We love May

May! The best month to be a salaried employee in Norway, because there are more public holidays in May than you can shake a stick at. All those pretty, pretty red days on the calendar.

The 17th of May, Norways favorite holiday

First we have May 1, May Day for you old commos out there, a public holiday. It fell on a Sunday this year, but no worries, Thursday the 5th is Ascension (Kristi himmelfartsdag). Throw in a flexi, you've got yourself a 4 day weekend.

Next Sunday is Pentecost, Whit Sunday, whatever you like to call it (Pinse) and that one gets pulled over to Monday for a long weekend. The very next day is 17 May, National day, the most Norwegian of holidays. Time to polish up the silver and break out the national costumes.

All of this is my roundabout way of saying, that a daily blog entry might not be on the cards for a couple of weeks with all these holidays getting in the way. Pray for sunshine and temperatures above 10 degrees! There's probably at least one more, but I can never remember them all. After the dirge of winter, Norway seems to have made sure that as soon as there is anything like serviceable weather, the holidays start to appear like geese from the south.

The joys of commuting

Quality time with my merry fellow commuters

I thought I might share with you all a typical commute for me. Since I've been working in Oslo, it's been progressively more challenging to get myself out the door and into my office in good time. I tried the express bus for a few months, but the delays were too frequent. A 2 hour each way trip was just too much. Not to mention the alarm going off at 5:45 every morning just to be out the door no later than 6:30.

Since switching to the train, things have improved. Only 85 minutes on the train and another 10 to walk to the office. I was a little reluctant to switch to the train for politcial reasons, but that's a rant for another day. It might lack the cosy ambience of the bus, but saving nearly an hour a day has been nothing to sneeze at. No change in the alarm time, regrettably.

The fabulous Nationalteater station Oslo

The main reason that saving the time has been good is that I now get to spend almost an hour with my family before the youngest member gets heaved into her cot for the night. I think if I don't score a job in Oslo, I had better try really hard to get something closer to home.

Speaking of job, I had a meeting with the administrative boss yesterday as to the current state of play with my soon to be ex-position. Lordy! Applicant number one on the list has dropped out after he got a more attractive offer from NRK (Norwegian ABC). Applicant number two now has to be offered the position. It doesn't seem likely that he'll refuse, considering he already works somewhere in among the masses of HiO support staff here. But, it's a long walk without a drink... who knows? Applicant number three will keep you all posted as the situation develops.

Gratutious cheesecake

The one we've been waiting for

At long last, the baby on the sheepskin! This is the one I'll be using when the potential boyfriends start turning up in about 13 years time.

Another baby picture...?

Yes, another baby pic

Strangely enough, we had a request to put up more baby pictures. Go figure! Only too happy to comply. LC is rapidly closing in on 7 months. We've been working on the traditional naked-baby-on-the-sheepskin picture and will have that up soon. In the meantime, here she is, high hair and all.

Some Norske way we were...

Kristin and Rannveig at Husky

Taken on the infamous plankton bloom trip the week before Christmas 1994 at Huskisson, Jervis Bay. Kristin Haraldstad, a close friend to Rannveig had made the journey south to visit. I have fond memories from this trip, including practically every guy on the boat tripping over themselves to try and make time with her, (no luck of course, the smell of desperation is never attractive), the severely hungover and later, seasick, divers and the opal coloured water that was as cloudy as paint because of the plankton. Kim, what happened that Navy guy you picked up at the pub the night before? ;)

Nice bunad, kids!

Taken from the day Rannveig and I got "married" again, Norwegian style at Ringebu Kirke. Euro summer 93' I'd think. Peter, Kristina, Ingeborg, Sunniva and Stefan do the national costume thing during one of the few moments they could be convinced to stay still for 5 seconds to get a picture.