This is the rainy season in Goiania and today we got quite a bit. We were going to pick up the car after some repair and as we were talking to the people at Renault, the rain started. HEAVY! The road outside was turned into a river in 10 minutes, lightening flashed and thunder roamed.

When we got home, I managed to take these pictures, but then it had already calmed down a bit, and after another hour the river was gone from the road outside our house. It would be interesting to know exactly how much rain is coming down when it rains like this. If I can find a weatherstation that is not too expensive, I will put one up here and connect it to the internet so you can all see.

Tomorrow we will go to Caldas Novas. This is a place a couple of hours drive south of Goiania and that was the reason why we went to Renault to check the car. I did not expect that they would find as much as they did, but I am now sure we will not have any kind of car trouble.

I will bring my laptop, but I am not sure I will be able to connect there. Anyway - I am back in Goiania on Sunday. 

In the building we live, there are 10 apartments. The day-to-day running of the building is a task that is done by one selected representative among the owners. The picture shown is not of our building but ours is similar to the apartment house with the red center that you see here.

This year they "pushed" Eni into this role. So she is now the "sindica" of the building. Eni told them from the first moment that she did not want this role now because she do not have any experience as sindica and she is a little too stressed right now. But after several meetings they managed to push her into it.

There is a small compensation for this, not nearly enough for the work that has to be done, but the positive thing is that we can now get things done in this building that has been long overdue. I think some of the people here will see changes they did not think of when they chose Eni. When she does something like this, she insist on doing it well.

The first thing that will happen is that all the people that work in this building will be fired and the security, cleaning and maintenance will be outsourced to a company that spesialize in this kind of work. We are lucky to have some friends that have a company like this and we got a good price from them. All apartments share the pay for cleaning, security and maintenance and this bill will be something like 20% lower next month. A nice start!

There are a couple of big rooms downstairs at the end of the entrance hall with a kitchen. This is meant for parties etc. and can be used by everyone in the building. But so far I have not seen one single party there, and when we asked to have our wedding party there, they said no! So we will now make a calendar for the use of this area and encourage people to use it. We all pay for it, so why not use it?

I am looking forward to see how things develop through the year!

So 2007 finally came to us, although 3 hours later than in Norway. One hour before midnight I talked to my brother Frode. Me still in 2006 and he in 2007. And Reidulf Botn, a colleague, called on Skype to tell me that 2007 was nothing special compared to 2006 yet. So we had not missed anything 

We started the evening with some typical Brazilian fingerfood. It is called salgadinhos - small bitesized things like small pies, that you serve warm. So we sit around and talk and eat. Later we had cake - both for me and Tete’s boyfriend. We share December 31st as birthday!

At midnight we went to the square in the middle of the city, only a few blocks away from here. We had been listening to the concert there for some hours. Goiania had put up a free concert and I guess there were appr. 15.000 people there close to midnight. At the top of the hour, the fireworks started and continued for 25 minutes while we hugged all our friends there. As I write this, the concert has still not finished and my watch shows that we are more than 3 hours into the new year. So no sleep yet…

We want to wish everyone a really happy new year. May it be the best year in your life so far - both professional  and personal.

The holiday is here and we would like to send our love and blessings to family and friends around the world. We wish you a peaceful Christmas and even if Christmas is often a lot of work too, we hope you find time to relax and just be together with your family.

Here, Christmas food was pork ribs prepared Norwegian style, Chester (a kind of big chicken) and a dessert called Dronning Maud fromasj. We celebrated in our house together with Eni’s family.

Merry Christmas!

 

The Wisnaes/Rodrigues family in Brazil.

 

It is difficult to describe in few words the gratitude we feel towards our family and friends for everything in connection with our wedding.

We got a lot of wonderful presents, money and help. The list of people we would like to thank is too long to put here, but a heartfelt THANK YOU goes out to everyone. And there is a picture on the way to you.

The day in Norway was perfect from start to end. And the dinners we have had here in Brazil have been lovely.

Now we are looking forward to seeing as many as possible of you here in our house. You are all welcome, let us know as early as possible.

Months have passed since the summer, but I am finally adding some more to this website.

After coming to Norway, Eni and Tete stayed with me in Oslo for a week to try to get papers ready. We got that sorted out, met many friends there and then headed for Karmøy and my family.

Weeks of sunshine passed. I never thought I would hear a Brazilian complain about the temperature in Norway, but it actually happened. Not only that - Eni managed to get a sunburn while she was at the beach. This say a lot about summer 2006 at Karmøy! The water did not get too warm though. But that did not stop Eni and Tete from trying a swim! I am quite impressed by their guts to try just about everything that people suggested in Norway. They even tried Gammelost (literal translation: Old cheese - fermented, well aged cheese)! Not that they or (or I) liked it. But they tried.

