I tried to get the internet and house phone hooked up today, but that was impossible since we don’t yet have our official Norwegian ID numbers. I will surely die if I have to wait two more weeks to have internet access in my home. (Turid calls me a “blog-a-holic” since I’m constantly looking for non-secure wi-fi connections in the neighborhood to get a signal and post my blog.) She tried to help me out today but she went down every rabbit trail on Telenor’s website to find out how to subscribe via the internet, and got nowhere. She then called the company and got into voice jail for which there was no return, so she had to call again, only to hear a recording that it was a twenty minute wait to be helped (at least there are some things here that are the same in America.) When you pay 50 cents per minute to be on any phone, you don’t sit on hold for too long, so she hung up and called the store at the mall where we got our cell phones. She knows the guy that works there and he told her – thank goodness – our efforts were in vain anyway until we get our Norske ID numbers. (At least we didn’t have to wait 20 minutes on hold to find that out.) I guess they don’t have such things as illegal aliens in this country because you just can’t do a thing here without their social security number equivalent. Turid also showed me how to pay bills on-line, the Norwegian way. It’s similar to America but with a lot more security steps to jump through as it’s their only option for moving money around.
I also went to the post office today to register our address as being active again. I have to fill out paperwork and send it in to some central location so they know we are here (and yes, they need to know our ID numbers for that, too). People also take their mailboxes with them when they move, so we had to buy a new one. Axel called the Aalesund Kommune to get our garbage service activated. Odd wrote down the current meter numbers on our electrical box and called the power company to register us with them. The meter boxes are inside the house so they never come out to read them, it’s all done digitally. Can’t wait to get that first bill. Even though I now have a dryer, I still hung up clothes today to save on electricity (but I do that at home, anyway – I just only do it in the summer. They do it indoors here year round.)
Kory spent most of the day on his “watchman” job here at The Sinking Houses. He went around and talked to all the neighbors, measured all the corners of the houses and “got familiar” with the place, as he calls it. He’s going to drive some rods down into the ground on each corner, then nail a ruler to the buildings so he can measure how much the ground moves. Currently it’s sinking at a rate of two inches per month and I guess the sewer lines have broken several times as they don’t take all the movement too well. (If that happens again I guess we can call the place The Stinking Houses.) Kory managed to round up some closets, light fixtures and window coverings from some of the other houses here (he has keys to all of them now). It will be sold as a package deal to some investor so we don’t feel bad using things from the other places and it saves us thousands of dollars in not having to buy them.
Kaleb spent the whole day playing with cutey girl, Sabina (see photo). It’s so nice he likes to be with kids his age - Hallelujah! She turns 10 next week. They watched Ben 10 on her TV, rode bikes, played with Alfred the dog next door, jumped on a neighbor’s trampoline and picked more blueberries for pancakes. The pancakes they have in this part of Norway are called “Svela” (probably not how you spell it but that’s how it sounds). But figure this– Norwegians eat French fries with a fork and knife, but they eat pancakes with their hands! They sprinkle sugar or jam or a thick kind of syrup on the pancake and roll it up and eat it like a burrito. But their pancakes aren’t like ours… Svela is special to just this area in Norway and the key ingredient is something called “Hjortetakksalt.” I bought it a few years ago and brought it home so I could make Svela and it’s a powder that smells exactly like ammonia (or pee, whichever you prefer) and the scary thing is, if you translate that name Hjortetakksalt, it means “thanks to the deer salt”… so ya gotta wonder what’s in there. (It makes the pancakes a little bit rubbery so they can be rolled up without breaking.) So Sabina had her first taste of American pancakes today and she looked at me like I was crazy when she discovered blueberries in them. She preferred the ones without. I guess she’s used to the pee.
I also went to the post office today to register our address as being active again. I have to fill out paperwork and send it in to some central location so they know we are here (and yes, they need to know our ID numbers for that, too). People also take their mailboxes with them when they move, so we had to buy a new one. Axel called the Aalesund Kommune to get our garbage service activated. Odd wrote down the current meter numbers on our electrical box and called the power company to register us with them. The meter boxes are inside the house so they never come out to read them, it’s all done digitally. Can’t wait to get that first bill. Even though I now have a dryer, I still hung up clothes today to save on electricity (but I do that at home, anyway – I just only do it in the summer. They do it indoors here year round.)
Kory spent most of the day on his “watchman” job here at The Sinking Houses. He went around and talked to all the neighbors, measured all the corners of the houses and “got familiar” with the place, as he calls it. He’s going to drive some rods down into the ground on each corner, then nail a ruler to the buildings so he can measure how much the ground moves. Currently it’s sinking at a rate of two inches per month and I guess the sewer lines have broken several times as they don’t take all the movement too well. (If that happens again I guess we can call the place The Stinking Houses.) Kory managed to round up some closets, light fixtures and window coverings from some of the other houses here (he has keys to all of them now). It will be sold as a package deal to some investor so we don’t feel bad using things from the other places and it saves us thousands of dollars in not having to buy them.
Kaleb spent the whole day playing with cutey girl, Sabina (see photo). It’s so nice he likes to be with kids his age - Hallelujah! She turns 10 next week. They watched Ben 10 on her TV, rode bikes, played with Alfred the dog next door, jumped on a neighbor’s trampoline and picked more blueberries for pancakes. The pancakes they have in this part of Norway are called “Svela” (probably not how you spell it but that’s how it sounds). But figure this– Norwegians eat French fries with a fork and knife, but they eat pancakes with their hands! They sprinkle sugar or jam or a thick kind of syrup on the pancake and roll it up and eat it like a burrito. But their pancakes aren’t like ours… Svela is special to just this area in Norway and the key ingredient is something called “Hjortetakksalt.” I bought it a few years ago and brought it home so I could make Svela and it’s a powder that smells exactly like ammonia (or pee, whichever you prefer) and the scary thing is, if you translate that name Hjortetakksalt, it means “thanks to the deer salt”… so ya gotta wonder what’s in there. (It makes the pancakes a little bit rubbery so they can be rolled up without breaking.) So Sabina had her first taste of American pancakes today and she looked at me like I was crazy when she discovered blueberries in them. She preferred the ones without. I guess she’s used to the pee.
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