I got a new niece today. Really beautiful! Congratulations to her parents and to her brother!

Given her fathers love for taking pictures, I think her life will be well documented. And the first proof is the picture here.

Everyone here in Brasil wish all the best for your future Leah Tomine. This is a happy day, and we all welcome you into this world. I know you will grow up in a wonderful family, and we are looking forward to the day when you and the rest of them are coming over here to visit us.

Happy BIRTHday!

One year.

Almost hard to believe, but it is one year since we got married. I woke up from the sound of the phone from the gate downstairs ringing. It is very loud and Eni jumped out of bed and told me it was my anniversary present. And a big present it was. A box totally filled up with different stuff for breakfast including the sunday newspaper.

I am really enjoying my life as a married man and learning, albeit slowly, portuguese and more about the culture here. But most of all I am learning how it is to live close to someone. There are still a lot of things that are new to me and sometimes surprise me, but I learn.

The only things missing now are my permanent visa here and all the rest of the papers. And of course my personal stuff. I have no idea how we are going to be able to fit all books and other stuff into this apartment, but somehow it will work. You can expect there will be some pictures of that when it arrives

I love you, my dear, and I am looking forward to the rest of our life!

I like collecting good tips and ideas. And today I noticed something I mean to have heard before, but had forgotten.

Our maid is a little bit obsessive about cleaning and really keeping things nice and shiny. Sometimes she goes a little too far. She has managed to polish the chrome off the drain in our bathroom sink!

But I liked the way she was treating our copper fondue set. First she cut a lemon in half. Yes, it looks like an orange, but you do not want to sink your teeth into that one unless you have a craving for something really sour! Then she poured some normal table salt on a small plate and pressed the lemon into it.

After rubbing the copper for a while she just rinsed it and the copper had got a really beautiful shine without using any chemicals worse than a little salt and lemon juice.

If you have any other tips like this, please let me know by adding a comment to this post. 

That was my wife’s first reaction when she saw my suggestion for how we could solve having two workplaces in a very tiny space and still be comfortable.

Well, I can understand her reaction. My drawing skills are not exactly great. But I really wanted to show her that I could do better and that I had a good idea.

A few weeks earlier, Lars Rødseth, a friend of mine had shown me their house made in SketchUp from Google. They are thinking about changing the house and are playing with different solutions using this program. So if they can use it for a whole house, I should be able to use it for a room?

I downloaded it, got Eni to measure everything in our office and started to work on my masterpiece. After several hours and quite a few mistakes I got something I was satisfied with and saved a version that I sent to Eni. Success! She approved the idea immediately. Obviously, my skills with SketchUp are better than my freehand drawing

She then called a carpenter, he came in and checked the drawing and got to work. And now I am sitting here at the new desk in our office feeling quite comfortable. Good space for my feet, enough space for the computer and accessories and best of all - we can both work comfortably at the same time.

Have you tried SketchUp for any of your projects? 

The construction of the building across the street is still going on. We have no idea how many floors it will be or what the building will be used for. But now we can see there will be a garage under it and the stairs are close to the street.

I am quite amazed at how little steel they use inside the concrete pillars here. Makes me feel a bit unsafe. I am not an engineer, so I am not going to claim I know even the slightest bit about what is needed. I have just seen buildings in Norway and how they stuff the whole pillars full of steel. A huge difference.

The support system they use here is also a bit different. Wood. But I have seen something similar in Asia where they used bamboo. I guess if it works for them it is ok.

So far the construction work has not been too annoying. The street is a one way street and that probably helps when they have big trucks in here. It only creates a mess on one side They start at 07.00 in the morning, but the only sound now is a little hammering and the occasional cutting of steel.

 I will keep posting pictures of the construction here as it grows. It is interesting to see a different way of doing things.

I really like my new camera. It is small, tough and easy to stuff in my pocket when I go somewhere. So yesterday I had my camera with me as we went to a shopping mall in Goiânia.

While we were paying for some things in a sports store there, I noticed this really cool looking baby carried by his mother. I got Eni to ask the mother if I could take a picture and she said yes. This hair is just amazing! The only thing missing is a bit of color

So if you have a camera that is small enough to fit in your pocket, do not forget to bring it along. You never know when you get the opportunity to get shots like this.

Do you carry your camera with you when you go to the shopping mall?

After to and a half weeks the Prim was gone. And Eni is complaining that I did not bring enough of it.

Seems like Tine Meierier, the company that makes Prim, should make a licensing deal with a dairy company in Brazil to produce this stuff. Neither Prim, nor any brown cheese, is known here. I am not sure how many countries around the world that actually make brown cheese. So far I only know about Norway.

If you want to know more about the cheese and how it is made, check out this article from BBC about Brunost - Brown cheese.

