Living and Working in Norway
This is not a guide, just my experience and reflections
Part 1 — Starting over
Last July, I moved to Norway, after 6 years living in Denmark. Not much of a difference except Norway being incredibly beautiful. As we are heading to winter, I find myself struggling.
It’s November after all, my most hated month of the year. I hate November as there isn’t much to celebrate, days are getting insanely short (it’s now dark at 4pm) and all I want is to be under my blanket and listening to lofi. Thankfully, sunsets are gorgeous here.
I moved to Norway for love after my partner realized she missed her friends and her country dearly. The pandemic made us understand that living in an appartment in a noisy building was not our dream and the idea of buying a home in the suburbs of Copenhagen was actually the least of things we wished to do.
Lucky enough, we both found a job and here we moved with our Volvo V70 2000 (Volvo for life!) for another chapter of our life. After weeks of efforts, getting work permits, finding furniture to furbish our house, opening bank accounts etc., we finally settled down. We are living in a small town (only 17 000 inhabitants), 40 minutes away from Oslo. We get the luxury of renting a house with a garden, in a quiet neighbourhood and we are close enough to work.
We are happy, for the most part but starting your life somewhere else isn’t the easiest thing to do. You pretty soon either look back to what you’re missing from the previous chapter or you simply realise that not much has indeed changed. After 4 months in our jobs, we are both unhappy. I feel I have been unhappy with working as an educator since the crisis began. The pandemic changed my perspective on work and on what I truly want to do in life, or at least what I wish to do more in my life.
I’m bored in my new job and I feel like retrograding in my career whilst my partner finds her position too binding for her freelance artist soul. The good news is that we are working on it. She is finding new opportunities and I’m taking the time to write a bit every day.
If you reading this and wanting to know more about how things are working in Norway, please ask!
Until next time, take care of yourself.
