Employ me, go on, its probably not a terrible ideal.

Yesterday I applied for my first couple of jobs in Norway. This is something I worry about a lot, I've had several jobs most of which have been nothing special. I've learnt a little and studied a fair bit but do I feel I'm actually ready to take on one of these big important roles with a page long job descriptions? I'd like to think so, after all that's what I've spent the last 10 years thinking about.

Seriously though the whole going into the big wide world thing scares everyone I'm sure, I know it does me. Then I add this foreign country element and the mind boggles. Maybe most of the few things I've learnt aren't going to be relevant? The inability to talk the native language is only the beginning of it really. 

"Hi there, I'm Robert, my Norwegian is optimistically self assessed at a beginner level, I have a few contacts in retail, hospitality and logistics . . . . all in another country.
         My most notable skill has nearly always been considered to be my articulation and elocution . . . . . . .  in another language.
         I went to an average School, College and University and received a plethora of slightly above average marks. I can at best hope you think they are better than they are, but what is more likely is to simply dismiss them as inferior to their Norwegian equivalents you have more knowledge of" 

Obviously not the way I opened  my covering letter but I cant help thinking that's the basic gist that any potential employer will summarise it to themselves, but lets hope I'm wrong.

Me before my fist day of proper work at a local suit shop at 16

Lunch / Lunsj

One very English, the other very Norwegian, no prizes for guessing which is which.

I have learned much about Norwegian food in my year with a Norwegian and two visits to the country. The most obvious being their love for open sandwiches. It can really be for any meal of the day apparently. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper or a snack in-between any of them

The rules are simple, put anything on top of a slice of bread, but not too much at once. This is a concept I still struggle with. When I make a 'normal' sandwich I find it essential to fill it with as many things as I can to make it as interesting as possible. However I have literally been laughed at for doing the same with a Norwegian open sandwich, in a joke way of course I haven't actually been bullied for my sandwich construction, they take it seriously but not mental.

Tia's Birthday

Today is Marianne's sister's Birthday. So as with Pål's its another great excuse to discuss some Norwegian. 

Firstly though just to say a massive Happy Birthday and Gratulerer Med Dagen to Tia.

Now Tia's real name is Cathrine, this seems like a very English name until you hear it pronounced in Norwegian, where it sounds like Katrina. This was another really easy way for me to learn some rules about the language. Firstly, like Marianne's you pronounce the e at the end of words, and it sounds like an a, simple enough, and also Norwegians don't have the 'th' sound that English do. Although I have just discovered that they used to in the form of another letter 'ð '  which no longer exists, but anyway.

Discovering these kind of basic rules and having a memorable reference to them I found essential when first learning Norwegian and it wasn't long before I found I was capable of basically reading Norwegian, if somewhat slowly and usually having very little idea of what I was saying, but still understanding these basic grammatical rules was if nothing else a good start. 

Progress is as always slow but I have massively increased my vocabulary, despite this the confidence knocking blow always comes when listening to full blown Norwegian conversations at normal speed and being lucky if I can hazard a guess at what's going on. Usually after about 4 or 5 sentences I'm lucky if I can remember my own name, and what planet this alien language is from. 

You have to start somewhere though, and started I have and I intend to continue with enthusiastic / foolish optimism. 

Me, Marianne, Tia and Pål in Norway.

A Wine about Waiting

Originally this post was a slightly pretentious moan about customers I've encountered as a waiter especially in relation to wine. However the more I've thought about it the less my heart was in it so instead this is now just a funny clip from "That Mitchell and Webb Look" a great sketch show. I must say I occasionally wish I could act a little like this.

Enjoy

Bobby, Prince of Bergen

Today I passed the exam for and obtained a foundation qualification in project management called PRINCE2.

I am very pleased about this and consider it the first step in becoming a Project manager which is one of my dream career paths. It may not sound the most exciting thing to many people but I have been facinated by 'business' for as long as I can remember. Making my fortune in a big corporation with million pound budgets, massive responsibilities and with all the risks and rewards that come with it.

