In my mid-forties, Irish by blood, attitude and overall approach to life, I lived in London for many years before moving to Norway.
With a German husband and two young kids, we moved to Norway with no connections and no family here. I left behind a successful corporate career in the UK. We were lucky enough or nuts enough to willingly do the hedonistic thing and jump off what had become the hamster wheel of stress and long-hours and chasing family time. My husband had a new job here. Midlife is a good time for change, right?
This is a blog about my recollections, ramblings, discoveries and my waving at my comfort zone from a very respectable distance. It’s a blog about life here in Oslo. This is also about 2 big people and 2 little people moving from the familiar and comfortable to a state of total cluelessness and climbing back from there. Integration isn’t as easy as newspaper headlines and politicians would suggest, especially when learning a language from scratch as a grown-up, the first step in really understanding a new culture and immersing into it.
I started the blog in answer to all the requests I got from friends and family about what it was like here in Oslo, how it was going with the kids, how cold were we really and so on.
I also started it to keep me company, as an outlet for those funny experiences I have every day that make me guffaw or just laugh or articulately say What the …!? My husband and kids started to glaze over some time back so I reckon I need to find at least one other person to listen to me. Somebody… anybody…?
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