A year in. Looking back.

So as I said in the last post. I, have been in Norway for just over a year. A lot of the visitors to this Blog as I have noticed are more interested in how hard it is financially, psychologically etc, then how great a bunnad looks. Fair enough, at the end of the day this is what I intended to do all those long months ago. So:

29th Mai 2009. I came over with one suitcase and a backpack. Both of these items I would be getting very intimate with over the next six months. Why? Well, because when I came over I had no job. I had no real place to live spare in the apartment that girlfriend shared with her friend in Toyen (sorry, cant get Norsk keyboard to work today, Vista's great ain't it?). To give you an idea, heres a qoute from my first ever post:

Lets get this into perspective. I have no friends and family over there (well I didn't), no money making talents, no preset job arrangements and most certainly no language knowledge. SO! Why do it? It could be that my beloved girlfriend is over there and I'm not. It could be that I am so bored with life here that I want a change? Or it could be that I want to at least say I tried to do it. Not many can say they've done that!

Now. When I say suitcase, I mean enough clothes to keep me from being naked for one and a half weeks. With only empty days to myself for the first few months, while my girl was busy working to pay for me. Not ideal, but we both knew what we were getting ourselves in for!

Over the next few months I busied myself with studying norwegian, meeting all of my girl friends friends. While my lady tried her hardest to get a job for me through her "connections" i went about town with a CV and embarrased myself wholesale trying to get work anywhere. I also bothered to try getting help from NAV, the Norwegian job point thingy, only to feel like an unwanted retard. Twice. Thanks guys.

Luck came in the form of a stock take at my Girlfriends place, where I actually managed to use my experience in retail to good form. Then, I got an extra boost of luck when I began working for a friend of the family by "Reporting football matches." I know what youre thinking, but no, it was for a booking website. Still paid. Most of the time.

Eventually, I acquired enough money to afford my first Norwegian Coarse. Now dont let this step fool you, for two weeks worth of "intensive" lessons you too can learn precisly butt kiss of norsk for a humble sum of 4400Kr (Roughly £480). Though the coarse was where I met like minded individuals i.e. immigrants like myself, each with their own hopes and dreams and stories.

Whilst this was going on, during a rather drunken complaint to one of my new Norwegian friends, I managed to acquire another job: working the door. Yeah, I know! But no matter what people tell you, Oslo aint nuthin like Liverpool. Working as security and genral drunk pusher, I worked twice a week from ten til four in the morning, walking home across the city. bearing this was during the Winter and this was before I could ship over some Winter clothes. Let me tell you, you don't know what cold is like until you've walked through Oslo in the Winter mornings.

>_<

Life was getting better. Until a surprise fall out with that "family member" caused me to rely more and more on my work at the student pub, which was starting to take its toll.

Taking a step back, I realised that I was missing vital norsk exposure. To that end I began working in a Barnahage voluntarily. The things kids can teach you. Anyone interested in learning more Norwegian or generally builing a CV in Norway, I would recommend volunteering for starters. Its not the expected thing here strangely. But like I said, children are fantastic teachers, patient (or not!), brazen and eager to impress by teaching you something.
A few weeks later, taking a tip of a "immigrant" friend, I was told about a Barnahage that was advertising for a job or two and I went for it. Got an interview and becuase of my lack of experience, aquired a "vikar" work. Vikar is essentially half way between a zero hour contract and part time. Unfortunatly the job was primarily English spoken and the whole afair lacked something which I needed. That, and consistant money!

As me and my girl were planning to move into our own place, we were stuck living at her parents house. We had said goodbye to Toyen, compacted all of our belongings (easier for me) and moved into a small room somewhere in Frogner. Life got hard while we pursued one flat after another until we got a lucky break, which we did have to wait longer for. Finally we said our thank yous and moved in. Making sure that it was a flat that my girl friend could afford herself, I was happy to actually let myself relax. Life was finally taking a sold turn. After six or seven months of room sharing? Who could blame me?

It was around this time that luck struck again. An old contact that I had enquired about work with came out of the blue, a few months later, asking if I wanted work. It was a part time job, just cleaning. It paid consistantly and although it was thankless labour it paid ok.

