Voicy does Norway

Good news, everyone!

The sun finally decided to come back. Albeit only for 20mins or so before it ducked down again ... but baby steps.

The last time we saw the sun here was around the 3rd week in November. It's still an odd thing to get used to, but other than being a novelty I don't think the dark affects me as much as people seem to say it does to visitors etc.

Personally I think the perpetual sunlight during June-August is a lot stranger on your brain because then the sun is out all the damn time and the day feels like it drags on forever.

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2 weeks back we got a ton of snow, but then the temp rose to +5 or so, resulting in a ton of rain...this made for SLIPPERY roads...and as luck would have it the temp fell again sharply, so now all the snow has hardened and there's just ice absolutely everywhere.

I powerwashed my car and the work bakkie this afternoon and by the time I was done with 1 half, the other half had frozen solid again. I had to powerwash my way into the car just to open the door because it had frozen as well. I am not a clever man.

Next time I'll try to take pics or video of because you can actually see it freezing in real time as if you're watching a Nat Geo timelapse of plants growing.

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I also had to go do some repairs at salmon factories this week which saw me going to a place I've never really seen much of, but is pretty spectacular.

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I didn't get to take cool pics of it so I'm just stealing this one from wikipedia:

View_from_a_ridge_between_Segla_and_Hesten,_Senja,_Norway,_2014_August.jpg

This area is also not very well known to tourists, but is becoming more popular due to the northern lights activity and scenery. It's a long drive from the main road though.

The guys over at VisitSenja™ bought a video camera that films it real time pretty well.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BeA82AKlFhI/?taken-by=visitsenja

It gives you a good idea of how it flickers.

Bonus clip: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd4xGoUlehJ/?taken-by=visitsenja

Favourite bonus clip: https://www.instagram.com/p/Bd0Gv6JFJVR/?taken-by=visitsenja


Bonus pic I took from my office window when the sky went all pink.

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hmmm...northern lights are on the bucket list.
Maybe I should trek Norway I see there is something called Hardangervidda..............
 
There was a report of a solar storm last night, but I was on 24hr standby for work, so I packed my tripod and just took a drive down to our local bridge to snap some pics:

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Bonus butt-selfie for ockielerouxenator. :p

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The forecast says there's another one on the way tonight, so we'll see what happens. It's been a bit lackluster here the last few weeks, but definitely a nice break from work stress and freezing temperatures.

An aside note, it's so icy and slippery now that when I parked my car the other night I woke up to find it half way into the street, just by sliding on the ice. It even slid further just from me climbing into the car, handbrake still up & in gear.
 
Cheers Morty,

Sadly little to no braaing up here. :(

EDIT: An over-abundance of moose/meese though.
 
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lived666 said:
Whats a moose burger taste like? (yeah and don't say moose :))
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Whaha fiiiine. :p

I haven't actually tried moose on a burger, buuut they make something here called Finnbiff/Finjebiff. It's pretty much a beef stew made from either reindeer or moose and it's my absolute favourite dish.

It combines the meat with milk, brunost (brown cheese), mushrooms, a bunch of flavouring and then served with tittyberries (tittabær). :D

https://www.tine.no/oppskrifter/middag-og-hovedretter/kjott/finnbiff
 
some great pics, when you start enjoying surströmming then you know you are a local :)
 
Voicy, like Mooseman... we all hate you in the nicest possible way you know :)
 
Hey friends,

No fancy photos or anything this week, but I did have my first proper run in with the medical system.

Went to the doc, only been once before. Everything gets recorded on pc as an online journal, so he had everything on my last visit from a different doctor.

Did some checkups (no coughing to the side or cavity searches involved) and he then gave me a perscription. This is where it got interesting. There was no note or anything. It's all recorded on the national medical system, so all I had to do was go to any pharmacy (they're all on the same system), give them my ID number and they automatically pulled my perscription from the doctor.

