@ Romanov:
I’d move back into I.T. and try and get a job doing
that - maybe helpdesk or something?
Well, problem is a) out here in the sticks there’s not much of an IT industry, which is mainly in Oslo/Bergen and b) any IT job will involve speaking a lot more Norwegian than I know.
you really want to learn Norwegian, its easy to pick up
when you are in the country and as said above watching tv
etc can help loads. Why not just order a language course
and talk you your girlfriend?
My girlfriend and I have always spoken English to each other and while we try to speak Norwegian sometimes it’s always far too easy to switch back to English…
You’ll pick it up in a couple of months…the only nasty
thing about Norwegian is the glottal stop which we find hard
to get used to.
Hey mate I’ve lived in London for long enough, I haven’t go’ a problem with glo’al stops!
I lived in denmark for awhile and I moved back here, it
was just very very boring and the winter months are very
dark and pretty depressing…
That’s pretty much exactly what it’s like here now – you hit the nail on the head.
why did you goto Norway anyway?
Well, my girlfriend had a **** job in London (working in Superdrug) and she just really really hated it. I tried to tell her for about a year to just get another job. After all, Polish people manage to come to London and get another job without even speaking English properly so why should she have a problem finding a new job in a city that has 100,000’s of them?
The problem also was she didn’t make **** all money in her job. I’d always bring home 300-500 a week and she’d bring home 120 quid because she only works part time at six quid an hour. I tried subbing her as best as I could (paying for rent, food for us etc.) but in the end it wasn’t enough. Then our landlord defaulted on his mortgage and we got served with eviction papers. It was either just move into another place in London or make a move while we got all our rubbish in boxes anyway. So, the decision was made and off we went…
Trust me, going back down to my courier company and handing back my radio, PDA, tracker and bib was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. After working for so many rubbish companies I finally found one that was fair, paid decent money, had reasonable controllers etc. and I really loved working for. Now I’ve given it all up to be here and it turns out it doesn’t seem to be such a great idea, but I can’t really go back either because I pissed away all my money coming here and I wouldn’t know where to go in London anyway.
So, guess I really don’t have a chance other than to ride it out. I might be able to get a language course in January 2007 and until then I might as well just sign up for World of Warcraft or some other time-eating online game to kill the time.
Once I speak enough Norwegian and somehow scrape together 40,000 kroners I’d love to get my class “CE” licence so I can drive trucks. Lorry drivers are in quite a high demand here but I was an idiot for not getting the licence in the UK before coming over here. It’s a great job because you are out on the road and you don’t have to speak much Norwegian – and (unlike being a motorbike courier) if you get into a collision it tends to be the other person’s problem as you weigh 50 tons.
I seriously considered coming back to the UK living like a dog somewhere and just getting my licence there and then go back, but looking and the cost of travelling/setting myself up there again and then doing the training I might as well wait it out and do it here. At least then I get the special “scandinavian” aspects of the training (how to run over moose, drive on ice etc.) Should be fun but it all requires patience which I’ve never had a lot of. I’m a child of the “I want everything NOW!” generation.
No criticism here you’ve done a coolo thing just
launching yourself in there but now you’ve got to build
up a picture of Norway as your home ie, job, money and
friends, if you cant do this and cant see yourself doing
that then you need to get out m8.
Well, I have no other choice than to hang on and try a bit longer… in the end if I really don’t see it happening for me here you’ll see me back at Cubana’s eventually, probably next spring… 
But who knows maybe I can pull it off somehow. We’ll see if taking the language course will cheer me up a bit. Until then I just have to suck it up…
@ dannyboy: no use doing that, everybody here speaks perfect English already, which just makes it that much harder to learn the language because everybody wants to practise their English!
The funny thing is: while you won’t have problems COMMUNICATING with anybody as they all speak English, they won’t give you a job until you speak THEIR language… it’s a bit silly really.
