Spring brings good news

It's Spring here in the South of the North. The snow has essentially melted except for areas that don't get much sun. The rivers are flooding their banks and the waterfalls are incredibly powerful.

Almost all the ice has floated down the river and out to sea and the lakes will soon be clear.

 

And our good news? Erik received tenure as principal bass in Kristansand Symfoni Orkester on April 12th, six months to the day after he began his trial period. On the same day, we officially added another couple to our musical family - John and Amanda Harrison. They come from South Carolina and New Jersey respectively and were most recently living in New Zealand. John just passed his preliminary trial and will be on trial as a member of the bass section next season. We hope to hear Amanda playing her horn as well one day soon. He likes to fish and she enjoys knitting. I think it's meant to be.

Happy New Year!

Well, another year has gone by and we find ourselves much farther north than we were at this time last year. I guess we like extremes. The temperature difference is about 40 degrees Celsius. This year we celebrated Christmas with Karen's parents in our new home, Norway. We are renting a lovely historically-built house near Birkeland, which is about 20 kilometers north of Kristiansand which lies near the southernmost point of the country.

View Nesset in a larger map

In October we began settling in and even though there are still many boxes to unpack and a few more rooms to organize, we are really starting to feel at home. The temperatures have been pretty frigid (down to -26C/-15F with about 40cm of snow on the ground), so sometimes it's a full-time job to keep up with the heating which we do mostly by wood because the electricity prices are pretty atrocious. 

 House from the front with landlord's car.

We love our house. It's larger than we need, but the price is right, the setting is gorgeous and it's a once-in-a-lifetime chance to live like this. Nothing short of the lottery would ever allow us to afford something this nice when it comes down to buying a home for ourselves. And of course, we'd have to play the lottery in the first place...

Our entry-way is lorded over by Henry, our personal welcome committee. In any other house, he wouldn't necessarily be welcomed by me, but considering the setting, he fits right in.

Henry

We love our kitchen. It's enormous with a table for 10, a 100-year-old wood stove, a large island and hand-painted cabinets.

Kitchen

Antique stove

The living room is spacious and full of atmosphere. There's also a newer wood stove in one corner which heats the place up quite nicely. 

Living room

The house is full of great details from the window/door frames on the outside to each door in the interior. There's a whole wing upstairs which we call the "Moose Wing" based on the animal depicted on the door. That's where we keep our guests. They have a large bedroom and their own "stue", but it's a bit cold to use that room in the winter.

 Door to the "Bunny Room" in the "Moose Wing"

  Outside detail around window frame

  

The views are pretty unbeatable. To the west we have a lake, the Flakksvann, which we see from our kitchen window. On the other side, and just a 3-minute drive, is the town of Birkeland which has basic facilities. To the south is the valley of a river (Topdalselva) which flows all the way, direction Kristiansand, to the ocean.

 

 View of Flakksvann

Topdalselva valley

We've had a very relaxed time of it for the past 10 days. Even my parents are sleeping late, we've taken some gorgeous drives and eaten great food and have even unpacked the skis. More tales with pictures to come of those adventures (and I promise to sit down soon and tell the story of our "flight" from Qatar). But for now, a few more seasonal pics...

Christmas tree chopped down on our landlord's property.

 Kransekake for New Year's Eve

Wishing you all the best for 2011!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! 

FROHES NEUES JAHR!

 

   GODT NYTT ÅR!   

Karen and Erik

In Memory of...

Our summer has been just about everything you can imagine. Difficult, adventurous, traumatic, sad and unfortunately only relaxing for a few days. On August 28, after spending three weeks by her hospital bed, we lost Erik's mother Eila to a series of strokes preceded by a battle with cancer. She was an amazing woman and a fighter to the end and we are very grateful to have been there as she went to be with the angels.

Getting Out, Part I, a.k.a. "Plan G"

I'm so exhausted, I can hardly think, but I thought I'd at least share some information and photos with you.

Plan G - actually we don't even know for sure if it is Plan G, but sooner or later, when things have actually started to work and there is some peace, we'll write a list of our different plans to get out of Qatar. Be that as it may, Plan G is the following:

July 23: Karen flies to Amman, Jordan and is driven to a hotel in Petra. Why? No time to get her Saudi Visa.
At the same time, Erik drives to Petra through Saudi Arabia

July 24: Erik arrives in Petra in the wee hours of the morning, gets some sleep and we go see the sights.

July 25: Travel to Egypt by ferry over the Red Sea from Aqaba to Nuweiba. The reason for this is to avoid two border crossings because there is a tiny strip of land on the Red Sea between Jordan and Egypt belonging to Israel. Drive towards Alexandria and overnight where possible.

July 26: Drive the rest of the way to Alexandria and check the car in at the ferry in the afternoon for the 8pm launch towards Venice.

July 29: Arrive in Venice at 8am. Drive immediately to Munich to start import procedures.

July 30: Endless paperwork in Munich, all of which has to be done by closing time at noon.

July 31 or August 1: Drive to Cologne

August 2: Drive to Kristiansand, catching ferry from Hirtshals at 10:45pm.

August 3: Arrival

So, we received our export license on Tuesday...

It's only good for 10 days, so we've got to hurry!

We went through weeks of planning to try to find people who would issue us insurance. We were told that we would get 10 days of insurance for the Middle East from our Qatar company along with our plates, but that turned out to be false. All we got from them is insurance to the border and the certificate was under the name of "Earek Wer". "Wer" did they get that??? Apparently it's the car's insurance, not ours, so as long as the car data is correct, it's fine. We have to buy liability anyway at the borders, but that means we're running around without comprehensive for several days. From the US we were able to get comprehensive for once we get into Europe. From Luxembourg, we were able to get 3rd party liability. When we get to Germany, we have insurance ready to go, but first we have to go to customs (probably), have the car inspected, register the car and get plates and Erik has to register in Germany again. There's an order to this, but I can't remember what it is. You'll have to ask my husband. The one troublesome point in the import procedure is that the Germans say they want a certain form, EU0600 "Unbedenklichkeitsbescheinigung" (yes that's one of those endless German compound words), from the Italians and the Italians claim they have no clue what it is and that we can come into the country without any trouble at all. It took my dear harpsichordist Sergio two days of calling around to figure this out and even he isn't satisfied with the answer.

So, last night we packed up, behind schedule, and of course determined that it wouldn't all fit. Erik comes back in September anyway. He will have to bring his road bike back to Europe then. He has another bike in Cologne. We also have the Qatar apartment until September, because after tons of rigmarole, we will get paid what they owe us, but Erik just has to come back for the expatriation procedure which he can do without me, but with one of my passports - another story for another time.

Erik took me to the airport this morning. Everything went smoothly for me, but not at all for him. He spent probably 6+ hours at the Saudi border going back and forth between the Saudis and Qataris dealing with paperwork and just when he got the last paper from the Qataris, the Saudi office that needed it closed for the day. The result? He is in no-mans land sleeping on an air mattress between the two countries waiting for the office to open at 8am tomorrow morning. So much for Petra. Gentleman that he is, he made me promise to see it for us both and try to enjoy myself and have a nice evening with a nice meal and enjoy the sunset. VERY HARD. I won't really be able to relax until we are on that ferry. Egypt is still a big nightmare because we don't know what they are going to demand at the border. We think something called a "Carnet de Passage" which, of course, the Qataris don't know anything about. So, we don't have it. We just have export papers and whatever Arabic papers Erik got today.

So, I attempted to enjoy the evening. Hard but, that's how it is.

Here's the sun over Petra.

Going...

going,

gone.