Cost me a total of R50 co-payment for the perscription meds and the doctor visit was R400 ... however this amount gets capped at R3k, so if you go to the doctor more than 9 times you don't pay anything else.


Moving on to another issue I had with my neck, so the doc says I need to get a CT / MRI scan. We have a brand new hospital one town over, but with a 6 month waiting period, so he's sending me to one further away with a 4-week waiting period, but that requires me to take a flight.

I told him I'd rather wait because $$$, but it turns out it's all covered by the state medical fund. I don't have a medical aid or gap cover or anything here. So I don't pay for flights or the scan. I just need to pay my own way to the airport and back (20mins away), which I'm more than fine with (but apparently even that is considered disgraceful by many norwegians).

So yeah, I guess this is one of the reasons we pay 45% income tax.
 
Voicy said:
Hey friends,

No fancy photos or anything this week, but I did have my first proper run in with the medical system.

Went to the doc, only been once before. Everything gets recorded on pc as an online journal, so he had everything on my last visit from a different doctor.

Did some checkups (no coughing to the side or cavity searches involved) and he then gave me a perscription. This is where it got interesting. There was no note or anything. It's all recorded on the national medical system, so all I had to do was go to any pharmacy (they're all on the same system), give them my ID number and they automatically pulled my perscription from the doctor.

Cost me a total of R50 co-payment for the perscription meds and the doctor visit was R400 ... however this amount gets capped at R3k, so if you go to the doctor more than 9 times you don't pay anything else.


Moving on to another issue I had with my neck, so the doc says I need to get a CT / MRI scan. We have a brand new hospital one town over, but with a 6 month waiting period, so he's sending me to one further away with a 4-week waiting period, but that requires me to take a flight.

I told him I'd rather wait because $$$, but it turns out it's all covered by the state medical fund. I don't have a medical aid or gap cover or anything here. So I don't pay for flights or the scan. I just need to pay my own way to the airport and back (20mins away), which I'm more than fine with (but apparently even that is considered disgraceful by many norwegians).

So yeah, I guess this is one of the reasons we pay 45% income tax.
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Could you not have asked for a generic version to lessen the co-payment?
 
ponder said:
@Voicy

Any updates?
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Oof! You guys still read this?

It's been a while so not sure where to start, but please feel free to ask me questions or topics you want me to talk about.

In the meanwhile some updates:

1) Finally got my permanent residence.

This included passing a language test. They usually require all migrants/refugees/whatnots to do 500hrs of language studies before taking the test, but because I could not be arsed, I just used Duolingo and winged it.

The same goes for doing 50hrs of "cultural studies" to make sure you understand western / nordic culture. I didn't do the classes either, but just did the test.

Here's a practice test if any of you would like to try it out:

https://enovate.no/voxdemo/samfunnskunnskap/ (Remember to change the language to english)

The course material can be found here if anyone wants to read up abit about it:

http://samfunnskunnskap.no/?page_id=181&lang=en


2) Ended up buying a house

This was the biggest "WTF" moment for me. Finally feeling like an adult.

I lived with my parents while living in SA, which is a sucky feeling, but there was just no way I could afford renting/buying my own place that wasn't a match box behind the dumps.

Here in Norway I used to rent a shitty little 1 bedroom place in someone's basement and it smelled like mildew and was just horrible. So I didn't mind being away for work as much as possible. The only upside was the 500/500 uncapped fiber.

So the gf and I have been looking around and it turns out that the majority of norwegians own their own places. It's quite strange to see how "normal" people in their 20s who work at the local Spar etc. own their apartment.

The avg interest rates here from banks is roughly 2.6% so it's quite affordable. Even more astounding is that my bond is 1.5x more than my rent was, but my place is probably 5x bigger.

The bidding process was also quite an experience. Being the 1st time buying for me it was scary as all hell, but worked out ok I guess.

