Norway in the Air! Rick in a Uniform!

While being in Norge (Norway) I've been blessed with many unusual opportunities.  Hell, one of my rules to live by seems to be to say yes more than no, or rather force myself to do something different sometimes.
Never underestimate the experience of something new, even if it sucks. :D

While talking to two friends for the Larp community (Networking and friends, remember that!), I was invited to help out as a display actor for lack of better word, running a diorama around a model Spitfire.

Having been a fan of all things WW2 and before since I was a little lad, I couldn't say no.  Actually I was relatively drunk at the time and I may have said something like "Yush!"

Basically Norway has been in the flying of aircraft gig for 100 years and they were celebrating it across the country.  Next would be Oslo's turn as last in the line.  All of the significant era's of Norways airforce history would be celebrated.  Starting with the first flight of Baron Carl Cederström made on 14 October 1910:

http://www.europeanairlines.no/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/Timeline-06-01-2011.pd

They won't have any of this flying tom foolery!

Captain Willy English reporting!

One of the most exciting and most cursed displays was the WW2 RAF display of a crashed Spitfire, complete with injured pilot, admin staff, medic crew and engineers.
Guess who was playing the role of the stiff upper lipped RAF officer?
Meeeeee!

But cursed you say?
Well, I'd say so.  The organizers were plagued by all manner of bad luck, which while I had been left with a sense of foreboding, they basically improvised with something akin to genius.

No Spitfire?  Use a fiberglass model.  Model damaged?  Buy a bag of dirt, cover damage and make like the thing crashed.

Don't have all the uniforms?  Get something that looks like it.
The general consensus was anyone who had a problem with the accuracy of such things should be congratulated for noticing and sent on their way.

We were not there for them.  We were there for the kids, the families and everyone who was there to Oooo Aaaa, take photos and generally enjoy themselves.

Pilot to be injured, need bandages.

We ran improvised scenarios starting with everyone in their own vehicles (Jeep, medical truck etc) and running to the injured pilot clambering from his cockpit.  This one we did several times and always seemed to gather people.  I blame the blood.  It got everywhere!  In one of the "scenarios" the pilot was drunk!

Photo by: Ståle Askerød Johansen

Photo by: Ståle Askerød Johansen

Everyone in the team worked damned hard in incredibly hot weather.  I can't speak for anyone else, but at the end I smelt like hard work and had received my first proper sun burn for quite a while!

There was even a magical moment when one of the last surviving pilots of WW2 was chatting with our injured pilot seen below.  I didn't managed to sneak out my mobile for a photo but it was very popular with the visitors.


2 days of acting in character with a very talented team from the Larp community. 
 
For those interested in the Norwegians in the RAF, I humbly recommend research into the 331 squadron, which this diorama was based upon.
http://www.europeanaf.org/history/331.htm

And there were the planes.

http://youtu.be/U9L8XHIPiS0

Thanks for reading!

R

Tick Bites in Norway (Is this country trying to kill me?)

I've had some strangely close calls since being here in Norway.  Within weeks of arriving, jobless and with little more than a suitcase of belongings I was stricken with a tooth that had died inside and become little more than a bacteria factory.
When the Dentist (highly recommended them) says "we need to do this now" and starts without permission, you bloody well let it happen.  Apparently the inside of the offending tooth had been feeding harmful crap into my blood stream (in my head) for the last few months.  Nearly lost an eye.

Of coarse the next shock came when I received the bill.
5000Kr for the lot.  Which apparently is cheap by Norwegian standards.
By by savings... Damn I was missing the NHS...

Anyway, recently I had another scare.

Now I might have mentioned the activity known as Larping.  Live action roleplay.  Now in Norway they generally do this differently than in the west.  Far more emphasis is put on the acting in character than the "fireball!" part that's found everywhere else.

At the end of these Larps (or Laiv) there is usually much drinking.  Now being drunk in a forest is a humbling affair, especially when you wake up the next morning bitten from head to toe by "Mygger" which I believe are mosquitoes.

One of those bites got worse.  Found just above my right ankle, one assortment of little bite marks started getting worse, redder and bigger.  Generally being ignorant of such things I pretty much assumed my awesome immune system would take care of it and tried not to itch.


"Ass" out of "u" and "me?"

A few weeks later, while helping my girlfriends parents with their cellar clean out, they noticed the mark on my leg and were rather alarmed.  Apparently it looked like a Tick bite and apparently I needed to see a Doctor immediately.

This turned out to be an adventure in itself.  In Norway, the health service exists in a private and not so private system.  First I went after convenience: walking to the nearest center, my mind filled with worrying facts about Tick Bites (Flått biter) crippling me at a later age. That first place was closed due to "server issues."

I wasn't impressed.  So I went to the next nearest.  Which after waiting for nearly 3 hours as a "non member" watching "members" go in as priority, I found out a simple look at my leg would cost me around 1000 Kroner (that's about 110 GBP).  Erm... no.  Just no.

Eventually I went to the most public version of the many Doctor's practices in Oslo.
I was seen within an hour, got tested for Lymes disease (which came negative), had my bites even measured for snake bites (I was drunk, but I'd like to think I'd have noticed a snake!), and then promplty got a shrug from the Doctor who gave me a prescription for some wonderful "answer to all problems" antibiotics.  Apparently there was so many bite marks in that region that she hadn't a clue what had happened, but the rash wasn't stopping and I did have the white circle mark.  Total cost including medication? 620 Kr.


