Arrived in Andenes

Sorry voor al de Nederlanders, maar de blog schrijf ik weer in het Engels, voor een Nederlandse update geef maar een gil.

So, after working in the Netherlands for some weeks...I am back in Norway on my quest to find work here and emigrate permanently. When I was here the last time I was lucky enough to find work for the summer which is why I am back in Norway now.
I stayed a couple of days in Oslo, saying hi to the people I met last time and flew to Andenes on Sunday where I will start work on Wednesday. In Oslo I also tried to take care of my tax card (you need one if you work here, it tells the employers how much tax to deduct, and a norwegian bank account). The tax card was easily taken care of. I only had to wait for almost two hours to just drop off my form and show my ID) but no Norwegian Bank account yet. Apparently this takes some time. I went there and I had to show my ID and fill out a form. Now I have to wait for an email with further instructions.... I will wait until Wednesday and then I will call them and also try another bank. See if they are faster. This of course means I dont have a bank account for my first paycheck, so I will get that at the end of June...:( Pff... Bureaucrats

The flight went from Oslo to Tromsø and then you take this little tiny plane for 20 minutes to Andenes (see picture above). The view from the plane was amazing. You fly over all these islands and most of them still have snowy peaks. If you ever go the northern Norway I can definitely recommend this flight, but also just the drive from Tromsø to Andenes by way of Senja.

So Sunday I arrived around noon in Andenes where I will start work at the reception of the Whalesafari (whalesafari.no) and in the high season I will work as a guide, to end as a receptionist again after the high season ends. I was picked up by some of my soon to be collegues who informed me that they were going out on a trip in an hour and if I wanted I was welcome to join. So ofcourse I wanted... Everything is closed here on a Sunday so besides unpacking I didnt have much to do.

 My (tiny) room is in this building which is directly next to the whalesafaro office. So I can literally roll into the office. After unpacking I joined the whaletour, to see what my future job is partly going to be all about. I was very lucky, since the weather was very nice and therefore had a great first experience.

 With the boat going to open water there was this amazing sunny view of the Andøy Island and which Andenes lies. The boats that are being used for the whalesafari are quit small and since we go out to open ocean the waves are big. This causes a lot of movement and I already heard from the other guides also a lot of seasickness.. Something I do not look forward to. They do have seasickness pills for everyone (also the turists) now I just hope they they puke over the railing or in the bag... So no need to clean up...blegh
Anyway.
After an hour we spotted our first spermwhale. I have been on a whalesafari before in Iceland and saw humpbacks and minke whales there. They breath at the surface and then dive again. Sperm whales are these amazin creatures that just lie at the surface for a couple of minutes. Just chilling and breathing,creating nice fountains. And then they deep dive which always has this amazing sight of the tail going up, since they are so heavy and the tail makes sure that they sink faster. In all we saw 4 whales (I think we saw two twice) and some more in the distance. Great experience on my first day!

So today is day 1 in Andenes. I walked around the town a bit, but since it is so tiny I was done in half an hour. I got some instructions about the reception already, and will learn more tomorrow and join the museum guide so I can get an impression on how that tour works. And then on wednesday I will actually start working officially at the reception. Should be fun!

I'll keep you guys posted.