Again, reading back all about Norway… I feel I need to go back and discover more. It’s an amazing country with so much potential… maybe backpacking around? Would cost me a LOT! ☺️ See some pics in media ☺️

*Let me tell you that it was part of my intention here to find out if it’s worth come and live here for a year or so as I’ve heard lots of good things about this country. About my conclusion of living here or not…. I’ll tell you a bit later.

So we arrived on the 31st January and spent 3 days in Oslo. We rent a car but when we did that, we didn’t know how difficult it will be. First of all the woman added the toll pass to our bill twice. So when I checked the bill I didn’t understand why it is so high until we saw the doubled number. They changed it but it set my mood a bit. When we got to our hotel, we realised that we can not park anywhere in Oslo… the girl on reception said that the government tries to get the cars out from downtown so there is no parking availability only for 2 hours on the signed sides of the street. What did we do? We went to a car park which cost us £30 for 24 hours 😳😳😳 couldn’t believe it but there was no other way.

The hotel was fantastic, I booked a very unique, organic hotel. Everything was recyclable, natural and the rooms were very quirky and cute. The breakfast was all organic food and we had free tea and coffee -the green tea tasted great-. ☺️ As I was interested in finding out the way of life here, I asked the manager, Christian. As it turned out he is originally from the UK but he lives in Norway for about 10 years now. He told us that the average salary for an event/banqueting manager is about 30,000kr/ month (which is about £3000 after tax). It sounds great but then as we know the cost of living is fairly expensive. Apparently the people here don’t really know IT in a proper way so if someone has a good IT knowledge, it can pay a fortune. Some people also getting paid by hour and the basic rate is 150kr/hour (£1 = 10kr). However, the rent might be more in Oslo, about 20-30 mins away from the centre the rent could cost 4 times LESS than in the city… that is very impressive. Christian told us, with a knowledge of their language, people can earn way more so it’s definitely worth learning the language. He offered me to email him any time I would need some help with finding a job (and no, he wasn’t into me, he has a husband 😁)

Oslo itself isn’t too interesting, it’s a big city and it’s extremely expensive. When I say expensive, it means you spend about £9 for a gin and tonic and about the same price for a pint of beer. We went to a little restaurant. Had a baileys coffee, a pint of beer, 1x starter and 2x main courses. This cost us approximately £70.. During our 6 days stay we found out, it’s not only Oslo… Norway is freaking expensive.

After Oslo we headed to my travel buddie’s brother who lives up North for almost 8 years now. As we wanted to see some fjords, we drove 6 hours to get to a fjord which looked incredible with all the massive mountains around and the tiny lake looking water which then ends up in the open sea.. and then we drove an other 1.5 hours to his bother. We got to Dombas in the evening. Also don’t forget, it gets dark at 4pm already. They live in a small village, in a small apartment which was converted from a basement of the house above. It has everything that a couple needs, so they don’t have the reason to complaint. And they don’t… as you go outside, you see the mountains all around and woods a bit more down, it’s breathtaking.

The rest of the days we spent at theirs. We’ve seen beautiful fjords, we went to an aquarium which was made by the sea so the seals are in their natural habitat; we climbed mountains (not too high ones), walked on frozen lakes, hunted moose (not to kill but to see them) and skied. Every single minute, every single activity was fantastic and showed me more about this beautiful country. It wasn’t too cold, -10 the lower we’ve had. Apparently this year’s winter is very warm here.

Of course I couldn’t resist to ask Pawel (the brother) and Magda (the wife) about life here. They had a bit of a different opinion about living here. They love it but apparently money goes very fast. It’s not that easy to earn a really good money, the tax is about 23% and life isn’t cheap. However, if you don’t do anything…and I mean ANYTING, you can save enough money to buy a house here. That would cost about £100,000 and I am talking about a 2 bedroom, beautiful wooden house with a view you can only get in the mountains…

I’ve seen this house I described above and it’s unbelievable…and for £100,000.. it’s not a lot. But then it comes with a price…no more travelling, no cinema, no drinks with friends,nothing for a year… or years…

The last day we spent here we went for skiing. There is a ski slope literally about 10 mins drive from here. We spent 2 hours skiing, Tomek and Magda were just learning and the rest of us just went like crazy ☺️☺️ I love skiing and I missed it a lot.

The only thing I wasn’t happy during our trip here that I didn’t see any moose or Rudolph…  🦌🦌 But maybe an other time.

All in all, I collected a few facts about Noway I experienced:

– the streets are extremely clean everywhere

– as they can’t drive Diesel cars in Oslo, they have 80% of electric cars , mainly Tesla which I’ve never seen anywhere in my life -there are chargers everywhere on the streets, look like massive phone charging blocks – Tesla sells about 60% of their cars to Norway

– the people are extremely nice, the shop people are always smiling and anyone we stopped on the street were happy to help

– also, everyone – I mean EVERYONE – speaks in English, no matter if they are 60 or 10 years old ☺️

– their life style looks way more chilled than ours in the UK, they just don’t seem to stress

– men in Oslo looked like they just walked out from Backstreet boys, all looking very similar… blond,longer hair, blue eyes

– Norway is very expensive

– petrol is cheaper on Sundays…don’t ask why but it can go down from 15kr to 13kr on Sunday

– people in Norway were born with skiing skills – they are extremely good skiers from a very young age

– if you own a farm in Norway, the government gives you 1500kr twice a year per cow to help your farm work

Would I live here? Maybe it wouldn’t worth it..maybe it would. But one thing is sure; I loved every minute of it and maybe I could give up my lifestyle for 1 year just to see and get to know more about this beautiful country. Maybe one day….*