learning important stuff

These last days I have learned some important things like how to keep my fluid intake up with minimal effort...

At the doctors we found out today that our little girl is a proud 2580g and 47cm.

saying goodbye

Today we went out in the cold and rain to wave goodbye to our brother-in-law as he and 58 other people started their 10 days long journey to the east to bring clothes, food and other goods to people in need.
We hope and pray that they will keep save on the roads, that the boarder crossings will go well and that they get to be a blessing to the people they will meet.

 can you see little Schmitti? :-)

 Big Schmitti next to his "home" for the next days

Gentlemen, start your engines! 

there were at least three times as many vehicles to either side

food and games

Today we enjoyed having my little brother's family-in-law over for dinner and a big round of games afterward.

Merry Christmas, God Jul, Fröhliche Weihnachten

Merry Christmas to everybody! We are thankful for a nice and relaxed Christmas celebration with my family, especially because we know it will most likely be the last one for a long time.

We are even more thankful to our heavenly Father who send His Son down to earth to us. Thank you, Lord, for being willing to come and die for us!

Erlend said that this Christmas is about 99% different from Christmas how it is celebrated in his parents house (he said he still liked it though), but we know that the reason for celebrating it is the same no matter which country you are in.

As far as pictures go I thought I would just post some snapshots from today.

 Everybodygot together to sing some Christmasy songs

Oma got an English Bible from all of her grandchildren (she is learning English for Erlend's sake)

Of course it was the most fun to see my 1 year old nephew unwrap and react to his gifts

Since my oldest brother and my sister in law could not come to Hof this year, we had some Skype-time

Erlend holding his niece for the first time, he is finally over his cold enough for it to be save to cuddle babies

He did it!!!

I could not be more proud of my husband! He passed his B1-level German exams and not only that, he passed them really well! Taking them after only living here for 3 months! Did I mention that I am SO PROUD of him?!?! :-)

The next (scary) step for him would be to find a job where he can use his German. Please pray for the Lord's guidance and help in that.

I actually had to pick up his certificate for Erlend at the school because he is stuck at home in bed with a nasty cold. Hope he gets better in time for his first German Christmas!

finally...

... my cold is gone (Erlend was so kind as to take it - he got it bad now) so I could go and meet my new niece for the first time. She is so precious and it is hard to believe how tiny she is. Even harder to believe that we will have one of our own in just over a month....

 she was a little camera shy by putting her arms in front of her face, but I bet you can still tell how adorable she is. I found out that it is quite hard to hold a little baby when you have a belly of your own.

with the big proud brother, I still can't decide what was cuter. Lina making faces at me or how proud Samuel was when he showed her to us for the first time.

2nd anniversary

Two years ago today I got to marry the man of my dreams and we are looking back on two awesome years of marriage. We are so thankful to the Lord for his constant love, provision and patience with us during that time.

We wanted to go to this swimming place that we both really like as our present to each other, but since I am still fighting a cold (I think I am winning slowly!) it did not seem like the smartest idea. But we did go out to dinner and had some seriously good food!

a niece

Yesterday my sister had her baby girl. We are all so thankful for her arrival and that everything went well at birth. We don't have pictures of her yet, but be sure that there will be a lot of them as soon as we have any.

always wanted to get one of those balloons for somebody, they are not very common in Germany but I still think they are so cool

advent candles

Just realized that I have not even posted a picture of this years' "Adventskranz".
The candles are left overs from our wedding, the numbers were a gift from my sister-in-law and altogether I went with simple as a theme :-).

white inside and outside

There is lots of snow here right now, Erlend has been shuffling a lot of it. He is also dealing with white stuff inside because he is painting my parents' staircase.

visit pictures a little late

Just a few snapshots from last week when M and S visited us. We are so thankful for the time we had together, it was fun, refreshing and very "meatful" :-).

we went to a museum that is located right at the former German/German border

right where we are walking was border territory less than 25 years ago

 S was soooo happy about all the choices of meat that are offered in Hof

 Erlend has been living here for 3 and a half months now and is still happy about the meat, too

 having somebody here who knows their way around a camera, of course, we had to take a belly picture

S fulfilling her lifelong dream by visiting the Christkindl Christmas Market in Nuernberg (and Hof and Munich)

spontaneous layover usage

We found out yesterday that our friends would have a layover in Frankfurt and so we decided to both come kind of half way and met up in Würzburg for a coffee.
It was so nice to catch up even if it was only for a couple of hours.

baby girl made her presents known through many kicks and her auntie E. was very thankful for that

Germany... from a Norwegians point of view...

