Well, it appears that my work visa won't process in time for my first day of work. The process has been shepherded along by one of the professionals at the headhunting firm that recruited me, and I can only imagine how long it would take if I were trying to do it myself!
To my understanding, here's what's going on:
-My work visa will be ready, guaranteed, by Thursday, probably Wednesday, and if we're lucky, sometime tomorrow. Tomorrow, of course, is my first day of work. The lady who is assisting with my visa, however, said the following: "I don't know what you're used to, but the first day of work isn't real work. You'll meet your colleagues, probably go out for lunch with your colleagues, receive various identification cards, and passwords for computer systems, take a tour of the facilities, and then probably go home early, so it's not really work". Apparently, this means that no-one will get in trouble if I do this "non-work" work without a work visa. Okay!
-Now, I need to let someone know that I have entered the country, and where I will be living. This has, apparently, been done for me behind the scenes. Okay.
-Next, I need a personal identification number. I have referred to the "D-number" in previous posts, and that is one form of personal identification number - but apparently is really only intended for those who are in the country temporarily. This does not apply to me, of course, because at this time next year, I expect to be in roughly the same place (hopefully a nicer apartment!). Thus, I need a permanent one. Still, I may get a D-number before I get a permanent one. This probably should have been secured before I got here, but they needed a certified copy of my passport (certified by an embassy), so that couldn't be done. Apparently, I will tromp off to the police ("politi") tomorrow to get that moving. Unfortunately, that could take up to a week.
That third one (the number, either temporary or permanent) is required for many things, the most relevant of which is a bank account. The bank account will allow us to wire money from Canada (for instance, the proceeds of our house sale!) I mean, even if we could purchase a car in straight cash pulled from a credit card or something, we would still require the number in order to register the car, or purchase car insurance. Careening around a foreign country in an unregistered, uninsured car with a foreign license seems like a bad idea. Needless to say, we'll be waiting until we get the number, then the bank account, and then we'll be set to go.
Monday, March 31, 2008
Ulsteinvik - "A prospering community facing south-west"
The Ulstein kommune ("kommune" can be translated roughly as "municipality" - the entire country is divided into 430 of them - some geographically small, but urban, some big and rural) webpage (www.ulstein.kommune.no) has an "in English" section which is pretty informative. Before I came here, I thought that their title, "Ulstein - a prospering community facing south-west" was sort of quaint. You know, someone with a good-but-not-great knowledge of English put it there, because it seems sort of basic, no "dynamic" or "on the move" or "steeped in history". Just "facing south-west".
However, it clicked in over the last couple of days just how valuable "facing south-west" is. Where is the sun? South. Now, that's true everywhere in the northern hemisphere, of course, but it's really true at 62 degrees north latitude! As we travel back and forth between Ålesund and Ulsteinvik, we pass a couple of communities that face north - notably Hareid and Branda (both in Hareid kommune). They are dark and cold compared to Ulsteinvik, because they hug the northern coast of this island (Hareidlandet). Of course, like many islands in Norway, it's really a big hill sticking up out of the fjord, meaning that they lose the sun long before we do.
It's certainly something to keep in mind as we figure out where to live - not really unlike buying property in the Bella Coola valley - do you get the sun through a side-valley, or not?
Ulsteinvik is generally very "happening" for a town of it's size. It has a population of 6,800 (well, that's technically the entire kommune, but it's the service centre for the area anyway), yet it has two full-spectrum malls (indoor, not strip malls), a middle-eastern take-out fast food place (on the side of their delivery van, they advertise "Du Ringer, Vi Bringer") a "jazz & blues klubb", a "kaffebarren" (coffee shop by day, live music by night), a good bookstore, a bowling alley, a gym and, the gem in the crown, their "Kulturhus" - a two-stage theatre that shows mostly movies on the one side, and live theatre on the other. That last is called "Sjøborg" (initial translation seems to be "sea-castle", but it might just be someone's last name, or a sponsoring company...) That website is www.sjoborg.no, so you can see what's on offer, if you're really that interested. Currently, my options seem to be "Asterix and the Olympic Games" (dubbed entirely in Norwegian), "Charlie Wilson's War" (subtitled in Norwegian), or a live performance by "The Twelve Irish Tenors". Hmmm...
In the meantime, however, we're hung up waiting for my work visa to process, because we can't get a bank account without a "D-number", and we can't do many other things (buy a car, get a Norwegian driver's license, rent an apartment, transfer money from Canada, ...) without a bank account.
Cheers,
Ashley
However, it clicked in over the last couple of days just how valuable "facing south-west" is. Where is the sun? South. Now, that's true everywhere in the northern hemisphere, of course, but it's really true at 62 degrees north latitude! As we travel back and forth between Ålesund and Ulsteinvik, we pass a couple of communities that face north - notably Hareid and Branda (both in Hareid kommune). They are dark and cold compared to Ulsteinvik, because they hug the northern coast of this island (Hareidlandet). Of course, like many islands in Norway, it's really a big hill sticking up out of the fjord, meaning that they lose the sun long before we do.