The big day, August 5th 2006 came and we had perfect weather. After a beautiful ceremony we headed for the old part of Skudeneshavn and the beach at Åkrehamn to take pictures. Simon Bjørn Nielsen was the generous photographer and we are forever grateful to him for the beautiful pictures. We are waiting for your visit to Brazil, Simon!

The party was held in a place quite close to my parents house. There were about 50 guests that gathered to celebrate with us. We had some wonderful food, heard many lovely words from family and friends, sang, danced and enjoyed the moment. And then time for cakes. When you visit the Wisnaes family, you will never leave hungry…

The last weeks in Norway was spent packing my stuff to get it ready to ship to Brazil. I will be moving there as soon as possible, but still go to Norway to work. After a couple of days in Oslo running around to various offices and the Brazilian Embassy in Oslo Eni and Tete went home to Brazil with heavy luggage.

The autumn has been full of work for me and I am now in Brazil. Before I left Norway, I went to the Brazilian Embassy in Oslo to pick up our marriage registration. The Norwegian registration was a mere formality. After bringing the paper from the Embassy to a cartorio (public register) here in Goiania, we now also have a Brazilian marriage certificate and we are officially married in both Norway and Brazil.

Since none from Eni’s family could come to Norway for the ceremony, we have had a series of dinners here in Goiania to celebrate our marriage. I have been received with open arms here and really feel welcome. It is a great feeling.

We hope as many as possible of our friends around the world will come to visit us here. Think about Brazil for your next vacation and let us know well in advance. We might be able to help you plan a wonderful vacation here in Brazil.

If you need help translating any documents to Norwegian, Portuguese or English, I recommend you talk to Arne Berge in Oslo. I can put you in touch with him. Just call me or drop me a message.

So you want to get married. Not only that, but you want to get married to a foreigner in Norway. Bring on the paperwork and office run-around!

Actually, it is not too bad at all if you know what to do and where to go. But sinse we got some different messages depending on the day we called, it took a little while and effort to figure everything out. And even then it was close to disaster!

We are from two different countries. I am from Norway and Eni is from Brazil. The reason why we wanted to get married in Norway is that there is less paperwork involved here than in Brazil. At least it seems so. As a service for anyone that might be in the same situation as us, here is the correct procedure!

First of all, Eni had to get two papers. She has been married before, so she had to get the divorce papers. And another paper that certify she is single. If she had not been married before, she would need to get a birth certificate.

Both of these documents need to be stamped by the foreign ministry in Brazil since Brazil is not a member of the Haag convention. In Norway this is called an "apostille stempel". It looks like a sticker that is put on the paper and stamped and signed. We did not know about this one until Eni arrived in Norway and it almost stopped the whole wedding. We would have to send the papers back to Brazil and they would have to send them back to Norway after processing. This whole procedure would have taken months! But we managed to get a signed statement by the office that made the papers and on the basis of this, the Brazilian ambassador in Norway signed and stamped the documents.

The next thing to do is to get the divorce papers ratified by the Norwegian government at an office called "Fylkesmannen". This can take up to 4 weeks and is good to do as early as possible. The Brazilian papers has to be translated into Norwegian and you need to submit a copy of both the original and the translation together with the form that has to be filled out. You can find the form here. The rest of the forms needed can be found here.

There is one more thing to think about if the Brazilian person has been married before. The division of the money and belongings. If the divorce took place more than two years ago, you only need to fill out a short form with no need for extra signatures. But if it is less than two years ago, you might need the signature of the former spouse.

You now have two Brazilian papers with translation in Norwegian, one paper that ratify the divorce and one paper that declare that all belongings has been divided. In addition you need the following papers:

Q-0150 - Declaration from bride and groom - Both has to fill out their own and sign it.
Q-0151 - Sponsorform - Brides maid and Best man - Both has to fill out this form and sign it.

The Brazilian person need to bring the passport that shows the stamp and how long you can stay. Bring all this to the "Folkeregister/Likningskontor". They will receive everything and process it. The processing can take two to three weeks depending on how much they have to do.

You will now get a paper that say that there it is no problem to get married. When the marriage is done, this paper goes back to the "Folkeregister/Likningskontor" and you will get a marriage license. This processing usually takes two to three days.

It is now time to get in touch with the Brazilian embassy in Norway. They have a guide to how things should be done. They will legalise the translated documents and then, upon returning to Brazil, the Brazilian person needs to go to an office to register the marriage there.

