From Our House to Yours

Hello everyone! After a long hiatus we have finally added some news to our blog. Most of you probably know this already, but Carl recently accepted a job at TANDBERG in Norway. Although it’s challenging any time you try to relocate a family of six, let alone to a place as far away as Norway, we are very excited about this new adventure and convinced that it will be a valuable learning experience for all of us.

Packing up our things for the move

During the past couple of months we have been packing as much as possible and trying to prepare for the move. We’ve been selling some things we can’t take with us, like the cars (they were old anyway) and some of the furniture. Carl’s brother, Ben, is buying a new home, so the timing was good to offload some of our stuff onto him. We also sold some of it on ksl.com and craigslist.

Another big part of getting ready was trying to slim down the amount of stuff we wanted to bring with us. We have ordered one of the new Nook eReaders from Barnes and Noble, and are digitizing many of our books, albums and movies so that we can bring them all over on a hard drive instead of in a bunch of heavy boxes. Carl made a Youtube video about this process:

Carl was scheduled to leave on December 1st, and Kami and the kids will be joining him as soon as the house sells. After a lot of stress getting ready, Carl’s departure time eventually arrived. The rest of this is his first-hand account.

Norway!

During the final days before leaving I was scrambling to get as much stuff packed and digitized as I could before I left so that Kami didn’t have too much left over. As it was, Kami still ended up with a lot of things on her plate but I feel like we did at least put a decent dent in things. All this work left me with very little time to pack my bags. In the end Kami and I were scrambling to stuff whatever we could into my two huge Walmart-special cheapo suitcases before I missed my flight. We crammed so much in that I had to take stuff out at check-in to avoid a $500 overweight baggage fee. I rearranged stuff and sent Kami home with one of my bags, only ending up with a $200 fee for one extra bag (my saxophone).

Svein Magnussen, a Bergen resident I met on the flight to Norway

During the flight from Salt Lake I happened to sit by a guy named Svein who was from Bergen, Norway. We had an enjoyable conversation discussing my move, our families and lots of other things. Svein invited me to visit him in Bergen, which was very nice. He and I went all the way to Copenhagen on the same flights and also had dinner together in the Chicago O’ Hare airport.

Touching down at the Oslo Airport in Gardermoen

After a day-long tiring flight I arrived in the Oslo Airport, which is actually in Gardermoen, a small city that is about 15-30 minutes away from Oslo. From there you can take the Flytoget to Oslo, a nice modern train that leaves every 15 minutes or so and gets people where they need to go fast. Or if you aren’t in a hurry and want to save some money, you can get the local train, which doesn’t leave as frequently and makes a few stops along the way. I took the local train.

The local train to Oslo from the airport

This marquee shows the schedule of the upcoming trains leaving the airport

After buying my ticket I bought a new pay-as-you-go cellular SIM card for my phone so that I could make calls from Norway. It was only about $15 for a phone number pre-charged with about 350 minutes, so it’s a great deal. Within 5 minutes I was up and running and able to make calls to anyone. I must say this would have been twice as expensive and probably less convenient in the US. AT&T, the mandatory provider for iPhones in the US, has been having a lot of problems lately. Dropped calls all over the place, especially in larger metropolitan areas. I couldn’t even make a call from the Chicago airport, even though I had five bars. The tower kept dropping my calls. One thing I did have to do beforehand for my iPhone to be able to work with European SIMs was to follow these painless unlocking instructions.

I ran into a nice guy from Brazil on the train to Oslo

As I was boarding the local train I ran into an interesting guy. I tried asking him if the train I was getting was the right one, but he didn’t speak much English. When I tried asking him in my broken Norwegian, he didn’t speak much of that either. Looking at his suitcase, I noticed some Portuguese written on it and asked him where he was from. Discovering he was from Brazil, and starting talking to him in Portuguese. It was a lot of fun to run into a Brazilian all the way over in Norway. His name was Dorival, and he was visiting some Brazilian friends who were living in Norway. We had a great conversation on the train, exchanged contact information, and he helped me get my bags off the train at my stop, since I was carrying a ton of stuff. Speaking of which, my shoulder strap on my garment bag broke at the top of a tall escalator and tumbled all the way down. So much for that Walmart special. I tied it in knots and kept moving.