It's certainly something to keep in mind as we figure out where to live - not really unlike buying property in the Bella Coola valley - do you get the sun through a side-valley, or not?
Ulsteinvik is generally very "happening" for a town of it's size. It has a population of 6,800 (well, that's technically the entire kommune, but it's the service centre for the area anyway), yet it has two full-spectrum malls (indoor, not strip malls), a middle-eastern take-out fast food place (on the side of their delivery van, they advertise "Du Ringer, Vi Bringer") a "jazz & blues klubb", a "kaffebarren" (coffee shop by day, live music by night), a good bookstore, a bowling alley, a gym and, the gem in the crown, their "Kulturhus" - a two-stage theatre that shows mostly movies on the one side, and live theatre on the other. That last is called "Sjøborg" (initial translation seems to be "sea-castle", but it might just be someone's last name, or a sponsoring company...) That website is www.sjoborg.no, so you can see what's on offer, if you're really that interested. Currently, my options seem to be "Asterix and the Olympic Games" (dubbed entirely in Norwegian), "Charlie Wilson's War" (subtitled in Norwegian), or a live performance by "The Twelve Irish Tenors". Hmmm...
In the meantime, however, we're hung up waiting for my work visa to process, because we can't get a bank account without a "D-number", and we can't do many other things (buy a car, get a Norwegian driver's license, rent an apartment, transfer money from Canada, ...) without a bank account.
Cheers,
Ashley
Sunday, March 30, 2008
On to Ulsteinvik - some first observations
...so yes, we made it through Heathrow, on to Oslo, purchased a "Norsk-Engelsk, Engelsk-Norsk" dictionary, and then on to Ålesund. There was a delay at the airport in Oslo, but nothing worse.
The Ålesund airport is about the size of the Williams Lake airport (or the Saint John, NB, or Windsor, ON ones). We were picked up by a rep of the company and driven to Ulsteinvik. To give some idea of the geography, the travel from the airport to Ulsteinvik (60km) required an underwater tunnel, two under-mountain tunnels and a 20-minute ferry. The representative drove us down to the shipyard, by the nearest grocery store, and then on to our apartment. Between the drive, including the town, and the new apartment, here are some impressions, in no particular order:
-Norwegian tunnels need better ventilation
-Norwegian houses all seem to have ladders built into the roofs.
-In Norwegian, "foam" translates to "skum". Hence, the bottle of soap in our apartment bathroom that was labelled as "Handskum".
-Norwegian 500ml pop bottles are made of really hard plastic - It appears they re-use them.
-Norwegians really do ski all the time - we pulled onto the street that our apartment is on only to be faced with two girls under 12 years old, cross-country skiing up the street.
-"Kebab" here is the same as "Gyro" at home.
-Yes, a really high percentage of people here are blonde.
-No, people are generally not nearly as rude as you might have heard. We've had fewer "rude incidents" here than I would expect on an average day in Toronto or Vancouver. (On the other hand, if people are swearing at us behind our backs, we won't understand).
At the moment, we're a little bit "stuck" - we can't open a bank account until I have a "D-number", and that can't happen until my work visa is complete - we're hoping for that tomorrow. A bunch of things start moving at that point - once we have a bank account, we can transfer money from Canada, so we can buy or lease a car, and that helps us avoid being beholden to quite as many public transport schedules (we still need to catch ferries, but only one). In the long run, I expect to be commuting on public transit, but for this first "start-up" time, when we don't even have a permanent place to live, it would sure be nice to have a car.
Cheers,
Ashley
-Yes, a really high percentage of people here are blonde.
-No, people are generally not nearly as rude as you might have heard. We've had fewer "rude incidents" here than I would expect on an average day in Toronto or Vancouver. (On the other hand, if people are swearing at us behind our backs, we won't understand).
At the moment, we're a little bit "stuck" - we can't open a bank account until I have a "D-number", and that can't happen until my work visa is complete - we're hoping for that tomorrow. A bunch of things start moving at that point - once we have a bank account, we can transfer money from Canada, so we can buy or lease a car, and that helps us avoid being beholden to quite as many public transport schedules (we still need to catch ferries, but only one). In the long run, I expect to be commuting on public transit, but for this first "start-up" time, when we don't even have a permanent place to live, it would sure be nice to have a car.
Cheers,
Ashley
Arrived. Now What?
I suppose a first post should contain some sort of background on us, or a witty introduction to what exactly is going on, but I think I'll leave that alone for the moment. If one of us ever gets around to writing such contextual stuff, we'll put it in some sort of side menu, I suppose.
Suffice to say that Kes and I are moving to Norway. I have taken a position at Ulstein Verft A/S (www.ulsteingroup.com), and Kes will be finishing up her Ph.D thesis before diving into the world of Norwegian employment.
