Easter and Dramas of a Crazy Cat Lady
With Easter approaching, I've noticed more and more differences between the two countries. America celebrates it on Sunday and maybe, MAYBE on Good Friday. Norwegian citizens get 1/2 day Wednesday off work, and everything shuts down Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday of course, and Monday. For true Norwegians this means a great time to welcome spring and finally being without snow (maybe), so they go up into the mountains and go skiing with friends or family and enjoy more snow. Easter is still celebrated the same of course, but more or less reserved for more time away from work. God påske!
This also puts me in mind to say unlike America, Sundays in Norway are days where nearly everything shuts down with the exception of restaurants, gas stations, cinemas, bowling arenas and small grocery stores. I actually like this. I've worked maybe every weekend since I even began working and I really like the idea of having basically an entire society set aside one day to rest and catch up with family, friends, or just do as they wish.
However, for Arild and I we've been talking when a good time to visit US again after I make the move and we're thinking this would be a great time combined with vacation. It's not TOO hot in Kentucky, so it's suitable for Arild and he won't melt, but it's of course pretty and no sign of snow (unless KY weather gets weird again, no surprise there).
With that being said, I do think with the benefits Norway has compared with America (I personally think when getting into all of this, there are many MANY differences), I do think the country not only includes ALL citizens in it's benefits, but is more family oriented and "family friendly" than America. I think the benefits to living in Norway are basically set up to gain happier citizens.
In fact, the Scandinavian countries are all in the top ten list of happiest countries. WHAAAAAT? Cold weather = happy people? Forbes, as well as many other reliable sources have published lists of the world's happiest nations. This list from 2009 actually is just more simplified and breaks down the facts. ---> Happy Cold People :-) Norway being #9 on the list.
Moving on to *dramatic music playing in background* dramas of a crazy cat lady... we were bound to run into a nightmare somewhere. This moving, the wedding planning, the paperwork, everything was going remarkably well. However, moving a cat from one country to the next is not going so well.
The travel agency originally booked Stella's flight in-cabin with ours. I was quite pleased with this. Of course, I'd have my cat with me, I can make certain she is taken care of. Well, after Arild double checked our flights and seating he realized it no longer had a reserved space for a cat. So he asked the travel agency about this who in turn, after a few confused conversations on their part, finally told him pets are not allowed in cabin when traveling from US to Norway.
I've called Pet Safe and they originally told me of how Stella's flight would be set up, which of course would be different than ours. Her flight would be Louisville-Cleaveland-Newark-Oslo. That alone would be a tremendous amount of stress on a person, let alone a 3 year old cat. I also did not like this idea of her being on a separate flight than me. After a long conversation and them telling me her flight would be at 4 in the morning, they realized this flight does not allow pets, THANKFULLY!
I then asked them, well, why can't she just be in-cabin with us from Louisville-Newark and then ride cargo from Newark-Oslo as that seems like the best possible way to go. After being told, "Let me ask my teamleader." I was told news that this is indeed possible, but not at a small price of course.
Hopefully within the next few days, what unresolved questions I have can be answered and we can have our little Stella's flight booked.
Moving out of country with a pet is no easy task, it takes multiple vet trips, certification, faxing this and that, microchipping, booking their flight. All of this is horribly, horribly expensive. Is Stella worth it, this interesting ball of fur who always hogs my pillow at night? Without a doubt! :-)
I've been asked many questions about how I'm moving my things over. At first, I contacted an international movers company and considering the amount of things I'm keeping and taking with me was not worth the quote I was given and I don't really think it's worth the hassle either unless you're actually moving large items. For me, I'm just using boxes from the local post office or just boxes of any kind and packing them completely full of my things.
I have learned the hard way boxes (post office boxes) are cheaper to send internationally through the postal service if there's brown packing paper wrapped around it. There's up to a $7 difference with it being wrapped depending on weight of course.
The most recent box was actually the largest I sent and I was expecting the price to be outrageous ( $150-200) but the 21lb. box cost $85 to send. Full of my pots, pans, new fluffy towels, clothes and whatever else I could find to wrap in bubble wrap and stuff in there.
I think (maybe) I'm beginning to grasp the gender of nouns now. This has been difficult for me, but not as difficult as it is trying to get the courage to speak Norwegian aloud. I know food words pretty well as well as kitchen words (that's where the food is kept, right?) so I was explaining to Arild what I was doing in Norwenglish. Jeg er putting poteter i ovnen. I am putting potatoes in the oven.
Potato = potet
Potatoes (plural) = poteter
An oven = en ovn
Gendered noun in sentence (the oven) = ovnen (basically ovn + en)
Also, my Netflix subscription is running out soon and I was reading the English titles of the Norwegian movies to Arild, but sometimes the English title doesn't match with the Norwegian translation at all. So, this has given me a chance to speak movie titles out loud to him and try to get a grasp on how some letters are pronounced silently and pronunciation of some other letters. One that is particularly hard for me (other than the R or shall I say, RRRRRRRRR) is "yn" together. As in this movie title, De Usynlige.
