We have been so slack lately – we really must apologise. Unfortunately the blog has taken a bit of a backseat to other priorities lately, but that is really no excuse. We must do better.

So I will bring you all up to date.

So in our last posts we had just been to the Laerdal cabin at Knaben, and Joel had taken Sally and Håkon up to Preikestolen. Sal was really so lucky with the weather she had in Stavanger, we were amazed how many days of sunshine we had while she was here. She did see the best possible side of Stavanger, even during this gloomy wintertime.

Emma and Sally in the candleshop in the mountains.

The next major event was of course Christmas. We ( ‘I’ really – Emma) made the house look quite festive with a REAL fir tree (not the pine tree branches we use in Australia) and lots of decorations. We even had an advent calendar – quite a different concept over here to what we’re used to, the advent calendar is prepared well in advance and each day in December you get a little present that fits into a pocket in the calendar, usually they are little toys or a chocolate bar etc. Sometimes, the day corresponds to a little numbered packet which contains a present. Our friend Aud Trude’s exchanges advent calendars with her sister and they give each other something for each day – a pair of socks or some earrings etc.

Christmas over here is really taken seriously. I think its something everyone looks forward to in the middle of a dark and cold winter. In a way I think its lucky that over here you get to have a second focal point in the year – in Oz we have summertime, holidays and Christmas all at once, I quite like the European approach where it’s stretched out a bit. And of course it’s so much more fun to indulge in all the food and drinks knowing you don’t have to be in a bikini next week…

Christmas Day.

Virtually every house has a light in the window (so of course to fit in with the Jones’ we put up a lit star in our window!), and a wreath on the door. There are traditional Christmas cookies (no less than 7 varieties!) which are baked and shared among friends and colleagues. We had a great afternoon with friends in a ‘pepperkakehus’ competition (gingerbread house), we didn’t win with our Sydney Opera House design, but got extra cred for our curved roof (created by carefully moulding sections straight from the oven around an upturned bowl). The engineer’s handiwork of course!

Work of art!

Christmas day itself was really fun. It was a very hectic morning with lots of phone calls to friends and family back home, amidst preparing a turkey with all the trimmings (our first time!). Ryan and Sally were a huge help to Joel and I in getting everything ready, it was really a team effort. A friend Pete also joined us for our ‘orphans christmas’. He’s an Aussie who studied at AMC with Joel and Ryan.

Ryan looking festive with a sprig of holly from our garden.

Ready for our present opening session.

Pete and Emma - pre-lunch snack of smoked salmon.

We predicted the present pile under the Christmas tree this year would be a bit smaller than usual, but it was actually huge! Thanks so much to everyone for thinking of us, and especially to Sally for transporting it all! We had a ball unwrapping everything and loved all the gifts.

The meal itself was a hit (if I do say so myself…!) the turkey turned out beautifully – cooked on the BBQ. Dad’s bread sauce recipe went down a treat, likewise mum’s stuffing and the good old Womens Weekly Cookbook came good with directions for cooking our raw smoked ham! The mince pies (bought) and plum pudding (also bought) were complemented beautifully with Grandma C’s brandy
butter.

Pudding with high quality french brandy!

The dinner table - one of Joel's many talents!

The now famous turkey!

Coobs showing off his christmas hat.

We listened to music and drank lots of good wine, we even christened the couch with its first red wine spillage! We also played celebrity heads which was heaps of fun (especially after a few wines) although Joel was a bit stumped by “Mr Bennet” from Pride and Prejudice, and with good reason (good one Sal!), and I was equally stumped with Mick Fanning (the surfer)!

Stylish Sally having one of many glasses of red for the evening.

Later in the evening our friend Åsmud dropped in with a gift wrapped six pack of beer (which was most welcome as we had drunk the wine rack dry by this time).

The following morning we were up early (with sore heads) to prepare for our trip to France. It didn’t start well when the mercy dash to McDonalds on the way to the airport ended in disaster – it was CLOSED! That’s Norway for you! Fortunately it got a lot better from there. And on that note I will will wind it up, and promise that the next instalment (Paris and Les Deux Alpes) will be coming up very soon!

Ahhh - happy family.

Time to show off the rock

I took a couple of days off work when Sal was here and along with Håkon (colleauge) we braved the sub-zero temperatures, snow and ice, on a magnificent winters day and showed off the rock again. This was my 4th visit to this special place and I am not sick of it yet - it always amazes me - truly stunning.


















Here is me - taking photos as usual.




















There are a couple of "bathing" pools on the hike up. We tried to go for a swim - but we couldn't break the ice!

















We had the entire rock to ourselves which was extra special. Not a soul to be seen. Here is Håkon and Sal finishing up the Norskmat (Norwegian food) for lunch. As usual Kvikk Lunsj, plane smash, knackerbrød, finshed up with a thermos of hot aussie milo!




















