Part 6 “….AND FROM THIS MOMENT, PLEASE, IN MORE DETAIL.” Return to Kiev. After the tourist period I came home on 3 March 2011. The plaster was to come off in three weeks. The decision had already been taken that we would marry, and Ivan at once began collecting documents to open my 6-month fiancée visa.
For that he prepared a list of documents. At that time the fiancé had to have a minimum of 240 thousand kroner a year in permanent income, have enough square metres of housing for a wife, and have no debts on that housing. And his documents and a filled-in form he submitted to UDI, paid 3,000 kroner for the visa, and sent me an official invitation and a form, with which I was able to get into the Norwegian embassy in Kiev only on 2 May.
When I handed in my documents at the embassy, the secretary said: “you will have to wait for the visa to be opened from UDI; nothing depends on us any more, and we do not know the waiting times” (they only added that they can consider it for a long time, up to 11 months).
About a week after my arrival in Kiev a letter came to me from the Norwegian hospital for payment for treatment of 2,000 kroner (200 euro). And I remembered that Ivan had paid for everything at the hospital. I rang, telling him excitedly. He says: “Everything is fine, don’t worry, I paid it all, they just sent it to your address, duplicated it.” I had to bustle some more, go to Podol to the insurance company, where they paid me 2,000 hryvnias. At the insurance company there is such an “interesting” system: I broke my arm at 12 noon, and I rang the insurance company at 19.30. So a polite voice answered me that one must ring about what happened at once, as soon as you broke it. Strange — and if I had been unconscious?
Three weeks later I went to the clinic to see the surgeon. I sat out the queue, I go in: “hello–hello, I’ve come to ask for a referral for an X-ray!” The surgeon (an uncle the same age as I), asks: “And what’s this, such a posh plaster you’ve got? And where did they put it on?” I am silent, smile politely, don’t confess it is from Norway, I say “I need to get to X-ray.” And he: “So first you have to take the plaster off, and then X-ray, and I haven’t even got the instrument.” And I to him: “So maybe you want to send me to a plumber?” — “All right, let’s go to the treatment room!”
They started, he and the nurse, taking it off — cutting with blunt scissors, tugging at the arm. And it hurt me. I say: “Careful!” And he to me: “I zvidky taka tenditna pryikhala?” (where did such a delicate one come from?) I repeat “delicate–snowy” 😻. They sent me to X-ray. I bring him the wet film hanging on a stick, he looks–says: “And what did they do with your arm, tiahnuly (they pulled)?” I answer: yes, they pulled. “They pulled and didn’t pull enough, but you’ll live.” And my right arm hangs like a whip. I ask “And what now to do with the arm?” He says you need to go to physio for treatments, you’ll recover quickly. So I did everything “the doctor prescribed” 🧐. I recovered quickly and continued swimming in the pool. That is my long-standing hobby — swimming.
By the way, in my tourist period, before breaking my arm, Ivan and I used to go into town to swim in the pool. Once the elder daughter asked Ivan that we go somewhere in the evening, until about 11, so we would not be in the house, because guests were to come to her. Honestly, we had nowhere to go except the pool, but it was open only until 20.00. Ivan suggested sitting in a restaurant as well. Oh. We came out of the pool, winter, snow up to the knees, drove to the town centre, parked the car, walked through the drifts to the centre. In the restaurant — no one, only the two of us. We do not eat in the evening. We ordered coffee and dessert. We whiled away the time until 22.30. We arrived, and at home there was company; they did not break up soon. Then I did not yet think what a “merry” life I would have in Norway! 🤗