View Walk from Skøyen station to my apartment in a larger map

My manager at TANDBERG

It was pretty cold outside with the humidity, -3°C (abt 26°F). Lars Klemetsaune, my manager at Tandberg, was at the apartment waiting for me to arrive. He gave me a quick orientation on everything in the apartment and also drove me around the neighborhood to show me where to go shopping for things. We tried to find an adaptor for my US laptop plug (the one thing I forgot—doh!) to no avail. The next day, Lars brought one to work with him and let me use it until I could have one shipped to me. Strange that it was pretty much impossible to find one here. I went to all the major electronics shops and couldn’t find one. Everything was designed for Europeans visiting other countries, not Americans visiting Europe.

The apartment that TANDBERG is putting me up in till I find a place for us. Notice the radiator behind the couch.

The apartment is actually pretty nice, although very spartan since there are no pictures on the walls. One interesting thing is that most homes in Norway use electricity for all their energy needs, so you have radiators along the walls for heat instead of the forced air heating systems used in most US homes. The heaters work great, and have the added advantage of greatly reducing the amount of dust that accumulates in your house, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the cost of all that electricity is more expensive than using natural gas. Strangely, natural gas is fairly abundant in Norway. Svein and I were wondering during our flight why Norway hasn’t chosen to use it for its own energy needs instead of only shipping it to other countries.

There is even a McDonald's right by my apartment, in case I ever get desperate.

Great produce selection at one of the local grocery stores

I went shopping at the local Kiwi (pronounced KEE-vee) to get some essentials for the apartment. Check out my Picasa album if you want to see price comparisons. Here is the short version: most food is about FOUR TIMES more expensive than it is in the US—Yikes! One funny thing happened to me at the store. It’s pretty embarrassing, but worth sharing anyway. I was looking through the butter section of the refrigerated area and couldn’t find anything that looked like butter. Pretty much everything looked like margarine, and I didn’t have my dictionary with me to translate. I finally found some small cubes wrapped in paper and figured that they must be butter. I was surprised at how small they were, but figured it was just another case of my being conditioned to American supersizing. When I got home, I realized that I had bought five cubes of yeast! Oh well, live and learn. I laughed at myself and looked up the word for butter in the dictionary so I could make sure not to make that mistake again.

A picture of one of the buildings at my company's office complex taken during the summertime.

Subway station at the National Theater. Oslo has an excellent public transit system.

The next day I was suffering from major jet lag but managed to make it to work after getting a little lost due to a construction detour that wasn’t there last time I went. It was pretty cold this morning, and my scarf, gloves and hat came in really handy. Although the climate is similar to Utah, taking public transportation and walking places means that you spend a lot more time outdoors than we usually do in the US, where we often rush from one climate-controlled area to another, almost always either indoors or in our cars. So you have to pay closer attention to what you wear and make sure you dress warmly. Thermal underwear also comes in handy. On the other hand, it’s great to spend a lot more time walking outside, and the variety of walking in and out of the cold really wakes you up and makes you appreciate your warm places more. Of course, plenty of folks here (especially those who live in the suburbs) drive their cars to and from work, but in the city most people use the excellent transportation system, which is a combination of trains, subways and buses that get you anywhere you need to go in short order. It is really awesome to have an apartment right next to the train station. I can get anywhere I need to go very quickly.

Every Friday afternoon the teams get together for waffles and a presentation on some new research from a co-worker.

I got oriented at work and attended a few meetings with some of the people I would be working with. They were all very nice. One great thing about Tandberg is how well they take care of their employees. You get the equipment you need and the freedom to configure it the way you want to, and they are very willing to accommodate developer interests and help people find the niche where they fit best. They have a cafeteria where everyone eats a high-quality lunch together with some main dish options as well as a nice salad bar, and they have other frequent activities like waffles on Fridays, tech talks and other gatherings. One of my co-workers, Jens Andersen, was assigned to be “my buddy”—an employee who is in charge of helping you to learn the ropes during your first 100 days on the job. Jens was kind enough to offer me a ride home after work.