Still, it seems like there are less papers to deal with in Norway than Brazil.

We are now moving into the final stages of the preparation of the wedding. Everything seems to be on schedule so far.
 

After flying back and forth to Brazil several times and a lot of research, there is no doubt in my mind what is the best airline to use.

The last time I was in Brazil I flew with SAS/Varig/Star Alliance and can sum up the experience in this: "Never more!" Old planes, no entertainment system, only 20 kg of checked luggage! No way!

Then you have KLM. First of all, they operate the whole stretch themselves. When going from Oslo to Sao Paulo, I have to change planes in Amsterdam. I feel quite comfortable at Amsterdam Schipol Airport. To me, it is easy to find my way around, the staff is generally quite friendly and they all speak English.

The airplanes they use on the main stretch seem to be quite new and have an entertainment system with one screen per person, even in the economy class. So I can watch movies, TV series, listen to music or play video games. And my neighbor in the next seat do not have to watch the same thing as me. The only thing I wish for is the ability to tilt the screen a bit more upward. When the person in front of you recline the seat to the sleeping position, it is not easy to watch.

The in-flight service on KLM has been perfect on all the flights I have done with them. Maybe I am not the most difficult customer, but still I can sense a difference.

The only things I miss will probably be coming in a not too distant future. Wireless internet on board, and power for my laptop in every seat. With this available, the trip to Sao Paulo would just be another day at the office.

The final thing that really separate KLM from the Star Alliance airlines is the weight limit for checked in luggage. Instead of 20 kg, you can have two items of checked in luggage. Each of them can be 32 kg! Do not accept 2 x 23 kg as some of the people at the booking office for KLM will tell you. The limit is 2 x 32kg and they will find out if you are just persistent enough. September 1st last year there seem to have been a change in how much luggage you can check in and the new limit is 2 x 23 kg for most destinations. But not for Brazil. Here, the limit is still 2 x 32 kg. This makes a HUGE difference for anyone staying more than a week-end. If you are going to be in Brazil for a couple of months, 20 kg will never be enough.

So my favorite so far is definitely KLM. And the few things I am missing will hopefully arrive soon!

The pictures are used with permission from KLM Public Relations.

The last weeks has definitely been summer in Norway. With temperatures in the 25-30 range, we have enjoyed the sun and of course hope it will continue. But as I am writing this, the temperature has already dropped and there are forecasts of rain…

The football World Cup is well on it’s way and we are all cheering for Brazil. Even little Oskar Of course, we all hope Brazil will be in the final July 9th. Which mean that Eni and Tete will have to watch it in Norway! Yes, we now have a date for the arrival. July 9th will be a day to remember. Their first view of Norway. And Europe for that matter.

The plan so far is to stay in Oslo for some paperwork for a week and then travel south to Lyngdal where we hope to stop for a few days. Then we will travel to Karmøy to meet the family. Exciting times!

To all our friends around the Oslo area - we hope we are able to meet you all. If anyone of you want to join us for a visit to a couple of the sights in and around Oslo, let us know. Vigelands Parken, Folkemuseet, Botanisk Hage, Holmenkollen and Nasjonal Galleriet are already on our list.

Please let us know if you are going to be in the area of Oslo at the week that start with Monday July 10th.

We finish off this post with another picture of Oskar. None of us has had the chance to see him yet so we are all looking forward to that!

Something very special happened Thursday, March 2nd this year in the morning. Oskar was born, son of Grete and Kjell Arne.

This was the culmination of a lot of prayers and many years of waiting. And we would like to express our congratulations to the happy parents through this blog as well as on their page. Their blog is in Norwegian, but there are a lot of nice pictures of Oskar, his parents and relatives.

Oskar’s entry into this world was not an easy one. He was born through a C-section and things were looking good. Luckily, the nurse checked his blood sugar after a very short time and discovered that it was 0.3-0.4! It should be 10 times higher than this. He soon got cramps and stopped breathing. He got help to breathe and was moved to intensive care where he remained for a few days while he was treated with antibiotics and medicine to reduce cramps.

Hours later and a lot of prayers later, Oskar was gaining strength steadily. Even the staff at the intensive care could not explain the rapid recovery.

Oskar is now home with Grete and Kjell Arne. He cries a lot sometimes and the parents are discovering the "smelly" side of having kids. But they are savoring every moment and updating the blog as often as they can.

We want to wish Oskar Mathias Thomassen and his parents all the best and on behalf of everyone in Brazil - Congratulations!