Finally earning, I made the call to ship all of my belongings from England. Total cost for 14 boxes? 4000Kr. Make sure youre ready and set before you do this. Only when you are sure do you burn your boats Cortez style.

What was I complaining about!? It was work! If someone in England had offered me this type of opportunity I would have flied the birdy, but here? It was progress, and that never happens fast enough.

The cleaning job panned out, very pleasent people, all with stories. Then a cruve ball occured, barley two months ago now. A friend of mine asked me if I could work in a book store, nigh on 100% Norwegian.

I said: Sure, why not?

It wasnt as permanent as the cleaning job. It might not even pay as much. So why did I take it? Answer? Long term thinking. I wasnt in Norway to get money. I was here to grow. To learn. I downgraded my cleaning job to vikar, and accepted her offer.

Like I said. Depseration is key.
:)

So:
Lets get this into perspective. I have no friends and family over there (well I didn't), no money making talents, no preset job arrangements and most certainly no language knowledge. SO! Why do it? It could be that my beloved girlfriend is over there and I'm not. It could be that I am so bored with life here that I want a change? Or it could be that I want to at least say I tried to do it. Not many can say they've done that!

Friends? Check. Through them came many fun times and jobs! How to get em? Be sociable. Accept all invitations where possible. Find a friend from your country? Stick together, endure the nordy madness.
Family? You would be surprised how quickly you can be "adopted" into another family, abroad. I like to think that I have my family, and my other families.
Job arrangements? If I have proven anything, its that not giving up and making opportunities (not to mention taking them) is key and if you try long enough, success is assured.
Language knowledge? I am proud to say that as of this month I have officially attained: Godd bad Norwegian level. Huzzaa! You get to a certain point? Unless you openly refuse to speak norsk, you will pick up words as you go. Nuthin to do with intellect, all you need is right in your head.
Why did I do it? I honestly cant think of a single reason not to. Remember, you can always start again, or try something else. Be the one that tried. Better yet, be the one that succeeded.


Thanks to all that follow me and this hurried little Blog. In no small part, your support and kind words have kept me sane in darker months.

One Year Anniversairy

A rather strange day occurred recently when I realized to my horror that I had in fact been in Norway for exactly a year last Saturday. Desperate to make a deal about it, I tried to arrange a celebration, maybe even start a little something for all of my other "invanderer" friends. As it happens, sodding Eurovision was on the same day.

(As an aside, have to say, Pete Waterman needs shooting for that travesty of music, and lets be honest, did anyone else notice that the English "dancers" were all drunk during the show part of the night? So embarrassing.)

Anyway, just as I was prepared to settle in for a night of eurotrash, my good friends surprised me with a gift an a hug, congratulating me for a job well done. Interestingly enough, those good friends will have been here a year in July sometime, so maybe a tradition can start for this? If I could coin it, I call it Invaders day, celebrating one year as an Invader, or immigrant if you like. :)

Anyway, for this years Anniversairy (a word I always struggle to spell) Ive decided to write up something of an appraisal. Maybe look back at past posts, events and memories and maybe go through the steps and travails I took to get this far. If I read it tonight, I should be able to write something up tomorrow.

Until then. If youre reading this and you yourself are an Immigrant in Norway, ask yourself, when is your Invaders day?

Rik

The Curious case of a lost F*&^ing wallet!

Yes thats right. On the way home from work, I left my wallet on the bus. Finding a distinct lack of bulge in my right pocket I did what most red-blooded males do. I freaking panicked. Ran around Oslo Sentrum chasing after buses like a demented canine. Finally saw sense and went to the local bus station only to remember that I forgot what the bus number had been!

Crap.

Well, writing it all off I counted the losses and went home, myself and my girl very damnably depressed Still its easier to deal with once you accept that there was nothing you could do.
Reaching home I went through the process of cancelling all my bank cards, taking advantage of the Norwegian 24hour stop system. Then, again, taking advantage of Norways massive trend of interenet banking, transferred money around so I could access it before 17th May celebrations!