Overall, anticlimax.  No problem with that!

Still, it had been a bit of an emotional roller coaster, starting with drunk in the forest, ending in a hospital room with my pants rolled up.  It seems like everyone had an opinion about Tick bites, everything from the "meh" catagory through to the "doomyness."  The local tabloids have regular scary articles about them getting even more dangerous every summer.  Guess I should read the papers more, pinch of salt well prepared.

Two weeks later on medication which stopped me from having milk or cheese (No Tea or cheese on toast, it's like they hate me, bio-terrorism against the English...) the rash had gone, and once again I had survived this harsh deadly environment known as the Path to the North.  Norway.

The lesson here?  Twofold.  Alchohol and forests don't mix and if you see a bite mark which is getting bigger, pay the man and get it checked.

To end the post on a high, here is a storm: Skandinavisk style!  (Sorry about the quality, I'm not an expert and yes, you can here the locals playing football).

Thanks for reading!

R

Rumours of my demise, yadda yadda...

Hi all!

It's been a long time since the last post and I will admit that the passing of my Grand Mother really destroyed my blogging discipline (of which there was very little).
Being completely honest, it got me a little frightened.  More than the obvious tragedy of the death of a dear family member it really brought home the bigger picture.  Time was passing.  What was I doing with it?

A lot has happened since last we met.


The Job.

Getting straight to the meat of the matter, I have now received finally, a "fast" job.  Fast, is the Norwegian word for permanent (Think "Stuck fast").  After much stress and uncertaintly concerning my 6 month contract, it seems my ahem, hard work impressed someone.  Either that or they never found someone who could understand "Glasgi." (Read: Glasgow accent).

I have been exceptionally lucky.  After starting work there, my manager's manager moved on.  Then my manager left, leaving me alone in the department with someone who was sadly on half hours.
Then suddenly the company had acquired another company which logically (Sarcasm) meant loads of layoffs.  It was indeed as the senior director said "an exciting time."

"May you live in exciting times" being the oldest curse I know, I was not excited.

Hearing about the job cuts and general Conservative antics I'm used to happening at home, I was very, very aware of the fragility of my new job.  So I started looking elsewhere.

I also joined a Union.


A union?  Yupp.  Norway never had Margaret Thatcher.  Regardless on your standings on the idea of the workers union, Norway still has them.  And they work.  1 year into working under a series of increasingly smaller contracts was wearing thin and when push came to shove I personally believe that a combination of: working hard, proving that I was learning Norwegian, my "network" and of course my union membership all contributed.

So if you are lucky enough to get somewhere that has a Union, consider joining it.
Its really, really great for us invaders. Good for learning the "arbeidslov" (work law), meeting new people, you get great travel insurance and of course all the extras won by your Union representatives.
Put another way, if you are not in a Union, all of the rights on pay, extras etc that they win, you may not get.


Anyway, I am now nearly two years into working for the company and though its been hard for everyone, I am still there.  And I dare say I'm bloody useful now.  That's the trick I suppose, make yourself useful.  I work with some of the best people I've met and while I moan like a man trapped under a tree, it's possibly the best job I've had.







The Language.

Having rested on my laurels for quite some time, I've become great at what I know.  I've even subconsciously picked up expressions and the odd word along the way, yet even after all this time, I still get blank looks when I say something... always gut wretchingly embarrassing.  Luckily its not fatal.  If you can get over it and be interested in language then you can get through it and learn stuff.

If you get to a point where you can ask a very patient Norwegian speaker to explain what a word means in Norwegian, then you are on your way.  Well, I hope so, because that's the only milestone I can claim recently.

After talking with a Nord whose child is learning two languages, I've decided to turn my workplace into a "Norwegian" only domain.  Hopefully this will give me a venue to continue practicing while I return to studying from my book set.  Stein på Stein.  The second book in the series has seen my return more times than a doctors waiting room. Still, I believe that if you don't give up, you can never lose. (May not be applied to every situation).

In fact the very week I was hoping to start this, I got sick.  As in, "could not speak" sick.

Somewhere, some great entity is laughing at me.





The new place!

Thats right! I'm off work, typing this from our newer larger and better flat in Majorstua.  Gone is the tiny 33 Sq Metre box, it has done its job.  Spending time to renovate the new flat with fire and paint before moving in, it was quite the marathon.  Again, a very good friend helped me out with cheap supplies and great advice.  He even did half the work.  You could say he became a good friend in the process. 

We moved in finally last year in September and have not looked back.  It was another stepping stone on the path and I still can't believe this is working.

Increase in rent, but strangely, after surviving for so long on so little, its doesn't seem to be a problem.


What next?

Well, since I started this blog to follow my trials and travails in moving to Norway, i may well find that I have less and less to write about.  I think that I am through the hard bit.  It's not over.  I'm not fluent in Norwegian yet for starters, and yes, you should be when moving here.  It's only polite if anything.  And YES, you can learn the language.  Anyone can.  If you can deal with looking like a dick idiot once in a while. :)

I've been thinking of interviewing some friends who recently moved over, or others who've been here a while and get a general overview of how bad they had it.  It would be nice to compare notes regarding the increasing bureaucracy in this country, any racial walls and even moving over due to relationships, which happens a lot.

Once again though, I am writing this for others who are thinking of coming over. So if you have any questions, or need help with anything.  Let me know.

Thanks for reading.

Rick