Moving to Kirkenes

[Guardian]

Hi all!

We're here and starting to get our life back together. Have taken some pictures already, will take more and post some when I have a little more time on my hands.

The way this works for my wife & Co is that they all pull a number out of a hat, then the people with the lowest numbers get to pick were to go from a list of available positions, while the pople with the higher numbers have to take whatever places are left by the time it's their turn to "choose".

[Dinner]

Can't you just work in Sweden or Denmark?

[Monk]

I want to live in a freaky place too!

Do they have obscure dialects, I wonder? The freakier the place, the less understandable the Norwegian, that's my impression.

Held og lykke med hele projektet.

[Dinner]

On the upside there will be plenty of crabs to eat.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4775155.stm

[Gangerolf]

Kirkenes is east of Istanbul - fact

[Zkribbler]

Whew, now if someone asks me if I know anyone living in Kirkenes, I can say yes.

[Dinner]

The funny thing is first the Norweigens were whining about the invasion of North American Atlantic Lobsters and now they're whining about the invasion of Alaskan King Crabs. If the Euro-crustaceans weren't such wusses the American crustaceans wouldn't be pwning them.

[Guardian]

Originally posted by Gangerolf
Kirkenes is east of Istanbul - fact

Yup. We should actually be in a different time zone from the rest of Norway. We're not though, since somebody in their wisdom thought that would pretty impractical and I suppose they did have a point.

The next door neighbors on the Russian side of the border are two hours ahead of us though.

[Guardian]

Originally posted by Oerdin
On the upside there will be plenty of crabs to eat.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4775155.stm

Yup! They have "crab safaris" for tourists here where you can go out on a boat for a couple of hours, catch a boatload of crab and then come back and have a crab fiest afterwards.

[Snotty]

like a pick your own farm. sweet

[Guardian]

Originally posted by Monk
I want to live in a freaky place too!

Do they have obscure dialects, I wonder? The freakier the place, the less understandable the Norwegian, that's my impression.

Held og lykke med hele projektet.

Takker & bukker!

Yes, obscure dialects and many different languages. We have Norwegian, Russian, Finnish, Sami and Swedish speaking people around here. Road signs are usually in Norwegian and Russian since the Russians are our next door neighbors and they tend to come visit us pretty often.

One of the locals I have spoken to claims there are approximately 500 Russians in Kirkenes at all times. I don't know where he got that from, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's true.

[DanS]

Why do the Russkis cross the border? Is it just that Kirkenes is the closest real settlement? Or is the Russki side of the border a hellhole compared to Kirkenes?

[Guardian]

They come here mostly for shopping, trading or having their boats fixed, I think. I haven't been on the Russian side (yet), so I don't really know much about what it's like over there, but I understand that the Russian border guards have it lots rougher than ours. On our side, they have heated cabins with electricity, 3 meals a day, wireless communications, color TVs and PlayStation 2 for when they're off duty. From what I've been told, it seems the guards on the Russian side have to feed and heat themselves most of the time.

[Herra Gautason]

The bad news is that we'll have a couple of months with no sun at all this winter...

That´s just cosy, the sun is overrated. It´s really the midnight sun that causes trouble. And I guess you are going to see some cool northern lights as you will be quite far up north. Nothing beats real northern lights dancing on the sky.

To sum it up:

Hot weather
Cold weather
Northern lights

[Ari Rahikkala]

Kirkkoniemi