Ulstein Verft is a major shipyard, and is in the middle of what is being referred to as a "maritime cluster", with several shipyards and other companies with maritime expertise all nearby. Ulstein is located in Ulsteinvik, which is a little bit south of Ålesund, Norway. Pronounce that first letter like you're saying "oh" - at least, that's what I do. Maybe everyone's actually laughing at me behind my back.
I've taken a position as a "Technical Co-ordinator, Detailed Design" within the electrical division of the core shipyard (I say that to distinguish from Ulstein Elektro A/S, which is a separate company within the same group). I can't say that I know 100% of exactly what the position will require on a day-to-day basis, but then, who really does when they take a new position?
Our trip across to Ålesund was actually shockingly uneventful. Our routing was St. John's-Halifax-London (Heathrow)-Oslo-Ålesund. In the 24 hours before we left St. John's, we had been frantic when we realized two problems we hadn't considered. First, we only had one hour and 45 minutes between our flight into Heathrow and our flight out of Heathrow. Everyone told us this was insane and impossible. I began to believe them when I discovered that no travel insurance company will insure you against "trip interruption", unless you've allowed at least 3 hours for a Heathrow transfer.
Second, SAS (Scandinavian Airlines, the company with whom our Heathrow-Oslo-Ålesund ticket was booked) has what appears to be a draconian overbaggage policy: 20 kg (44lbs) per person, and a charge of 10 Euros per kg (Can$7.30/lb) for over-packed people (a category we definitely fell into, by that definition.) We were "moving" with our suitcases, not just packing for the weekend, so that was a problem. We hacked and slashed (and mailed some boxes to Kes's parents in New Brunswick), and finally ended up with about 80kg (about 180lbs). That was after doing all the "tricks", like packing all the really heavy, dense stuff in your carry-on. Thus, we were expecting a bill of about 418 Euros (Can$670).
Somehow, the travel gods were smiling on us that day, though, and both of these problems just evaporated. Our plane from Halifax landed 20 minutes early, there was no queue at immigration, or customs, or SAS baggage drop-off, or security. There we were, twiddling our thumbs in Heathrow for an hour before our SAS flight took off! ...and the overbaggage? I think we hit the right overworked desk staff person, because she clearly just didn't care - tagged the luggage, and on we went! Phew!
More about our first impressions and first days in Norway when I'm back. At the moment, we're going out to forage for food in Ulsteinvik on a Sunday evening - this may be a challenge.
Suffice to say that Kes and I are moving to Norway. I have taken a position at Ulstein Verft A/S (www.ulsteingroup.com), and Kes will be finishing up her Ph.D thesis before diving into the world of Norwegian employment.
Ulstein Verft is a major shipyard, and is in the middle of what is being referred to as a "maritime cluster", with several shipyards and other companies with maritime expertise all nearby. Ulstein is located in Ulsteinvik, which is a little bit south of Ålesund, Norway. Pronounce that first letter like you're saying "oh" - at least, that's what I do. Maybe everyone's actually laughing at me behind my back.
I've taken a position as a "Technical Co-ordinator, Detailed Design" within the electrical division of the core shipyard (I say that to distinguish from Ulstein Elektro A/S, which is a separate company within the same group). I can't say that I know 100% of exactly what the position will require on a day-to-day basis, but then, who really does when they take a new position?
Our trip across to Ålesund was actually shockingly uneventful. Our routing was St. John's-Halifax-London (Heathrow)-Oslo-Ålesund. In the 24 hours before we left St. John's, we had been frantic when we realized two problems we hadn't considered. First, we only had one hour and 45 minutes between our flight into Heathrow and our flight out of Heathrow. Everyone told us this was insane and impossible. I began to believe them when I discovered that no travel insurance company will insure you against "trip interruption", unless you've allowed at least 3 hours for a Heathrow transfer.
Second, SAS (Scandinavian Airlines, the company with whom our Heathrow-Oslo-Ålesund ticket was booked) has what appears to be a draconian overbaggage policy: 20 kg (44lbs) per person, and a charge of 10 Euros per kg (Can$7.30/lb) for over-packed people (a category we definitely fell into, by that definition.) We were "moving" with our suitcases, not just packing for the weekend, so that was a problem. We hacked and slashed (and mailed some boxes to Kes's parents in New Brunswick), and finally ended up with about 80kg (about 180lbs). That was after doing all the "tricks", like packing all the really heavy, dense stuff in your carry-on. Thus, we were expecting a bill of about 418 Euros (Can$670).
Somehow, the travel gods were smiling on us that day, though, and both of these problems just evaporated. Our plane from Halifax landed 20 minutes early, there was no queue at immigration, or customs, or SAS baggage drop-off, or security. There we were, twiddling our thumbs in Heathrow for an hour before our SAS flight took off! ...and the overbaggage? I think we hit the right overworked desk staff person, because she clearly just didn't care - tagged the luggage, and on we went! Phew!
More about our first impressions and first days in Norway when I'm back. At the moment, we're going out to forage for food in Ulsteinvik on a Sunday evening - this may be a challenge.
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