I have always been aware that ever hitting anything close to the big time is probably unlikely and the older I've got the more I have begun to prepare for this and in fact, as the cliche goes, love and all that jazz I have discovered is more important and despite my childhood fantasies of the massive office and big padded chair I would never choose that over my life with Marianne.

All the sensible and soppy stuff aside however Project Management is still the goal I am aiming for and today I made what could be my first contact to use when I go to Norway. This was in the form of the leader of this training programme who teaches it all over the world. We chatted during lunch and I told him that my personal research suggested there was nowhere in Norway to take the PRINCE2 training courses and he suggested that if I could find some people interested he would come over to Norway to teach it and I would in turn get a cut for putting the necessaries parties together. More a nice idea than a likely money making scheme due to my complete lack of contacts in Norway and my beginner level in the language to name just two reasons but its little things like this that make me think.

You never know what my happen, it all really could turn out roses! 

Jeg Elsker Deg

Being Valentines day tomorrow and just passing the one year mark since we met (11/2) I feel this is a good time to talk more about my beautiful girlfriend Marianne, so here is the story of how we met.

After a hard Friday nights work one year ago I decided against my better judgement to meet some mates at the student union bar. I quickly regretted this after getting their to find everyone already battered, I rapidly worked my way through a few drinks to get in the spirit and wondered round a bit debating whether or not to cut my loses and call it a night.

Then out of nowhere someone grabs my hand and starts dancing with me. This what not just anyone it was a stunning brunette with a beaming smile and not just any dancing, she was actually trying to swing dance with me. Fortunately a very close old friend of mine is a dancer and I had seem him perform 'Rock and Roll' several times and I was capable of holding my own. I never would have thought that I would need this knowledge to woo my soul mate but it does appear that that was the case. 

After a bit more messing about dancing eventually I insisted she come outside with me so I could find out who this mysterious, swing dancing beauty was. I introduced myself as a 21 year old from near London, doing a business degree and in my third year at the uni thinking it all sounded pretty good. I was then embarresingly put in my place when I discovered she was older, doing a masters, and had come over from Norway and had been in Chester a few months. I was instantly aware that this basically made her ten times more interesting than me in every way however she wasn't put off and I was even more fascinated. 

We clicked instantly and then two days later (Valentines Day) we had our first proper date, which was a pizza, wine and film session at her place. The more we spoke the more perfect it all became. We got on so well from the word go, I still genuinely find it difficult to believe how I managed to find such a gorgeous, intelligent, funny girl better than any 'Dream Girl' I could have imagined. 

This has become quite a long story now so I will Epilogue, we spent pretty much all our spare time together, found ourselves moving in together almost by accident a few months later and we have been and still are as sickeningly in love as ever a year on. I know its only been a year but it feels like a only a week and a lifetime all at once and I cant imagine it ever being different. 

"Jeg Elsker Deg" is Norwegian for "I love you" and was the first Norwegian phrase I learnt. Also still the one I use most often.

Whisky

My brother is nipping in for lunch on his way back from bonnie Scotland to say hi and show me the many additions to his Scotch collection that he has made while in the promise land. I am therefore going to take this opportunity to discuss one of my favourite topics, Whisky!

I've been drinking Whisky for about 4 years now and I genuinely believe it to be one of the most amazing drinks in the world for its astounding variety of flavours. I was told at a whisky festival last year that where a wine may have around 80-100 chemical flavour combinations, whisky can have many hundreds. I don't know how scientifically true this is as I was on about my 30th taster at the time and was beginning to lose the ability to see let alone listen to a chemistry lecture as fascinating as it was.

I find it difficult to believe anyone is born liking Whisky. I certainly wasn't, like many things I now love like, fish, olives, salad, wine ect. Whisky was something I really wanted to enjoy as it seemed very interesting as well as in my opinion was the epitome of cool! I have been exceptionally fortunate over the last few years despite living a student lifestyle much of the time I have had the opportunity to try many fine whiskeys and although far from an expert I am beginning to build up some knowledge and I hope and plan to die a connoisseur (but hopefully not as a result of the amount of whisky I may have to consume to get that far.)

