The road to Ikea is paved with ice (and snow)

I took a few pictures outside today, not much else to do since the stores are closed on Sundays. The one below is my "running trail" also known as an ice covered sidewalk. I'm sure that CTB will think that is nothing compared to running in Minneapolis in January, but it's the best I can do right now :) I did see one other person running today so I'm not the only oddball here. Most of the Norwegians I see running here are probably just getting ready for XC ski season, so that's what I tell people as well.

There is also a speed skating oval not too far from my apartment. You can tell from that picture how much snow we've had in the last 5 days, because last weekend there wasn't any here at all.

Tomorrow should be a big day, I am going to open a Norwegian bank account at DnBNOR bank here in Trondheim. Maybe I'll get a free toaster or some lefse or something...I already have a toaster so the lefse sounds better.

I'm a real person....

Hurray! I got my Fødselsnummer in the mail yesterday. That is the equivalant of a U.S. social security number. Which means I can now actually get a Norwegian bank account and I won't have to get blank stares from the cashiers every time I pull out my U.S. Visa card. Also my washer and dryer arrived after work today. Two guys who apparently spoke no english or just didn't feel like talking showed up and installed the washer and dryer in less than 5 minutes. Now I have to do laundry of course which is the drawback to having a washer.

Hey my phone is ringing! ..oops

A table for my laptop!

Ok, if you want to be picky it's an ironing board but I prefer to think of it as a multimedia enabled work surface. In either case it will do for now until I get a real table.

I did also learn a very valuable lesson today: NEVER attempt to answer an important cell phone call while standing directly over a toilet. Bad things can and will happen.
Had I sucessfully answered the phone today, I might have my washer and dryer today, instead they "might" show up tomorrow.
Did you know that cell phones can ring under water? At least for about 4 rings...
Maybe the poor little phone will work tomorrow after it dries out, maybe not. Stay tuned...

The days in Trondheim are getting a bit short. Here's a handy little web page that shows the sun rise and sunset times.

http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=288&month=11&year=2008&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1

I'm here!

I arrived in Trondheim on Oct 28, which already seems like a long time ago...

I started work on November 3rd at Nordic Semiconductor, so I have just started my 3rd week at work. The first week at work I didn't know anything, so now I know just a little more than nothing :) Fortunately there are lots of new people at work and we're all learning new things at the same time.

I found an apartment after about a week of looking around. Here is a couple of pictures of the inside. Not much furniture yet, so I'm working on that

The weather has been OK, so far, or else I'm getting used to being cold. I walk to work about a mile from my apartment and so far I haven't frozen to death. Yesterday we had a nice little snow storm but most of it melted already.

If anyone ever needs advice on how to assemble furniture from Ikea, I'm your man. So far the only thing that really stumped me was when they wanted me to pound some metal shelves together with a block of wood under the hammer. I didn't have any blocks of wood. I didn't even have a chair. I finally substituted a catalog from Clas Ohlson, which is kind of the Swedish equivalent of merging Radio Shack with Sears and taking out all the stupid stuff like clothes.

It's the only store I've ever seen where you could buy Disco lights, PC power-supplies, metal studded bicycle tires, frying pans and candles all in the same place. Anyway the catalog worked as far as the shelves are concerned. Suffered a bit of damage to the Sport/Friluftsliv section in the back however.

I'm sure that the neighbors downstairs will be glad when my metal pounding phase is over.

I've found that Norwegians have 4 basic food groups - fish, pizza, hamburgers, and Mexican food. I have tried the pizza, both fresh and frozen but I've skipped the fish and hamburgers and I'm actually afraid to try the Mexican food. Food in the grocery stores is fairly expensive here, food in restaurants is off the charts. I've paid as much as 230NOK for a medium sized pizza and a beer for dinner, which is the equivalant of about $40. Needless to say I don't eat out that often.

Anyway that's my report for now, more to come....

Miles