ah fantastic! Glad you're finding your feet. It's not easy at ALL. I'll have been here for a year tomorrow.
How's the language coming along? Keen to see your pics! Let us know what you're doing etc.
I'm keen to see your cost of living vs what it's like way up north. Also, don't stress about derailing, there's no way I'll be able to keep this thread remotely interesting by myself.
Luckily I speak both Danish and Swedish, so I get by quite easily. Much more difficult for my wife, but she is picking up words, especially when reading stuff. The Afrikaans helps though
I will post some pics here asap. I am teaching Network and IT Security modules at a Vocational College in Stavanger. We stay about a 5minute walk from work. 1 minutes walk from the flat is a forest and 10minutes through the forest we are at a lake. It really is a beautiful area. We are living in the largest wooden house suburb in the world.
Everyone talks about how expensive it is here and of course it is. But, there are some interesting food items that are cheaper here than in SA. The obvious one is fish and seafood, but the cost of tinned tomatoes is 3.50NOK, which works out to about +-R6. I struggled to find any tinned tomato for less than R11 in SA and they produce the stuff. With a baby, nappies are relevant for us
The cost for a big box of Pampers with 96 nappies was 99NOK or about R150. No way you will find that in SA, unless it is the really cheap brand and then it will generally be a 50 bag. Mexican food also seems to be really cheap. You can get a tacos starter kit, with 12 taco shells, a salsa and the meat mix for 7.50NOK. Of course, if you buy lamb shanks you are shelling out 550NOK for 2 shanks. My father in law has a butchery in Beaufort West and sells a shank for about R20. The price of coke is crazy here. There was a special in the shop yesterday, 2x2l for 60NOK. Luckily we don't drink that kind of stuff. Oddly enough, a box of 50 Twinings Earl Grey tea bags costs about 7NOK less than a box of 50 Lipton normal tea, no idea why. Work culture is also very different. Lunch is at 11.45 and everyone sits and eats together. It seems to be quite normal and acceptable to bring your children to work. The one lady at work brought her kids to work for two weeks because the schools had not started up yet. People leave around 2pm to go and collect their kids from kindergarden and don't return to work, which is perfectly acceptable. According to what I have read, the Norwegians believe you work to live, not live to work.
I have also noticed that people spend a lot more time with their kids. Since they all knock off work at 4pm, they have more time with their kids and kids have a large role to play in society here. You might not be able to get a smile or a nod of acknowledgement out of a Norwegian on the street, but your kid can.
