things happened and norway part 1
somehow it's september and it's been september for a while. what the-- i know, time, what a rush.
well we had some miracles since my last post. mohammad al helaal somehow, just when everything seemed darkest, just when there was little hope to grasp on to, just when all avenues seemed to be closed to us, just at that moment, mr. al helaal got our marriage registered and got all the documents that we had been tortuously banging our heads against walls trying to get. just like that i woke up one morning and all the documents were sitting in my whatsapp, like no big deal. well it is a big deal. and so what followed was some intense preparations and meetings with the lawyer and finally on august 26 we sent in our application to immigration canada. big day. big moment. big sigh of relief. big collapse in a heap on the floor. BIG.
even on that day. the final day, we had some obstacles. mohammad signed a paper slightly off the mark. lawyer said fix it or you may regret it. mohammad fixed it. he sent it to me on this app that did weird things to my computer and put its logo over the immigration canada logo and i had to fix it and the photocopier was bothered and doing weird things and i had to fix that. and then in our 3 way zoom meeting with mr. lawyer we realized some mistakes that i had perpetuated, fixed those...it was a grueling long session. i think 2 hours and 45 minutes. just when we were at the part where mohammad was about to push the submit button, my laptop suddenly shut off and then it wouldn't connect to the internet and then i was on the phone with lawyer man and could hear him and mohammad having communication difficulties and both of them saying when is laura coming back...then just as i got another computer conneccted my laptop did connect and then i was on zoom 2x... but in the end we did it and we survived.
that was 3 weeks and a couple of days ago. now we are waiting to be assigned to an immigration officer. lawyer said that would take 2-3 months but hubby believes it should only be 4 weeks. all we can do is wait. and trust.
about 4 days after this big life crescendo i traveled to norway to do my 2nd accreditation. it was a 4 day visit. i was paired with a pro, knut, who after 35 lost track of how many accreditations he's done. we stayed in a fancy hotel in moss and despited a car accident, a car incident and knut throwing up, we had a great visit. i showed off my swedish on the first day (it wasn't much of a brag--halting and slow) so people generally were speaking norwegian all the time and not bothering to translate very much so i spent a lot of my brain power on concentrating very very very hard on what people were saying. on the last day i read my part of the report in norwegian. which was not easy but i feel good about.
then suddenly it was over. i said good bye to knut, who dropped me off at the train station, and caught the train to oslo. a member of the clubhouse was on the same train and we talked the whole way. he has a cool story. so barb wanted me to catch the bus to her work so i could leave my suitcase in her car and we could traipse about oslo. and after wandering around a bit and asking directions from an indian man, a polish man and 2 germans, i found the tourist bureau and bought a bus ticket and the nice girl gave me different directions than barb and i took her directions. and lived to regret it. so the long and the short of it was i got lost and lugged my suitcase up a very big hill and barb had to come find me after i shared my location, which was in front of a gas station and she came and stopped in the road and i shoved my suitcase in and hopped in the front and we went back to her work which was quite far in the opposite direction. then we caught the bus down town together. barbs tall norwegian hubby torks met us there and we walked the streets, stopped and had a baguette sandwich and i grabbed myself 3 waters (i was sooooo thirsty). the street we were on, ended at the palace and it just so happened that the king had just died and all the flags were at half mast and people were all going to the palace to leave flowers so we walked there to take a look. there was a sea of flowers and messages and candles and a 3 hour line up that snaked around the palace to pay respects to the king.
we didn't go in that line, but we walked to a park. on the way to the park barb kept telling us that each street we passed was the street she started her race on. we stopped at a corner store and torks bought me a water. and after i finished drinking it barb told me now i could keep the bottle and fill it up with water and drink it again. i looked at her. she was explaining bottles to me. i said something that made us both laugh and barb to almost pee her pants, but i don't remember what i said. any way something that she showed me was in front of some houses were brass squares in the sidewalk and if you stop to read them, you will read the name of the jewish person who once lived there and the date they were taken away. those little remembrances are all over oslo.
the park we went to was vigeland park, which is full of statues all by vigeland. all in various positions and in various stages of life and relationship. this is barb and torks' first 'date' place. the statues are all naked. mom can't get over it. i liked it. we spent a long time there walking and looking and taking pics.
my feet were sore.
when we finished there we took the tram and then a bus back to barb's office. and then we drove to barb and torks' house out in svelvik, which is a little community near drammen where they used to live. i met their dog, ori. the fjord is just across the street and barb and ori and i walked under the road to the fjord and ori wanted to chase some swans and we went back and watched track and field and had pizza.
let's stop here. more to come.
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