Jai Bor Har!

That means I live here!

Jai ar ikke por ferie har. (I am not on vacation here)

And that means... I also work here (Jai osso jobber har!) I'm learning.

So, my first project, with my incredible second cousin/boss was unbelievable! We are building a new dock/float for the island. We took a huge pipe and had to use the crane on the island, plus rope, plus a boat, plus a chainsaw, to cut it in half, get both halves on land, and then clean and power wash it. I must say, I missed the hardest part where he scuba dove to collect it from the bottom of the fjord where he was storing it, drilled holes, connected it to his boat, towed it to the other side of the island, made a chain the exact size of the pipe, and pulled the pipe through the chain to remove 2 feet or debris (seaweed, mussels, etc.) that had collected over the last two years since he bought it.

Anyway, our job was hard and interesting enough for me to realize how incredible the man is who I will be working under for the next however long.


So here I am operating the crane to move one half of the whole pipe around to empty the water, get it on land, and clean it. Quite the task.

Today (my first full day here) was amazing! I was woken up by Alf (my uncle/owner of the restaurant) around 9 to go have breakfast at his house. Well, he lives on a boat so breakfast was on the boat; he transformed the steering room into a kitchen and made a big Norwegian breakfast (toast, egg, bacon, cod caviar, pepperoni cheese in a tube, and beets) for us. Then we went straight to work and took the boat to the island and started this project. Then we had a little welcome party with the family from 12-2, Norwegian cardamom waffles with jelly and sour cream, and then we went straight back to work, which is when I took this picture. We finished our project, had some beer and sat at the restaurant, talked about everything, and then took the boat to Bergen.

Once in town, we walked to his favorite spots, ending at a sushi restaurant, where we didn't need a menu, he just told the chef there were two of us, and this came out....

My kind of place! It was incredible! We ran into some friends of my uncle's and then took the boat back to the house and here I am! An incredible first day!

Oh, the flight went great, everything was very easy. The room I am supposed to stay in currently doesn't have a floor or paint, but that is supposed to be fixed by Monday. My cousin/roommate is so nice and fun so that should work out wonderfully! Everyone has been so nice and I am learning a bit of Norwegian. My next update will be about the restaurant... stay tuned!