Monday, November 26, 2007

Bring on the white stuff!

The front of our house, about 8.30am


It snowed last night properly, and there was about 1 cm of beautiful white snow covering the ground at our house. It is definitely still a novelty seeing snow outside our window and in our back yard. Coobs of course had a ball this morning playing frisbee, so much fun that he couldn't wait to get amongst it. As I was leaving to go to work I spotted him sneaking out of the garden over the back fence. He received a good telling off and is safely installed inside while Joel and I work out what to do about our Houdini dog.

Our street

From Joel: Also, here is a pic from a webcam looking over the hill towards my work over the other side of the fjord that I have to cycle over on the way to work.


It was very cool (pardon the pun) cycling to work today. I bought some "piggdekk" which are spiked tyres for my bike on the weekend and got to test them out this morning. It was really good fun. Cycling through an inch or 2 deep snow and ice on the way to work - lots of fun. No fear of sliding out as I ride full pelt across the snow. Awesome.


Emma (and a little bit from Joel).

Friday, November 23, 2007

Coolest Advertisement Ever!

Just before the weekend comes, I stumbled across this cool advert for bicycles on the equally coolest website ever.




www.copenhagengirlsonbikes.blogspot.com

Many cool pics on that page.

Don't forget the aerogard and avagoodweekend!

Friday, November 16, 2007

London, Ghent and Dusseldorf

Hi all,


It has been ages since I have written a blog, and Joel is forever on my back about it, so, finally, here is an update! I have had a busy few weeks with travel. The first week of Nov I spent 5 days in London with work. London is always an amazing city and I was lucky to be staying at Charing Cross, right in the middle of it all. We had some beautiful meals - one was at the first Indian restaurant in London. The decor was amazing, not to mention the food. The highlight of the week was the chance to catch up with my good friend of mine, Pooja, who moved to London a month after Joel and I moved here. We had always said we must have a catch up over this side of the world (she was in London while I was living over here last time), so it was fantastic to actually finally do it!



I have just returned from another trip, this time 3 days away in Ghent (Belgium) and Dusseldorf (Germany). We were on an intelligence gathering mission in advance of a major meeting being held in Ghent next year. So part of our 'brief' was to try out some local restaurants and pubs to find some suitable locations for social activities for the conference. Tough job but someone's got to do it.



This is in Brussels. Amazing - it was built in the 50's, its made of stainless steel. Its used as a restaurant upstairs and there are galleries in the spheres.





Ghent is a beautiful medievil town and has an old castle in the centre, as well as waterways/canals much like Copenhagen or Amsterdam.






Pics of Ghent



I was in Dusseldorf for a meeting with one of our business partners and it took place at Medica, the biggest medical convention/exhibition in the world. There are about 15 massive halls filled with exhibitors. There are tens of thousands of visitors. Amazing. The money that gets spent by the companies on their booths is incredible - two story extravaganzas with catering and meeting rooms, lets just say you could buy a house in Toorak for the price they pay for these displays.



But having said that, I'm really glad to be home. I don't have any more travel planned until Christmas so I'm looking forward to getting ready for Christmas and Sally's visit. She arrives 14th december.


We are all going together with Ryan to Paris for 3 nights starting on boxing day, and then we'll have a week at a ski resort in the French Alps. We will be there over new years eve. We can't wait!! We are also planning a weekend visit to a Laerdal cabin in the mountains with Sal and whichever friends can join us. A really authentic Norwegian experience for Sal.


Hope everyone is well. Today and tomorrow our thoughts are especially with our lovely friends Jules and Matt who are getting married tomorrow. We really miss you guys and would love nothing more than to be there for this amazing occasion. I know that it will be a beautiful day with lots of thought and planning having gone into it, you guys are truly the most wonderful and generous hosts, and this will be an event like no other. Good luck, we send you all our love from Norway.


Cheers,
Emma.

Friday, November 09, 2007

Snowing again!

Well it seems that the big storm has brought some happiness at last. It started snowing in Stavanger for the first time this winter season a short while ago! Considering the first snow last winter wasn't until about early Feb this year, we are off to a pretty good start with the ski season! Who knows I may even one day be able to ski to work. That would be cool!

Back on land

Hi all,

I have now been back on land for just over a week. Surprisingly I didn't have hardly any wobbles being back on terra firma. I did think the bed was tipping over once but apart from that nothing. Last time after only 1 week offshore I felt like the whole world was moving. Maybe it was something to do with the Bouncing Bergen we were on that made it a bit different. Anyway, office life is the same as it was although new projects and new challenges.

Emma and I went to her company's (Laerdal Medical) cabin on an island called Randøy last weekend. It was very relaxing. Went for some walks through the forest, drives around the island, speeding around in the motor boat with coobs on an amazing clear and still day (for this time of year), and did a lot of fine food and drink tasting! I will post some pics soon.

For now however I thought it is worthwhile showing you what sort of weather we have at the moment. All the oil companies evacuated all of the platforms (except for essential personnel) in the southern part of the North Sea. There have been storm warnings of Force 10 winds (10 is maximum!). We had all our bins knocked over by the wind this morning (and they are in a reasonably protected spot) and I found a kiddies pool in our hedge this morning! Would be interesting to be out there. The current forecast for Stavanger looks like this (click on it to get it in big and clear text).



Emma comes back from a business trip to London tonight. The weather doesn't look too promising for the weekend so not too sure what we will do - the beach perhaps! Then she is off again next week to Belgium (bring on the imported beer!) and Germany.

I promise to post some pics of Randøy soon.

Cheers

Joel