The Good, the Bad and the Pretty

First, the pretty: the photo above is of little Gjøvik and surrounding Lake Mjøsa as seen from a local hillside.

Next, the bad: Kevin is on his way to Singapore today. He'll spend 5 days there and 4 in the Philippines. He has been on business trips for 26% of the year so far, with no end to the hectic travel schedule in sight. (Although I am very excited about his trip to Vancouver in August--I have always wanted to go there and I will be able to join him on this upcoming trip!)

Finally, the good: Now that Kevin has his person number, I was able to apply for a residency permit. We turned all the paperwork (plus a passport photo that makes me look like a raving lunatic) in to the police station yesterday. I will no longer have to leave the country every 3 months, and maybe at some point I'll even have a person number of my own!

Another good thing happened to me today: It is imperative that we keep the animals' vaccines current, because if they get them even one day past when they were due, it will be extremely difficult to ever bring them back to the U.S. The pets aren't due until mid-June, but being a little paranoid and obsessive, I went to the vet clinic today to set up their appointments. The dogs go next Tuesday and the cats will get their shots the following week. That's great, but that's not why I'm so happy. I explained the whole situation about the vaccines, about how I wanted to bring the dogs and cats in seperately, about how I needed late afternoon appointments as I go to norskkurs until 2:00 every day, EVERYTHING IN NORWEGIAN!!! And the receptionists understood me, didn't have to resort to English with me, and set the appointments up just as I had asked! One of them even told me that I speak Norwegian better than she speaks English, which is a huge compliment since she probably has a couple years of English classes behind her. Was she just being polite and encouraging to me? Probably, but you know that old adage about the gift horse? Yeah, I'm not going to look it in the mouth today, I'm just going to strut around feeling all competent and smart. (Until the next time I flub my pronounciation or completely forget a word or mix up my tenses, which will most likely happen by tomorrow!)