This also puts me in mind to say unlike America, Sundays in Norway are days where nearly everything shuts down with the exception of restaurants, gas stations, cinemas, bowling arenas and small grocery stores. I actually like this. I've worked maybe every weekend since I even began working and I really like the idea of having basically an entire society set aside one day to rest and catch up with family, friends, or just do as they wish.
However, for Arild and I we've been talking when a good time to visit US again after I make the move and we're thinking this would be a great time combined with vacation. It's not TOO hot in Kentucky, so it's suitable for Arild and he won't melt, but it's of course pretty and no sign of snow (unless KY weather gets weird again, no surprise there).
With that being said, I do think with the benefits Norway has compared with America (I personally think when getting into all of this, there are many MANY differences), I do think the country not only includes ALL citizens in it's benefits, but is more family oriented and "family friendly" than America. I think the benefits to living in Norway are basically set up to gain happier citizens.
In fact, the Scandinavian countries are all in the top ten list of happiest countries. WHAAAAAT? Cold weather = happy people? Forbes, as well as many other reliable sources have published lists of the world's happiest nations. This list from 2009 actually is just more simplified and breaks down the facts. ---> Happy Cold People :-) Norway being #9 on the list.
 |
| A happy cold person. Enjoying warmth and sunlight. AKA The Husband. |
The travel agency originally booked Stella's flight in-cabin with ours. I was quite pleased with this. Of course, I'd have my cat with me, I can make certain she is taken care of. Well, after Arild double checked our flights and seating he realized it no longer had a reserved space for a cat. So he asked the travel agency about this who in turn, after a few confused conversations on their part, finally told him pets are not allowed in cabin when traveling from US to Norway.
I've called Pet Safe and they originally told me of how Stella's flight would be set up, which of course would be different than ours. Her flight would be Louisville-Cleaveland-Newark-Oslo. That alone would be a tremendous amount of stress on a person, let alone a 3 year old cat. I also did not like this idea of her being on a separate flight than me. After a long conversation and them telling me her flight would be at 4 in the morning, they realized this flight does not allow pets, THANKFULLY!
I then asked them, well, why can't she just be in-cabin with us from Louisville-Newark and then ride cargo from Newark-Oslo as that seems like the best possible way to go. After being told, "Let me ask my teamleader." I was told news that this is indeed possible, but not at a small price of course.
Hopefully within the next few days, what unresolved questions I have can be answered and we can have our little Stella's flight booked.
Moving out of country with a pet is no easy task, it takes multiple vet trips, certification, faxing this and that, microchipping, booking their flight. All of this is horribly, horribly expensive. Is Stella worth it, this interesting ball of fur who always hogs my pillow at night? Without a doubt! :-)
I've been asked many questions about how I'm moving my things over. At first, I contacted an international movers company and considering the amount of things I'm keeping and taking with me was not worth the quote I was given and I don't really think it's worth the hassle either unless you're actually moving large items. For me, I'm just using boxes from the local post office or just boxes of any kind and packing them completely full of my things.
 |
| Huge Box! |
The most recent box was actually the largest I sent and I was expecting the price to be outrageous ( $150-200) but the 21lb. box cost $85 to send. Full of my pots, pans, new fluffy towels, clothes and whatever else I could find to wrap in bubble wrap and stuff in there.
I think (maybe) I'm beginning to grasp the gender of nouns now. This has been difficult for me, but not as difficult as it is trying to get the courage to speak Norwegian aloud. I know food words pretty well as well as kitchen words (that's where the food is kept, right?) so I was explaining to Arild what I was doing in Norwenglish. Jeg er putting poteter i ovnen. I am putting potatoes in the oven.
Potato = potet
Potatoes (plural) = poteter
An oven = en ovn
Gendered noun in sentence (the oven) = ovnen (basically ovn + en)
Also, my Netflix subscription is running out soon and I was reading the English titles of the Norwegian movies to Arild, but sometimes the English title doesn't match with the Norwegian translation at all. So, this has given me a chance to speak movie titles out loud to him and try to get a grasp on how some letters are pronounced silently and pronunciation of some other letters. One that is particularly hard for me (other than the R or shall I say, RRRRRRRRR) is "yn" together. As in this movie title, De Usynlige.
English titled, "Troubled Water" rather than "The Invisible" which is already the name of an American film.
We now have Arild's wedding band ordered and engraved!!! It's very nice and considering I have a colored engagement ring, we decided to go with his wedding band having a bit of the same color in it as my ring. :-)
Trying to decide what to have engraved was fun. We of course just went with the date of the wedding and our names, but I pointed out to him no one will ever see it until he dies. So we made a few jokes about that. "Don't give insert name here my stuff." was a quote he came up with. "Kids, if you're reading this - I'm dead." was something I came up with. :-) "Arild & Evelyn May 18, 2012" is what it reads now.
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