HERE, THERE AND EVERYWHERE

1980-1991

MALAYSIA 1980-1983

Year 1980- We arrived in Malaysia in the summer of 1980.What a different world, a large House, maid in the kitchen, gardener in the huge garden, a new

large car and relatively little to do at work. Tine and Timm were fantastic, in a very short time they were enrolled in the American

International School – ISKL. Puk also adjusted into being a “fine lady”, playing bridge and batminton, attending club life and Embassy receptions.

Our house in Petaling Jaya – Rattan furniture in the living room

Our maid Ay Lin serves Puk – Timm loved our Mazda

Puk’s Bridge team

Timm and our fierce “Rompi” – Puk enjoys life

Tine entertains an unknown snake – Ole in Paradise (flying books)

It is a hard life in the tropics

Hard work in the Kuala Lumpur Air Traffic Control Center

But still time for a little dancing with Turkish diplomat friends

We visited the jungle (until Tine was tired of it)

And also enjoyed the fabulous beaches

The snorkeling on the East Coast of Malaysia was great

We celebrated Christmas with a real tree (of course). Ay Lin our maid practised for weeks to use knife and fork.

Thai Pusam at the Batu Caves was scary and fashinating – so many people in one place and us in the middle of it.

We were really proud of Tine and Timm, while they were doing the school work they also were very active in sports (and in that heat!)

Then suddenly Tine was 18, she graduated and left for College in Iowa, USA. That is important because that changed our story.

Timm’s school was not completed, but we were lucky to have good friends with whom he stayed for a while. Then he returned to Europe – via South America – visiting close friends there. He doesn’t look very unhappy saying good-bye to us.

ABU DHABI 1983-1989

Year 1983- Our next posting was Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. It sounds terrible, but it is a very nice place. Soon Puk and Ole were installed in a flat on the 6^th floor in the Khalidya high rise apartment block. Gone was the house maid and gardener, but we got another car. Gone was Rompi our dog, but we got 10 million ants in our flat instead (and 1000 pigeons on the balcony). Gone was the rattan furniture, exchanged for typical English style (actually made in Denmark). Soon Ole was checked out in the Abu Dhabi Air Traffic Control and Puk started to widen her social circles. There was no International School for Timm so he went to Copenhagen were he completed his High School. A war raged between Iran and Iraq and daily we saw aircraft shot down on the radar in the center. It had some advantages, the Iranian Caviar and rugs were very cheap.

Abu Dhabi city with the blue lagoon in front - very picturesque

Our English furniture made attractive by Puk’s imagination

Both Tine and Timm visited us in Abu Dhabi when school and studies did not call for work. We played a lot of Whist and cooked both sushi and sweets

Ole worked as a Controller and Supervisor in the airport while Puk took care of the daily social life.

I tried to sell her, but could not get enough camels in the bargain.

We had parties at the beach

and in the Desert

not to mention with friends at home (Paula and Pekka the Finns)

The beers taste very well on the top of a sand dune especially in 40° heat.

and even better in 50° on board an oil platform.

Tine and Timm loved the desert, Timm so much that he worked during the summer holidays in it.

“The desert is like a naked woman” (Ole Nikolajsen)

Soon after we left Abu Dhabi. We got an exiting job offer in Oman, next door. And in April 1989 we once more loaded our stuff and shipped it to the new place. We were working for PANAM, the airline, in opening up and Air Traffic Controller’s School at Seeb airport. Having endured the war in the Gulf for many years we also wanted a change of “climate”. We did not leave without big problems as IAL tried to cheat us of our pension.

SEEB, OMAN 1989-1991

Year 1989 We arrived in Oman with great expectations, Principal of the new School, higher pay and an exciting country. Soon after we arrived PANAM went bankrupt and the Oman part was sold to Johnson control. We didn’t even get a free PANAM flight before it was sold.

Very fast we settled in our flat in this building in the DCA compound near Seeb airport. Oman is very hot, the climate being like in Africa. Luckily we had air-condition, but furniture and standards were poor.

Without Puk’s sense of interior decorations it would have been unbearable, but we managed as can be judged from the above Photo.

Equally lucky was it that we got good and dedicated friends, whom we still see today (except poor Schiller who was killed in a road accident in Oman)

Tine and Mike visited us and especially for Mike it was an eye opener, not many Americans had then been to Oman. Here we are shopping at Matraq harbor.

50% of Oman’s landscape look like this, the other 50% is desert!

Oman has had a terrible civil war and in many places ruins and other signs could be seen.

Much of the wife’s time was spend with various activities in the Compound where we lived (American style)

Ole managed to get a few flights with the Omani Air Force into the interior of the country, the empty quarter, very interesting.

Once more Puk organized a Patchwork group, here the ladies are enjoying themselves.

Life was very diversified with some activities like in the Middle ages, like here in the Matraq souk, Puk’s favorite shopping place.

Almost next to it was the French Presonic modern Shopping arcade.

A Danish Navy Corvette visited Oman while it was stationed in the Gulf and we got real “Wienerbröd”.

In late 1990 the Gulf war broke out and being tired of life with the Arabs and the Omanis in particular we went back to Europe with our usual 3000 kg of freight. We flew back on New Years Eve 1990.