I also feel I should mention I am aware I have used the term whisky most of the time and occasionally scotch. The reason for this is well I have often been told scotch is king, and I still believe this to be the case. That being said I have been educated in some very nice whiskeys from across the world and have even developed a respect for bourbon and I love a good old fashioned. However if I were to catch someone putting ice in a proper single then fisty-cuffs would immediately follow. Or at the very least a stern talking to and a new drink served correctly.

Extra!! Extra!! Read all about it!

The big news is today I went public. By public I mean I told my parents about my blog and said they could pass it on to close family and friends that they think might take an interest.
I have been playing with the idea of when or even if I would do this. There is something very strange about being happy for complete strangers to read your thoughts and have an interest in your interests but being nervous about letting in those you know but maybe its not that uncommon. At least I hope not as that is very much the feelings I have and I'm pretty sure I'm not a nutter but who really knows.

Anyway, I will attempt to continue to write in the no audience specific way I have and ignore the fact that my family may be judging every line and noting every grammatical error of which I'm sure there are many.

Please do feel free to follow, leave comments and get involved anyone who has taken the time to read my rambling thoughts, it is greatly appreciated and I am always open to questions.

Risengrynsgrøt

Risengrynsgrøt or Rice grain Porridge. Firstly a horrible word for me to pronounce in Norwegian!
I will try it phonetically in English for those wondering how its pronounced: Reesengreensgrert, is the best I can do which doesnt sound too hard. But said properly in a Bergen dialect the three R's (its the norwegian version im aware my phonetic has four) are all very aggressive throat noises that is very unnatural for a southern Englishman like myself. Also the Norwegian Y is a sound that cant be properly translated into English but as I said, Reesengreensgrert gives you an idea and if you said it like that I've no doubt a Norwegian would understand you (although they may giggle).

This is the latest Norwegian dish I've tasted. Now I've not had rice pudding since I was kid as I recall thinking it was rubbish and have therfore avoided it however I'm pretty sure that this is very similar. I think the things that really make this interesting is that it tastes of nothing and needs loads of sugar and cinnamon to give it flavour which does in fareness work quite well. The mental thing is then a big dollop of butter on top too, as this is made from a packet of rice mix stuff with just loads of milk. All in all its safe to say this is one dense heavy unhealthy bowl of food.
Therefore I was stunned to discover that this is actually considered a dinner! A bad breakfast possibly, a cheap desert or novel snack maybe. But to call it dinner I found crazy, even if is as dense and filling as a diamond.

I absolutely love trying new food, I find it fascinating. This is very much in the list of things I struggled to really work out and will not be trying again any time soon if I'm honest. As with everything though I always recommend others give it a go if they have the chance and let me know if you figure out what its all about as I cant say I could.

The Mario Bros

Tomorrow I am again being blessed with a family visitor, this time my brother Jamie and his girlfriend Dora. Sadly only staying one night on their way to Scotland for a little holiday but still very much looking forward to it.

My brother and I are very close and strangely similar in many ways and do not see nearly enough of each other these days and I am very aware this will become worse when I move to Norway and it is one of the biggest regrets for me.

I probably should have mentioned earlier. These Mario and Luigi tattoos are 100% real. We got them a few years ago on my 19th birthday (I actually paid for both as a belated 21st present to him). They were done by Jon McKibben of Dermagraffiti, Birkenhead. A quality job he did too even if he did find my pain slightly amusing. The picture is from the same day we got them on a night out in Liverpool in some massive crazy warehouse club we have never ever been able to find again, but that's another story.
We grew up playing Mario and Luigi games, they are genuinly some of my earliest and clearest memories. I was always Luigi and he Mario so on our tattoos we have J and B on there respective hats where it is normally M and L.

After we initially had the idea for the tattoo and I never thought we would actually do it but after several years it just kept being a great idea so we went for it. It has very mixed reactions, some love it and think its amazing and others think we are literally mental. Either way, it means a lot to me and I am very happy we have it and would never wish to be rid of it.