I think I, Erlend, have only posted one or two times on this blog, but i thought it's now time to share some of my experiences, and differences from Norway, after living here in Germany for a few months.

The paperwork:

What needed to be done for Anne to stay legally in Norway:

First we read all the information we could find on the horrible website NAV, and afterwards we were non the wiser, because the people that write it don't seem to have a clue about how to write things in a way it can be remotely understandable. 

Then we went to the police station to apply for Anne's immigration as the wife of a Norwegian. The police secretary told us to fill in a two kilometer long piece of paper before telling us that since I had not worked in Norway lately it wasn't very likely that this would work, because Anne would only be let in on the grounds of being married to me if I could prove I could provide for her. And since I had lived in England for two years, and did not have 1 000 000 NOK (137 000 Euro) in my bank account, and since the application would cost us a little fortune, we had to give up.

But then there was the other way, she could get a job, and show the police her work contract, and that would give her permission to stay because she's from a EU country, and Norway has an agreement with the EU through their EEA membership even though Norway is not a part of the EU (that is very important to most Norwegians). 

So Anne got a job, got a work contract, went back to the police, they then told her the contract wasn't good enough. She went back to her employers, go a new contract, and again the police said it wasn't good enough, but after we had explained to the police that it was, because it met all of their requirements, and they admitted we were right, she could finally stay.

What needed to be done for me to stay legally in Germany:

We went to the Town Hall, Anne told the lady who she was, and that I was her husband and that I was Norwegian. The lady told me to sign a piece of paper and said "welcome to Germany."

The water:

There is right now 196 independent nations in the world, and if you go to any of them and ask for a glass of water in a restaurant, you get a glass of water.

... but in Germany you get carbonated water, you actually have to specifically order still water.

Method of payment:

In Norway

people don't use cash any more. It takes up all the room in your pocket, the coins are heavy and unnecessary and... well, a VISA is so much easier. And, yes, 99% of stores and shops accept VISA and Mastercard.

As a result of this, the smallest norwegian coin is the 1 Krone, which is worth 13 Eurocents.

In Germany

cash is king. Not just king, its the dictator! I went to a H&M to buy a sweater once, because the airline had lost my luggage, and the lady at the counter simply said "No cards" when I wanted to giver her my VISA. It wasn't just that they didn't take VISA, they did not take cards in general... in a clothing store!!!

I asked for the closest ATM (cash machine) assuming there would be loads of them everywhere, since cash is so common, but noooo! If i remember correctly there was only a few ATM's in the town, and the closest one was at least a kilometer away.... 

And, yeah, McDonalds only accepts cards in airports. (Anne says there are a few that accept cards now, but I have not seen any of them yet.)

Sale of alcohol:

In Norway

all acohols over 10% are only sold in special state owned "Wine monopolies," beer can be bought in grocery stores, but only between strictly regulated times. If I, when I worked at a grocery store in Norway, would have sold someone a beer after 8 at night, or after 6 on a saturday, the store could have lost its license and I could have lost my job.

In Germany

everyone sells alcohol! You can buy a bottle of hard liquor at a Autobahn gas station... Who drives down the autobahn late at night and suddenly thinks "hmmm... I really want a liter of Vodka."

I don't get it...

Oh, and there is also a law that there has to be something cheaper than beer on a restaurant menu, and that is usually water...

Roads:

To drive from my home town of Ålesund to where my sister lives in Bergen, ca 380 kilometers further south takes around 8 hours!

To drive from Hof, where we live now, down to Munich, where some of our family live, which is 300 kilometers south of here, takes 2 1/2 hours...

Conclution: German roads are awesome! Norwegian roads are cattle trails.

