Adjusting...

The first days have been quite a change. Obviously.

I realised how long I've lived in Finland and how very familiar everything had become. And how relaxing it is, when you know your way around! :) I started to remember the feeling, when you don't understand a word, can't read a thing, and need hours in the supermarket in order to buy some food (which by the way looks just wrong because it's not familiar! ;) ). Not to talk about the question where to find the nearest and best supermarket or a good place to walk the dogs! 

'our house'

The day I moved into the new apartment, already traumatised and tired ;) , pretty much everything was wrong with the flat: the heat pump in the living room - the sole source of warmth for the entire apartment! - didn't work properly. It was less than 20 degrees inside. Even worse, the floor heating (and only source of heating) in the bathroom was off, and the temperature in the bathroom was close to outside temperatures (so around 9 degrees). Also hours after switching it on, the temperature didn't raise a digit. The light switch in the bedroom didn't work, the balcony door didn't close (fuelling the apartment with fresh air... hmm), one socket in the kitchen was dead, and there was an old sofa blocking the entry to my apartment. 

In addition, I couldn't move in the apartment due to all the moving boxes standing around, and I had caught the flu, which made me even more grumpy and tired of it all.

Yes, yes, poor me! :-P

Having a nap on the sofa. Heat source: Charlie! ;)

The very same evening, I sent a snivelling e-mail to my landlord, who resides in the US, and I started to check out apartment ads, as I was sure that I had to move again and right away! ;)

But then the next morning came! My landlord had answered me, promising to take care of everything. No worries! A few minutes later, my neighbour Geir, who lives in the apartment below mine, came by. He doesn't speak English, and so we communicated in Norwegian (he) and in English/Finnish (me) - and somehow understood each other. :-D But admittedly, it wasn't that difficult, because some Norwegian words are not only funny, but close to German. When he asked me, e.g., for a "stöffsuger" it wasn't all that hard to guess that he wants me to get a vacuum cleaner (aka Staubsauger). :-D

So Geir cleaned the heat pump (with the "stöffsuger", my currently favourite Norwegian word! :-D ) and closed the balcony door (by slamming it real hard). :-D

An hour later, Stian came by, another friend of my landlord, and he fixed the bedroom lights and set up the TV for me - to be a good example of Norwegian hospitality! :-D

In the afternoon, Sindre, my landlord's son, came by to welcome me and to remove the sofa from my entrance. He also showed me on a map, where I could recycle all the empty cardboard boxes, which made more room to roam in my flat.

The following morning, a technician came by to service the heat pump, which now works the way it should. And next week an electrician will come take a look at my floor heating (in the meantime, the temperature has raised at least close to room temperature) and the broken socket. 

So I am not moving anywhere - not in the near future at least. :-) With an old house like this, there is all the time some new issues arising, I guess. But at least it has charme! ;) And I like the attitude of my landlord! In addition to sending me all of these people, he had also called me several times from the US, wanting to make sure that everybody had come and done what they had promised him! :-D

Happy again with the new flat. ;)

Another thing that still requires adjustment is the new city life! Oh, what a forest girl have I become??!! :-D For me, it is a little exhausting to have to have the dogs on a leash all the time. And on a short leash, next to me, because there is all the time people or bikers or cars passing by. I have to collect their poo again! ;) And even worse, my dogs have difficulties to even find a spot for pooping! :-D Especially Charlie is very picky, when it comes to hygiene, and he doesn't poop on the pavement - God forbid! :-) But there is not much green around us. The only green area close to us is a small cemetery, of which there are so many here in the city! Instead of parks, there's cemeteries... not very dog-friendly, I might say! ;-)

Of course there is nature close to us, too! But the thing is, to get there, I have to climb a mountain. But when I was sick the first days, I simply couldn't climb up, so I went to the (nicely at ground level) City center with the dogs, where there is a path leading around a lake. But that has been rather stressful. All the traffic and noise, and all these people. The boys didn't get to run and play... I felt so sorry for them!

And in addition, Stöpsel has acquired this really quirky eccentricity: He doesn't step on iron! He avoids gully gratings, he jumps over metal covers, and he bypasses everything that looks only remotely like iron... Sometimes it has been even dangerous, when he suddenly jumped onto the street in order to avoid stepping onto a gully. So I have become some sort of a gully/metal detector myself! I have to look where those potentially hazardous metal things are and then walk so that Stöpsel can circumvent them without any danger... :-D 

But then we came across this metal monster:

:-D

What did I do? I carried the Stöpseli over... :-D

Luckily, my flu passed rather quickly, and I now "offer nature" to the dogs at least every other day - meaning that we climb up the mountain behind our house. My legs have grown some substantial muscles already! :-D And it is not (yet) getting boring either, because the weather is different every day. We've been up there in sunshine as well as in pouring rain and storm already, and I can tell you that the feeling is very different every time! :-D

 Solheim is our turf! ;)

Apart from his metal aversion, Stöpsel is cultivating also another hobby here in the city: That is to keep watch! He always liked that, but when looking out of the window in Piikkiö, there wasn't much to "report". When he was lucky, a bird flew by... but that was all. ;-) But in Bergen!! Oh, there is so much to watch!

When I am home, he is rather quiet, and even if he is doing his watch duty and barking, I can stop him with just a word. But, but... as soon as I leave the apartment (my bathroom e.g. is somewhere else) he runs to the window and barks.

On Monday, when I went to my new work place, I thus kept the boys in my bedroom, where the window view is less accessible. But of course I don't really know how much more quiet Stöpsel has been - neighbours haven't complained yet. ;)

And talking about the new work place. Now that's a change, too. ;)

I was so happy that I can go to work by bike again - but didn't consider the differences in altitude... It was raining a lot on Monday, but enthusiastic as I was, I happily dressed into my new raincoat and the rubber boots and started cycling to work anyways. First, I went down, down, down, but then up, up, up, up - because my work place lies on the other side of the valley. My legs gave up after a few seconds already (so not fit...) and I had to push the bike uphill. I then completely lost orientation and went in the wrong direction, and it took me more than half an hour to eventually get back on track.

I eventually arrived at work: way too late, out of breath, sweaty, and soaked into water. Luckily, the pressure of wanting to make a good first impression was gone instantly in that moment - the new colleagues got to know the real me right from the start! ;-)

During my first lunch break, a Polish and a French girl then told me that my time in Bergen will be so tough for me. Not because of my entrance ;-) but because Norwegians would be so closed and distant people, who are very difficult to get in touch with. They wouldn't talk to strangers, and they would be friendly only on a superficial level, but as a foreigner it would be difficult to really become friends with a Norwegian.

Wait a minute.... That was planned differently! :-D

Well, but I am not believing this too much. Time will tell anyways. These kind of things always depend on where you've lived before and what kind of "standard" you are used to. And up until now (which is only a few days :-D ) I got the impression that Norwegians are more open than Finns (if I may generalise this so boldly :) ). I've been already looked at, smiled at, talked to, and taking a picture of (without asking for it)! ;-) From a "being-a-stranger-in-Finland" point of view that's pretty good already! ;-)

Oh, and I have met a Finn at work as well! One of my colleagues was pointing out to me that there would be Finns working here as well - just when one Finnish dude walked by. He told him that I would be also from Finland and that I have worked in Turku! - and the Finn just answered while keep walking away "Does that even belong to Finland??".... and gone he was with his Finnish hospitality! ;-)