually) where we park our car.



Till next time, Med venlig hilsen (best regards).



Jeg har det flott (Life is great).

Want to know what the weather is in Stavanger?

Hi again,

The other week I took a walk around Stavanger. The photos I show below are not fabricated. They are a collage of pictures I took whilst walking from my place to Ryan's and then back again. It takes about 5 minutes (if not taking photos) to walk this distance and I was in hysterics when I would take a photo of one umbrella, then before I put my camera away I would spot another one and have to take another photo. It was ridiculous how often this happened. There were other umbrellas I didn't take but laughed at. Anyway, the two words that sum up the weather here both start with the letter 'W'. One ends in 'et' and the other in 'indy'.











Click on image for close up view.








JIr

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