...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
1 comment:
nice!
btw: You did realize when Ziggy was swearing behind your back right?
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