That evening I went to visit a good friend of mine from high school, Øystein Brekke. He made a nice dinner for us, and I helped him fix a wifi problem so that he could share his Internet connection with a neighbor from another flat. I also forgot to mention that earlier in the day, while waiting for a train, I met a Mexican immigrant who was working there as a carpenter. He and I spoke Spanish together and exchanged contact info. We discussed the lack of good Mexican restaurants in Oslo and he said he would like to open one. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of some of these people so I could share them here. I’ll try to remember for later.

Waiting for my tax ID number at the Service Centre for Foreign Workers

The next day I had to go to the Service Center for Foreign Workers to get an official stamp in my passport giving me permission to work in Norway and a tax ID number so that I can get paid, open a bank account in Norway and otherwise be watched over by Big Brother. I joke, but it was actually a very pleasant experience. The office was a marvel of efficiency and everyone was very polite.

I think people have a natural tendency to cling very strongly to certain ways of thinking and overlook counter-examples that don’t fit with their ideologies. We Americans are well-versed on the evils of socialism but often fail to study things in detail and realize that our own system of government is already highly socialized and that many of these social programs are supported by the vast majority of Americans.

Imagine a small country of roughly five million people where elected officials live very close to the places whose problems they are trying to solve. In some ways this ends up being more efficient than the US system of government, where “states’ rights” is a term that is just given lip-service but most of our taxes go towards federal programs that are managed by bureaucrats who spend their time very far away from the constituents whose problems they are supposed to be solving. We have an abstract concept of patriotism but often fail to pay attention to the current state of things on the ground, so to speak.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean to imply that many of the changes that our country has undergone haven’t been positive overall or even that the discrepancy between the Constitution and the way things actually function may not be good in some cases, but I think it’s important to try to be aware of what’s really happening in the world instead of just clinging to certain ideologies and ignoring contrary evidence. I want to share a nice quote on this subject from David O. McKay (the English is a little dated but I like the concept):

“No matter how excellent [Nazism, Fascism, Communism, or Capitalism] may seem in the minds of their advocates, none will ameliorate the ills of mankind unless its operation in government be impregnated with the basic principles promulgated by the Savior of Men. On the contrary, even a defective economic system will produce good results if the men who direct it will be guided by the spirit of Christ. Actuated by that spirit, leaders will think more of men than of the success of a system. Kindness, mercy, and justice will be substituted for hatred, suspicion, and greed. There is no road to universal peace, which does not lead to the heart of humanity.” (David O. McKay, One Hundred and Fifteenth Semi-Annual Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, Salt Lake City.: Deseret Book, 1944, pp. 80-81.)

I recognized this woman I ran into at the bus station as one of the persons featured on a popular Norwegian TV program

OK, getting off soap box now. So anyway, on my way to work after going to get my papers taken care of, I ran into a “moviestar” of sorts. Earlier this year, the family and I watched an interesting program about people in Norway who lived in remote places. It was called “Der ingen skulle tru at nokon kunne bu,” a rough translation of which (trying to keep the rhyme) might be “Faces in unbelievable places” (more literal translation: “There nobody would believe that someone could live”). While at the Oslo bus station, I just happened to run into an American expatriate woman named Jennie Endresen who was featured on that program. I introduced myself to her and asked if I could take her picture. I told her our story, and she invited us to visit them if we are ever in Telemark. She was in town for a gathering of home-schoolers.

Last night, a co-worker named Rangvald invited me to his house for dinner. His wife is Brazilian and her Brazilian sister-in-law was also there. He speaks excellent Portuguese despite his relatively short exposure to it. It was nice to chat with them and get to know them. We ate raw fish (kind of like sushi but without being rolled up), rice and veggies and had some long and interesting discussions. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures. I will try to add some later.