When you go to Norway, you will find this at the breakfast table of all hotels. Give it a try and you might be surprised. Some people even like it with a little strawberry jam on top

And if you live in Norway and come to Brazil to visit us, try to bring a box or two of Prim. Sure, if the customs officer stop you, they might take it, but most times it passes through.
 

It is now winter in Brazil. During the months of June, July and August we do not expect to have more than a day or two of rain. And the temperature will sometimes be down to 10 Celsius during the night. This is VERY cold here!

Last week Eni and me were in Brasilia. She was attending a conference for English teachers and I could go to play golf. Nice :-)  This week and the next week we are in Porto Nacional to relax and enjoy the beach. Yes, even if we are far inside Brazil, there is a beach.

But before reaching our destination, we stopped in Alto Paraiso. This small city is at 1200 m above sea level and the night temperature was under 10 Celsius. We stayed at a very nice pousada before going on. The garden was wonderful and was a bit like the one I am dreaming about - full of trees with fruit. they had several types of oranges, bananas, figs and a lot more. You can see pictures from the pousada and more in the gallery. If you need the password just send me a mail.

The road to Porto Nacional was interesting for me. I am used to the roads in Norway. It is not often you can go for more than a few seconds before you have a new turn. But here we could go straight for 30 minutes, then a turn or two and another 30 minutes straight. Or more! The trip from Goiania to Brasilia is about 2,5 hours. From Brasilia to Alto Paraiso is 3,5 hours and from there to Porto Nacional takes 10,5 hours. All these times assume an average speed of 80 km/h.

It is hard not to like Porto Nacional. The lake it is next to used to be a river, but there has now been built a dam, so I guess the proper term is lake. I brought my fishing gear and really hope to catch a piranha just to have a picture of it. There has been no reports of piranha here, but a bit further north in Palmas, the capital of Tocantins, there has been several piranha attacks over the last few weeks.

This is a city I could spend a lot of time in. The pace is slow, people are friendly and life is easy. And as long as I have an internet connection so I can do some work, I am quite happy.

As soon as I have caught a piranha and have a picture of it, I will post it here. In the meantime, enjoy the new pictures in the gallery. Do you think I am crazy trying to catch this fish?

It is a bit odd to taste those words, but at the same time wonderful. I have lived all my life so far in Norway, but now I have to change my thinking. I guess Norway will always be some sort of home, but I already consider Goiania, Brazil as Home. And when I came into the new office at home, this basket was on the desk, waiting for me. I am a lucky man

Since the last post, I have been in Norway and spent most of the time in Volda. Høgskolen i Volda is a great school and I really like spending time with the students there. I am amazed at all the talents that are gathered at this small place in Norway. And I will try to keep an eye on where the different people go. For those of you that has not yet done so, please connect with me at LinkedIn. I took some pictures in a really beautiful valley there and will post more of them in the gallery later.

Eni has started on her Master Degree in English. It is a big task and she is doing it while she is teaching at a school just down the road from where we live. And on top of that she is the boss of this building and have to take care of all problems, listen to all complaints and rarely hear anything positive about what she is doing here. I wish I knew enough Portuguese to tell them what I think about their whining…

Regarding my language training - I am not sure why, but every time we find a good teacher, they suddenly disappear and have no time to teach me. But I finally spoke to a woman that studies together with Eni and she agreed to start teaching me in a couple of weeks. I am really looking forward to start even if I know it will be hard. It is a long time since I had to learn a new language!

Next week we will be traveling. First a week in Brasilia where I finally will have the opportunity to play some golf again and Eni will attend an English seminar. And then, if all goes well, we will make a trip to Porto National, a city in Tocantins. It lies beside a river and rumor has it that the fishing is good there. And the mosquitoes are plentiful…

The last day in Norway I was at the Brazilian embassy to give them the papers needed for my permanent visa. I do not expect any trouble getting it and hopefully I can just go to the embassy again when I get back to Norway to get the stamp in my passport. Then start looking for a one way ticket and ship my things over to Brazil.

Eni is still working and Tete goes to the university in the evenings. She passed her big exams to get into the university and is now studying economics. Sadly, none of her friends were able to pass. She is also still working on getting her drivers license. I try to update all websites and plug-ins and finish some projects that never seem to end.

The people in the other apartments here have been living here without doing anything together other than the meeting they have to have every year to select next years boss. But we managed to pull a lot of them together for a dinner. Everybody brought something to eat and we had a table set up in the party area downstairs. Everybody enjoyed it and I hope we can do it again later this year. 

Last Saturday we went to a traditional June party. I made a video with my still camera that I will try to put online later. If I can make it, it will show up here in the blog as a separate posting. I registered for an account at Blip.tv so I can post some videos now and then.

What will you do during your summer? Leave a comment here!