Now all of this was going through the motions. But yesturday I recieved a very special phone call. Now this would never happen in England I'm mostly sure, but I recieved a phone call from a very excited bus driver who had found my wallet. Not only this, but she wanted to get it to me as soon as possible, trying to make arrangements to drop it off at my local station!

All of those days, chasing after a bus that leaves when your within inches of reaching the door has been forgiven! I cancelled my cards but hey, its the thought that counts right?

SO if you ever lose your wallet or "lommerbok", follow the following course:
1/ Cancel all bank cards via the internet or phone call. I would recommend that your mobile phone has such emergency numbers already on them.
2/ Contact your local bus terminal (or Traffikanten if your unsure), and tell them what bus you were on and when it was running. Sometimes apparently they can get the bus to drop it off the next time the driver comes by, if the wallet is found.
3/ Go back two days later to ask about it. Very often you will be given a set of numbers depending on what buses you had used, phoning these "lost and found" centers is a very direct approach.

Overall the experience of losing your important belongings is slightly different in Norway. Overall you are less likely to be frauded or have the cards taken, usually because such a safe system of stopping said cards exists. But dont panic, follow the above and you will be fine and writing blog posts about the ordeal in no time at all.

:)

And in other news...

I just realised right after finishing my last post some important things: -

1. I'm still waiting for my drivers license,
2. Soon I'm going on holiday... back home!
3. And, I've actually been here around 11 months as I arrived last June. Which means next month is my Immigrants Anniveresy! How to celebrate...

Drivers License.

Using the ever helpful services of Biltilsynet, I decided a while ago to change my English drivers license into a Norwegian one. Time was against me, as at the time I had but a few days to send it back to England for a new picture. Which, I was told by someone official in England, was pointless as I was living abroad. So, I quickly rushed over to my local Vei Vesson (sp?) to hand in my details. That was about nearly two months ago... I really should find out how that went!

A holiday back home.

From the very first moment my foreign feet touched tarmac at Torp airport I dreamed of using the Norwegian wage to fund a mass spending spree holiday back in England. Fate as it would seem, thought this would be fun too and thanks to the current climate pretty soon I "should" be returning to England with some money to buy things either unavailable (Read Aunt Bessies Yorkshire Puddings) or a damn sight cheaper in England (Read just about everything!). They say no plan ever survives contact with the enemy. I'll let you know how that goes. :)

Immigrants Annivserery? That and other traditions coming soon!

My family has never been one for traditions. Not because of some high brow sense of place, nor any form of spartan thinking, oh no, my folks came from Huyton Mofo! >:) However, since coming to Norway I can't help but feel rather than lacking, and rather than taking pølse off children every 17th May etc I feel its my responsibility to me and my own to establish some new traditions. This is after all a land filled with them. Here, a man can shamelessly wave the Union Jack without connotations to white skinned cueball headed neo-natzis and allround jew hating scum bags. Here, a man can actually explore what remains of English culture, the way he was meant to: by comparing it to other culture with a sense of dark witted arrogance. "I want my cup of tea in a CUP, not a GLASS, with MILK and a ton of SUGER! If it doesnt give me diabeties it don't count!"

So. Upon finding out that I had nearly been here a year, I decided very quickly that it was call for a celebration. Well, at least a reason to get drunk anyway (By the way has anyone seen what happens when you say to a Nord "I hope you get adequatly drunk?" Wierd.). More importantly, this concept couldnt be selfishly kept, oh no!

SO! My ExPatriot and soon to be ExPatriot friends! I call to you! If you have survived the culture shock, the Cuisine Le Anglais food crisis that is to be without proper gravy, the horribly and sensibly priced alchohol, the over bearingly polite to pedestrain drivers, TEA IN GLASSES, if you have survived a year, be it your first or another, celebrate. If we celebrate surviving a year on our birthday, surely this advancement in the survival process requires something extra. But wait! This day requires a name! Something catchy and memorable, that demands songs and antics that can be handed down to new arrivals.

Ideas?

