Invasion commencing - Establish beach head.

Well I'm here. I arrived last Friday and I've been here for four days now. I'm still holding my breath so to speak, as it hasn't sunk in yet that I'm not on holiday. Though the last few days have certainly felt like it!

First thing after landing in Torp airport (and then going onto the longest coach ride ever! - Thanks for making it interesting Naveen!), me and Ingie went straight to the local park and frolliked on the swings like a pair of emo fukwits. Very fun! Definitely going to have to do this more often. I even got to borrow this fantastic jacket with a Kiss logo on the front (Of which certain people back home will doubtless kill me for - you know who you are...).
Onto the Dubliner for an evening session of folk music drawn from both English, Irish, Scottish and even Welsh styles. The Dubliner by the way is an awesome "Pub, Pub." As in not a wine bar. Sorry Wetherspoons, you fail. Drinks are not cheap but the atmosphere is bloody priceless. Expecially as little Miss Ingie was part of the session crew, singing amongst expert fiddlers, whistlists (sp?), and erm, guitarists etc. You get the idea. Anyway, I ended up babysitting a very energetic young half Scot half Norwegian who knew little English. I think he learn't as much from me as I did him as we tried to make sense of one another.

Sunday saw ups and downs in a terrifying 40 deg sun, queuing up for a massive swimming pool, open air called Frognerparken, only to find the big pool was closed until Monday. Damned if I was paying 15 quid to get in. Still, we found a quiet spot in the park and relaxed. Not half bad.
For the evenings entertainment we went back to the Dubliner for another session as above. There Ingie introduced me to a friend of hers, a f***ing brilliant bloke who I'll call R, who had moved over from Scotland some 15 years prior. He offered to show me the way to deal with the work forms, how to play the whistle and show off his sailing boat!

On Monday we retried to visit Frognerparken's swimming pools and it was well worth it! Heat enough for an insta-tan, warm semi chloreend pool (as in less Chlorine than us brits use) and finding out that not swimming in twelve years can cause hilarity. Doggy Paddle for the save. I'd forgotten how great an excercie swimming was!
Oh and had more of the Norwegian hot dogs (with cheese in the middle - oh yeah!).

Today, the aforementioned sailing! Never been in a sail driven boat on the open sea. Seeing R's missus panick as we Keeled and went sideways was fantastick. As far as I was concerned, if R wasnt panicking I sure as hell wasn't going to. (Well... show it at least). Learnt a hell of a lot that day, and I saw my first Moose, a calf that thought it was a dolphin as it swam between the islands in the Fjord. Crazy.

Now, for the technical bit, I.e. Making a permanent stay here possible, I've decided to do the following: I'm going to break down any future posts into three categories, keeping it all as organized as I could. Really, this just represents the three most important things in staying here, the language, the job and the bloody social life (ie, have fun etc and not go crazy).

Language.
Ok, adding onto what I have learnt in books and previous visits, thanks to Mr R, I've got a place to check out for a course to go on. He never found much use, but he's still relativly fluent after two years. I think I'll try it!

Job.
Got a part time thingy next weekend to get me started. But, I now have a few connections even before I've been able to bother the local job agencies. Still, got a few lined up once I've sorted out my buerocrap.

Social life!
Made some great friends, some I already new, others I've already met. Strangelt most of them are people from the UK and Ireland living abroad. Others are Norwegians who've been exposed to the wonders of above said countries. Excellent.

Anywho, that will do for now I think. I'll be putting up a few links for the places I'm going to next time I get chance to sit down at my laptop for more than a few seconds!

Miss you all!