Sunday, October 21, 2007

Apartments and moving issues

Last week I had to move to a new apartment, since my first month in Norway was approaching. I found a nice apartment at a very convenient price and I rented it.
It must be said that renting was an "interesting" experience, since at first I had help from some people but the last steps I had to do it myself. To spice things up, the landlord spoke very little english, so it was basically a sign language conversation. Finally the move day came, I move all my stuff from the 4th floor to the door (moving things that way is not funny), and I called a taxi. I tried to speak norwegian and I prepare myself, so I knew exactly what I needed to say (although it was not the most usual way, most people agreed that it was correct). I called, listened the options in the menu and selected a "Maxitaxi" since I was moving my stuff and had some boxes to carry. Finally I reached an operator and I said: "Jeg vil en taxi fra ... til ...", totally proud of myself and feeling totally sure that after that my problems were over. Of course the lady asked me something that sounded like white noise to me, so swallowing my pride I replied "Could you repeat that in english please?". I turned to be a very simple question (once the question was asked in english of course): " Do you think that you need a van or is it a station wagon enough?". I asked for a station wagon, and wait for a few minutes.
Once everything was in, we went to my new place and I unload the station wagon. Thinking that finally I could do something without much pain, I went to my apartment and tried to open the door.... voila! the landlord didn't give me all the keys.... I called him (at this time I was pissed off) and demanded a solution because I was not going to pack everything and return to my previous place. After a while, the building manager came and gave me the missing key and finally I was able to move my stuff.
Despite all the troubles I'm really happy now, this weekend I went to Ikea and bought some curtains, and I'm thinking about painting my room. My furniture & friends are still "sailing" through customs, so I'm sleeping on a sleep bag on the floor, but at least my apartment is going to look really nice in a few days.

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