Over two years ago, I published a blog entitled “Pilots: I don’t want to date one, I want to be one!” While I still live by the latter, last summer has showed me that I cannot judge people by their professions. I did indeed fall in love with a pilot, and while it happened so naturally that in a way we skipped the dating phase, I can no longer say I don’t want to be with a pilot. In fact, I want to be with this pilot 24/7.
The summer of 2018 was spent on the island of Texel once again, working for the dropzone. In my free time, I started flying motor gliders and quickly realised that I love flying, no matter how often I would do it. I would happily schedule two or three hours of flying on a day if I could. And as I started to prioritise flying, I also did less skydiving and ended up selling my skydive gear. A passion for flying was just one of many things in common with Pachal, my new colleague who soon became my new friend, and from there on became so much more.
We had been together for less than two months when he was offered a job in Norway. Back then, my feeling said I had to join him, but I rationally said that I could go with him because I had nothing lined up after the summer season and I could go anywhere; I just needed to make money to save up for flight training, which could be done anywhere. Now I know that it’s not easy to find a job in Norway as a foreigner, especially when you don’t speak the language yet. Yet I wouldn’t have it any other way. I cannot stand to be apart from him and to not be sharing my life with him everyday.
After the summer season, our lives were a bit up in the air (pun intended). All our stuff was in boxes (luckily they amount to only a few), we had no steady place to stay (big thank you to friends who let us stay in their home or who let us housesit for them) and we had no fulltime jobs. It was just a waiting game until we could start our lives in Norway. In the meantime, we made plans like booking our Airbnb for the first few weeks, getting the car some winter tyres for the big move, booking the ferry, etc. We were so ready to go! And just about a week before departure, Pachal received an email saying that his training for the job would take place in Hungary over the course of 5-6 weeks. What! Luckily we were able to reschedule or cancel most of the plans and ended up not losing too much money. In addition, I realised I am extremely lucky as two of my good friends happen to live in Oslo and they both had a place for me to stay during the 5-6 weeks that Pachal would be away for training. ❤ This took a lot of the sudden stress away!
The first impression of Norway was: cold snow, ice and slush everywhere. It had been snowing non-stop for about ten days when we arrived. What had we done? Why didn’t we migrate South!? But you soon get used to the cold and snow and then it’s not too bad. The prices of certain things still give me a scare, but you learn how/where to shop. I like how the Norwegian system has different tax rates according to how bad it is for your health. It gives you an economic incentive to be healthy and buy organic products. I think we will be very healthy here, cook a lot of meals at home and skip the meat most days! Oh, and bringing your own matpakke (lunchbox) will be part of the routine!
Finding a job has not been easy, but learning the language has been going well. I will keep focussing on both and I’m sure one day, hopefully soon, I will be able to really settle into the Norwegian life.
wwwanchi 