Where to begin.... Again. (Language rant)

It occured to me recently (About five minutes ago actually), that learning a language feels like running a circuit. Yeah, lets go with that analoge for now. That circuit represents all of the knowledge you can accumulate in say a month. If its too big, you will probably fall over and die of a heart attack (analogy!), so keeping it small at first is good: Say so many words, so many grammital wotnots etc. Once you can run that circuit you make it a little bigger.

Where am I going with this? Around in circles. But not it seems in a bad way. Many Language coarses prech repetition. Remember the lines you had to write on the board in school, a hundred times: I will not put an angry cat in teachers bag? (What just me?). What you might of experienced there was the most basic form of education, kinesthetic learning. IE learning by physically doing it. My late French teacher once said that all things could be memorised by three simple steps. Reading, saying and writing it down, over and over again. Unless you accidently become an adept scribe, great at copying written works without actually reading them, it should help. many special needs kids go through this and hell if it works for them it works for you.

But I digress. What am I ranting about now? I have been here for around 9 months now and counting. I have achieved arguable quite a lot in terms of language acquisition it seems. However, even now I still screw up the most basic of things.

Pose. Bag. Vil du få en pose? Would you like a bag? I say it a lot in my current job and dear god how I am sick of getting it wrong. Having a customer standing infront of you wondering god knows what. (Would you like a pause with that? Would you like a pussy cat?) The problem lies in the utterances. The vowel O can be said in many different ways thanks to many languages and dialects, slangs and candences. WTF eva. Where I come from, we don't use that particular vowel sound required to say the word bag in Norwegian!! So, I must practice making a funny face while I try to make that sound that my ears are not trained to hear and my mouth it seems is not trained to make. Yet there is hope. Today, my readers. I said it right. I did a little dance! Im telling my those who read my blog even. I dont expect any of you to understand but I kind of hope one day you might.

So what advice can I give from this experience? That those circuits I talked of always return to the starting block? That no matter how good you get, revision is required? hard truth Im afraid.

Try this. http://www.omniglot.com/writing/norwegian.htm

The guy to writes on this website has learned about 8 languages fluently and countless as a side project. But this page describes Norwegian and even lets you listen to the alphabet and those pesky dipthong thingies. Say them along as you hear it. Leave it a day, go back and see if you can say the letter sounds a minisecond before they do. Are you right? If you leave it another day do you get better?

Bottom line is, if you can remember the alphabet. You CAN learn the language.

/Rant.

Thanks for reading.

"Desperation is what you need, doo do do dooo dooooo"

Hi again folks to what is turning into a monthly afair. The weather has turned from a sour snow to a skitzofrenic (sp??) nut job that can`t decide if it wants to shine brightly or well, rain erm ash?

I recently helped friend from England get his first job, and while my inner trumpets are playing and (if I was religiously inclined) my place in ahem, the place upstairs is set, I mention this not for praise. Oh no. In Norway it seems, networking is key. The expression "its not what you know but who" has never been truer. Indeed, I can honestly say that most of my jobs have been found through friends and friends of friends. I've done the work of walking around Oslo, despressingly handing out CV's like some student whose just discovered council tax, I've found myself praying for easy jobs that rely on English speakers. Choose your own path. I recently passed on a job opportunity from one friend to another who needed one, now shes working in an English company in Norway playing on mobile phones all day trying to crash them. Makes you think how it would have been, testing Windows Vista in the same way.

Take my latest misadventure for example. Last mentioned I was cleaning floors and toilets and earning a reletivly tidy some for it. So I ask you: Why did I move on to a job in a book store, several miles away in Lillestøm where barely any English is heard? Where I am expected to perform like anyone else and understand enough norsk to survive?

Desperation. Pure and simple. I've been searching for the sacred "Immigrants Attitude" since I got here, that thought pattern that makes the difference between a man from a war torn country that works his ass off every day, learns the language and provides for his family, and the man who comes from a rich background and gives up 'cus its too hard. No offence meant, but I am fed up, sick to death with reading bloggs and such about people who claim Norway is too hard to live in. I'd love to give my whole account, but that is another story...

Working in an enviroment which DEMANDS norsk to survive, is a remarkably effective way of forcing your mind to "up the game." Obviously it doesnt work without the SUPPLY that studieing provides, but you can be damn sure that you will memorise the words you use before others, and here I use quite a few new ones every day.