The process is as follows:

The seller gets what they call a "takstmann" who does a full inspection (+-50 page 'prospekt' document)of the house and gives a valuation of it, pointing out flaws and issues as well as technical information on everything from the building materials to the ERF number and size and documentation with the municipality. It's quite thorough and it's freely available to anyone who wants to see it.

So once you have the "market value" of the house, you can go on the property register (online) which shows all properties in the area and who owns it and what it sold for. Everything is very very public here. You can even look up your neighbour's tax returns if that tickles your fancy.

So as soon as you request a "prospekt" from the agent you're on their notification list, so anytime anyone submits an offer you get an SMS to say what the offer is and how long its valid for, so then you can decide if you want to submit one yourself. You can submit a bid by SMS, but your 1st bid has to include a picture of your ID/drivers licence , signature and bid value. This then becomes a legally binding offer.

I missed out on a few houses because following the bidding sms's you just see the figures jump up like crazy as people were bidding against each other. Fortunately for the house I got, I was the only bidder so it was basically me VS the owner until we reached a happy medium where we were both unhappy. (Joking aside, I managed to get the place for around R300k below the takstmann's valuation.)

Part of the sales documents then also show all bids received, even if someone bid R5 and a garage pie, it gets registered. So there's a lot of transparency. What I don't like is that all the sales then get put in the local paper so everyone knows I bought the house and how much I bought it for. Nosey Norwegians!

I bought the place "in the sticks", but it's literally a 12min drive from my driveway to my office with zero traffic. People here think I'm crazy for living "in the sticks", but I hate people so it suits me just fine. It's also why the house price was so affordable for me (+- 1200sqm plot and double storey) vs say Oslo where city centre flats are going for R120k per sqm.
 
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Here's a video from the 2013 Arctic Race of Norway that goes through our town and around the 6min mark in this video they ride through my neighbourhood - to give you an idea of what it looks like. (A little worried to point out my house in case of stalkers, but I can PM pics) The 7-8min mark shows my daily commute over the mountain.


Speaking of which, for all you cycling nerds, the Arctic Race of Norway 2019 is doing a stage right through our town and past my door step! It's taking place on the 17th of August. Unfortunately I won't be home so I won't be able to wave the SA flag outside.
 
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Voicy said:
Oof! You guys still read this?
.
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Someone posted a pic of some norwegian mountain which reminded me of this thread, looked for it and saw it has not been updated. Makes for interesting reading thanks.
 
Thanks, very interesting, and congratulations with the house ! Tesla next ?

Just to pry a bit, are you going out with a Norwegian girl or did you ship over a SA girl ?

I guess better to have a Norwegian, because that gives you instant local family / friends ?
 
Jola said:
Thanks, very interesting, and congratulations with the house ! Tesla next ?

Just to pry a bit, are you going out with a Norwegian girl or did you ship over a SA girl ?

I guess better to have a Norwegian, because that gives you instant local family / friends ?
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Haha I wish! The boss just got himself a Model 3 and man that's one sexy car. Surprisingly affordable, but not quite yet for me. They are everywhere though.

The GF is norwegian so yeah insta-family this side. They all seem to think afrikaans boys are so well mannered. Holding doors is unheard of and helping to clean up after dinner is very surprising. Honestly the bar is set very low over here.

I just keep telling them my mom would donner me if she found out I wasn't acting the way I was raised.

Speaking of, quite a worrying trend over here is for "girls" to have kids from around age 18-20...often with different dads. Probably because all of the oil rig and fishery workers have more money than sense and have an itch to scratch while they're on shore leave. It's rare to find an attractive woman in her late 20's who isn't a "hot single mom". Fortunately I dodged that bullet.
 
We where in Denmark for a week on the Jutland peninsular last month and a lot of what I found there with the family I was visiting sounds very similar to what you are experiencing. Those Northern countries really are something. Absolutely loved my time there.
 
That neigbourhood looks exactly like my ideal type of place to live.. just minus the retarded cold period you suffer through.
 
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