This is actually a part of the main road between Ålesund and Bergen

Tobacco advertisement:

In Norway
it is totally illegal to advertise tobacco. I have even seen movie theaters that cut cigarettes out of their movie posters.

In Germany
huge cigarette advertisement posters are a quite common sight in most towns and cities.

Fish:

On my home island in Norway, we all think of fish as free. Why pay for something you get for free right out of the ocean? And, not to brag, but the truth is, Norwegian fish tastes awesome.

Here in Germany I cannot enjoy fish. The taste is so similar to the smell in the fish factory I used to work at a few years ago. (Gjendembuda for those who know it)
And also, since I used to work on fishing boats, I happen to know that it is very likely that the fish that is for sale in places like this, far from the coast, could be up to 2-3 years old... Its frozen and stored to wait for the prices to go up.

Meat:

In Germany
meat is REALLY goooooood!!!!! An so cheap! At least compared to the prices I am used to.
There is no more to say, it's just fantastic! If you want confirmation on that, just ask people who have visited us here. To be fair though, Hof has a reputation to have one of the widest selection of meat in all of Germany.

In Norway
meat is usually very expensive, and after having tried the meat here, I have realized that much of the meat, particularly the breakfast ham, is not good at all. No wonder when you can see through it, and it only tastes of salt water...

Weather:

Everyone I meet here in Germany thinks that Norway is very, very cold. But the fact is, most people live on the coast in Norway, and because of the Gulf Stream, the cost in Norway is not cold.
On average we only have between 2 and 4 week of snow every year. Mostly it's not even snow, just slush and nasty stuff like that.

Germany, on the other hand has very cold winters. I have experience more days with minus Celsius this winter in Germany that in the 10 last winters put together in Norway.



I might post another blog like this, when I remember or experience more interesting cultural differences.

-Erlend

Christmas baking

Since it will be at least another day before I get more pictures from our time with our visitors, I thought I would blog about some Christmas cookie baking I did with my mom today.

We put the doug through a meat grinder (which we never grind meat in) and put it into little circles, later we will dip them half way into chocolate - yummy!

little baby girl must have had a growth spurt during the last two days because my belly is huge all of a sudden. Will post other pictures where you can see it better soon.

visitors

Erlend and I are beyond excited because his brother and his wife are visiting us. We get along so well with them, it is almost scary :-).

 started the day with a traditional white sausage breakfast

 of course both of them had to try steak in a bread roll (notice their awesome hair, both got their hair cut because it is a fraction of the prize here compared to what it would be in Norway)

also had some "Feuerzangenbowle" and I have no idea how to translate that, it is basically a Christmasy drink you can get at the Christmas market

Advent calendar

Welcome December! Time to start opening those little advent calendar presents. I decided to use last years trick and use Erlend's calendar as part of the Christmas decoration.

Movember

As November comes to an end Erlend was inspired to honor all those who participated in the Movember (letting a mustache grow during the month of November).

winter wonderland

We have our first snow of this winter. It still looks pretty, but if you look closely, in the middle of the road you can see what kind of snow we usually end up with most of the winter - the dirty slushy kind :-(

real men

This is what real men do while their girls are shopping for decoration :-)

being healthy

Today's lunch was exactly after our taste, big salad and baguette for me and the same plus a big steak for the hubby :-).

now that is cheap

Erlend has had a "hard" time adjusting to German prizes. To him almost everything is cheap here because he compares it to Norwegian prizes. Today we found something that was REALLY cheap, even by German standards. 1 liter Coca Cola for just 29 cents - that is a little bit more that 2 krone my Norwegian friends! Needless to say that Erlend and my little brother were seriously excited about this...

baking

We are having a church lunch tomorrow and that sounded like the perfect excuse for me to bake. I love baking and I haven't done it in such a long time because the oven in our apartment is uhm well it is smaller than a microwave, so cake forms don't fit into it....
So my mom's kitchen it was for todays baking session. The outcome were a marble cake as well as a raspberry-white-chocolate-cheesecake.
Since I forgot to take pictures while baking again I just took some pictures from the internet, oh well, me in an apron that did not really fit over my belly wasn't such a cool sight anyways :-)