My advice for anyone wanting to make the difference is to volunteer to work your free time in Norwegian environments where you can pick up more words and tune in to the lingo.

In regards to my new job though, it is HARD. Every day, at least twice, a situation will come along where for all intents and purposes I am a child/dog/pokemon as I stare in utter incomprehension to what a customer is saying. So far it hasn't lost me the job, though luckily, a combination of daily studying is keeping me afloat. So far. All I can say is wish me luck, and Ill tell you all about it.

Thanks for reading.

Og min sjef gir meg vaffle og kopp te i dag!
Jeg bestempte meg at jeg like det her!
Også, Google translator er hjempe farlig! :)

Long time no post!! aka I'm still alive!

While you were gone...
Apologies all round for my tardiness. It never surprises me how easy it is to simply lose interest in something. Then again my attention span was nev

I am now in a flat, with furniture, heating and all the modern comforts. After some agonisingly complex organisation my belongings have finally begun the shipping process. Only the dreaded weekend keeps my toys (and clothes) in a warhouse somewhere south of Hull, awaiting my completed passport and custom details. One hurdle after another. By the way, I recommend Tuder freight, very accesable, though as with any freight service, take the qoute they give and double it when planning ahead. Learn from my mistakes.

Had a bad surprise the other day too, in the same week I discovered that my freight cost wasnt 220, but £470 I learned that my English bank had decided to freeze my account so my direct debit from my credit card bounced causing unnecesery charges. Dont even bother with HSBC's customer help line, unless you think a poorly paid Asian worker can empathise with you about your situation in Prescot. I understand out soarcing and all that but sheesh, get a grip!
Anyway, a few phone calls, internet access and fantastic parents later all is coming together.

I love you guys.

So after living for almost 9 months out of a suitcase (plus what I brought over on my last trip to sunny, ahem, Liverpool) I will soon (should) have my things!!
Some of you may understand what Im talking about.

Job hopping (With the occasional skip)
Toilets to books. They say that job hunting in Norway is about who you know, more than what you know. There is some truth in this. SO far in Norway Ive worked as a commentator on the local matches (less said about that the better), security in a Norwegian "pub" (its not a real pub, not really) and barnehage vikar. I recently got a part time contract working as a cleaner. Not exactly exotic but it paid well and the people there where fantastic. I really got into that "Immigrant" attitude, not the percieved one of blatant ignorance and laziness but the truer one of hard work (/discuss). Now, Ive recently acquired a vikar work with a book store! Talking to customers! OH dear god! (read the section below for more details about the OMG)

The point Im tryng to make however, is that all of these jobs only happened because of connections. Networking, is a common activity in Norway, as far as I can tell. Though not the cold and cocktail studded, party ridden whoring one might think of in the acting circles of Hollywood, oh no. In Norway it seems more natural, more of a side affect of making friends. Do I feel lucky? Hell yes, I have many great friends in Oslo.


The language barrier Vs the high jump.

Learning a language is a funny, thing. Especially when you go from feeling thick headed and useless one minuite to realising how far you have truly come. Far from the obligatory "your Norwegian is really good/ du er så flink med norsk!" I'm talking about the moments when you note that some words have stuck, have been learnt even. Its a good feeling. The point is that learning a language takes a lifetime. Learning to communicate doesnt.

Its all in increments, scratching a word or two at a time. I do believe that even if you dont try, sometimes you can't help but pick up on something. Its nothing to do with intellect (thank god) but rather a natural instinct we all have since the time we learnt our first language. Sound, word = meaning. Multiple words means a concept, etc.

For me though, while I can prattle away like a proper hill billy, hearning the Norwegian is still my weak point. Hopefully a combination of radio, constant conversation, reading and the usual studying will make the difference I need for this new job.
Did I say usual studying? I lied. In truth I had a ahem, break for a month or so while I became distracted by more mundane things like work, money and snow. Remember: Reward yourself for every victory.




Anyway, its good to be back, and maybe next time, Ill tell you a secret....
:)

Missed you!

R