Sal considering her future!



















Sal and Håkon with a lovely pose!


















Pretty.



















Very content ... and cold.

















You (and sal) can see the clouds in one of the valleys on the other side of the fjord. The weather was truly amazing - not a breath of wind!


Stay tuned for our Christmas day feastathon photos ...

Ha det godt!

Episode 1 of the last month or so ... stay tuned.

Hi again.

Sorry we have been a bit lax with the posting, but all of a sudden life got very busy in December and is finally calming down a little - pity I can't say the same for work ... but anyway.

Rather than bogging you down with all the updates at once we thought we'd take it bit by bit over the next week or so to keep you in a state of anticipation, unable to leave the computer screen, for fear of missing the next update!

So here goes.

Emma's sister Sally arrived to spend some time with us (more of this later) but the first thing we did was whisk her off to the Norwegian mountains to a place called Knaben. Emma's work has a cabin here that she borrowed for the weekend and it is in a little snowy village or old mining town popular at times in winter when it has enough snow for skiing. We decided to scare the jetlag out of sally by having a bunch of our friends come with us.















Here is the three of us with Rob "boneheading" in the background. This is looking back over to Knaben from near the mine.
















Ryan was creative and made a snow angel. Awwwwww ... how cute.






















Who's this handsome fella? We slid down the slopes on plastic frying pan death traps and this is me practicing the crash position. Last time (see last Easter's post) I ripped half the skin of my back so didn't want that to happen again.
















Of course cooby needed to come with us and looked as beautiful as ever.
















The cabin had these funny sleigh things which we took out on the icy roads for a bit of fun. This is me pushing em down the slope - cool fun.
















Concentrating hard ... precious jetlagged cargo.

















On the way up we came across our first wild moose. You can't see much from the photo but trust us he is pretty big!

















Sally looking back to Knaben.
















Emma looking lovely as usual.

















The girls found these icicle stalagtite thingys (AKA ice lollipops).

















No comment required ... but anyway it kind of reminds me of the erotic museum we saw in Paris!
















And finally - Rob getting dressed up in Sofia's flash thermals and doing a fashion show for us all. Once again it kind of reminds me of the erotic museum we saw in Paris!

Stay tuned for our next update including trip to Preikestolen with Sal and Christmas day!

Only in Norway

You can imagine my delight when I was given a giant (seriously – its as big as my head) gingerbread heart today by a lovely and generous colleague, with God Jul written on it with icing. Fantastic, it was about time for afternoon tea and I admit I was feeling a little peckish. After all, what is gingerbread for if not to eat…?

Well, as I was modestly claiming “oh I couldn’t possibly eat all that” but secretly thinking “…but I’d give it a good nudge”, I was informed that no, it is not for eating, it is to hang as decoration during Christmas time (!!!!).

So I now have this lovely tantalising gingerbread heart dangling just out of biting range above my desk, where the delicious wafting smell is making my tummy rumble. And here it will remain for the next 3 weeks until it Christmas, when it will be so hard and covered in dust it will be inedible. Only in Norway!

Emma.

"Gløgg gløgg gløgg" ... the sound gløgg makes when you pour it down your throat!

Gday,

Regina and Ulf put on a lovely gløgg session yesterday. Gløgg sessions are scandinavian traditions in the weeks leading up to Christmas where they essentially serve gingerbread biscuits and gather around with friends drinking gløgg. Gløgg is a lovely form of mulled alcohol with lots of spices in it. It has cinamon, cardamon, cloves, ginger etc. It can be based on a non-alcoholic but quite sickly sweet Norwegian (bloody anti-alcoholic government) variety, or the more alcoholic varieties (usually from Sweden I am told) where they can be based on wine, cognac, rum etc etc.

What is gløgg? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulled_wine

Recipe for gløgg - make it back in oz: http://www.norway.org.uk/culture/food/gloeggoppskrift.htm

Anyway we walked over there Saturday arvo and had a lovely gathering of people. Here are some pics or the day.
















Here is a pic of the gløgg keeping hot on the stove. My favourite was the cognac based variety (nearest to camera).






















A pic of the lovely hosts Regina and Ulf. They had to fly out to New York for a week of fun and shopping Sunday morn.


















A pic of Elisabeth and her twin babies Julia og Helene. You would hardly guess she gave birth to twins 13 weeks ago.

















Simon (the other part of the twin borth operation - an aussie also - Elisabeth is a noggie), Kristian (who I went cycling with over Norway), Mari and Kev (who you should know by now if you read the blog) and Aud Trude (who you should also know by now).
















Aud Trude, Mari and Em.

















Kev, me (looking like I've had far too much Gløgg) and Kristian.

Anyway today is a relaxing day doing housework. Hope everyone is well back in oz.

God Jul.

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).

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!

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.

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