Last Cool URL

So, my last full day here in Oslo. Bags are all packed, save a few last minute things to take care of in the morning. We’re both giddy to be going back to the US, eagerly plotting expeditions to Target and Denny’s–yeah, I know, but you don’t realize how much you miss them until they’re not there anymore and you’re in a place where there’s nothing like a Target–and driving. I’m already buying tickets to minor league baseball games and making sure my car insurance is paid up and looking for a place to live. In a very real sense, we’ve already put Norway and Europe behind us.

So, it’s been a year, or will be tomorrow, but I won’t have time to reminisce since I’ll be busy wrestling bags down the hill for the last time (thank god) and catching the last train to the airport, then trying to entertain myself for 8 hours on a plane. It’s been interesting, if nothing else, had some real highs and lows, generally had a good time, and learned a bit more about myself. If nothing else, the process of winnowing down your possessions to what’ll fit in a pair of checked bags twice gives you a real chance to sort out some priorities. For example, books. I love books and love having them around, but when it comes right down to it, they’re big and heavy and I could put 3 days of clothes in there instead, so they routinely get piled up in the trash. Most importantly, I know I’m not confined by my stuff. I have friends paralyzed by the notion of moving because they need three bedroom houses to contain all the crap they lug around with them. I can, at this point, pretty much pack everything I own in a car and drive off into the sunset. Ultimately, I know I will take any opportunity I can without the burden of worrying about my crap, because I’ve thrown it all away and started from scratch before and, by gum, I can do it again.

Likewise, we’re able to put everything into perspective with a “Well, at least it’s in English this time.” I mean, looking for an apartment is no trouble when the ad is in English, the people speak English, and you already know the financial system and how much a dollar is and whether you’re getting ripped off.

As for summing up the experience as a whole, it has its ups and downs. On the professional side of things, I wish things had gone a bit better, but eh, what can you do? I’m too set in my ways to change many things and trying to bring an entirely different style of work and thinking into a different environment is a battle I’m not up to fighting. I was a part of something big, my name is on it, and I’m proud of it, and that’ll be enough. As for the country itself, Norway is gorgeous, a great place to be and live…and I’m glad to be going. The climate is simply not for me. It all sort of clicked–I got The Fear–when midway through spring, one of the guys I worked with sighed and said, “Yeah, I know it’s not even summer, but I’m already getting ready for next winter.” And I found I was, too.

When I got here, I didn’t quite understand it, but months and months of darkness and ice and snow and cold wear you down. I understand, after a Norwegian winter, why there were big pagan festivals to celebrate the return of the sun. They weren’t sure it was coming back. Hell, with all my science and knowledge and education, I wasn’t entirely sure it was coming back. At the same time, you lurch the other way. Summer is lovely, weatherwise, aside from all the rain, but you can get too much daylight. I haven’t been sleeping right for a month because it’s been still bright enough to read outside, and you can’t close the bedroom curtains all the way because the window has to be open or you’ll suffocate from lack of airflow, which also means you get the HEYGUYSIMABIRD chorus outside your window starting promptly at 3AM, also making it hard to sleep.

Suffice to say, I’m ecstatic to be returning to a place with air conditioning and actual day-night cycles.

Could I have made it? That’s what I always ask myself. I was doing well, I think, until I got The Fear. I mean, the winter I went through was extremely mild and I’d just had enough of it by the time it ended. Then, while I was contemplating what to do, I woke up one day in May to the sound of hail. And it was snowing. In may. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” was my very loud reaction. So, I don’t know. It wore on the wife, though, not working, not being able to go out exploring too much because you can’t read or understand much of anything, and so forth. And it wore on me, too. I have friends on the West Coast I haven’t talked to in a year, because, simply, there’s a 9-10 hour time difference. I’m looking forward to running into people I know again. I mean, my entire personal and professional networks are in the US.

Also wearing on me was the cost of living. Sad to say, I couldn’t really do anything over here. We had ample money left over at the end of the month, but then again, we really didn’t, given that a night at the movies ran enough to make it “an event” rather than an “I’m bored.” And the City itself, it must be said, is lovely, but also boring as hell.

Ultimately, it was a good experience. It added some great stuff to my resume, provided a once in a lifetime experience, and taught me a little about myself, and I’d do it again in an instant. I don’t think anything can beat the thrills/terrors of tossing everything you own in a bag and heading out to a strange new country.

In the time it took me to reboot my computer into Ubuntu and open up Firefox, the weather has changed again. This time, it’s wall-o-clouds, no rain.

In the meantime, Ubuntu 8.04 is pretty fucking rad. I’ve been using it for 10 minutes and I’m already debating the best way to migrate over most of my stuff. This damn thing is good.

One of the problems I’ve had lately is trying to get my workout. Since I’m leaving and saving money, I’ve just been going down to the park, rather than paying a ridiculous amount for the gym, assuming I could even get a 1 week pass or something. Anyway, I’ve missed my workout for three days because of the weather. That hasn’t always been rain. But you never know here. In fact, the weather has quite literally changed completely every time I’ve glanced out the window to check. For example, today’s run of weather has been:

Heavy grey stormclouds blotting out the sun
Perfectly clear blue sky
Dark grey storm clouds scattered in places
Blue sky filled with beautiful puffy white clouds, the perfect summer day
Ominous black you’re fucked death rain clouds pouring down rain a hundred yards distant, but clear skies here
Heavy grey stormclouds, broken up here and there by patches of clear sky

Currently, the sky is as clear and blue and pretty as could be. And it’s pouring down rain, thunder and lightning, etc.

Last time I tried to get a workout in, I went through a beautiful clear summer day, somebody build an ark showers, ominously cloudy, somebody build an ark, and beautiful summer day, all on the walk home. I’ll be glad to get back to a place where I can afford a gym membership.

I was going to post this sooner, but I’m a fat lazy oaf and I didn’t.

When I was getting ready to move here, I had trouble finding info intended for someone intending to be just a working slob like me, not a tourist or a retiree with money to hide from the government. Consequently, I started putting together a Guide To Life In Norway page and, now that I’m leaving, it occurred to me that I should finish it. While incomplete, it’s what I know, and I hope it helps someone.

Here ’tis.

As I’ve gotten older, and as my time in Oslo winds down, I’ve learned a few things that I never understood before:

Why Bathrooms Are Important–As someone whose housing decisions were usually dictated by “Can we afford to live here without roommates?” and nothing else, I’d never quite understood the obsession some have with bathrooms, especially homeowners. Then I lived here and discovered several things. For one thing, having a shower you can just barely turn around in is no fun. Having a shower where dropping the soap means you have to get out of it to pick it up because it’s so small is also no fun. Having a shower where the water pressure routinely makes the showerhead lurch off of the bracket–being one of those removable wand thingies–and hit you in the head/go flying through the air, also no fun. Having a bathroom with no vent/fan and very little airflow means that lovely hot/damp/swamplike feeling after a shower just lingers and lingers and lingers. Consequently, “Has a nice bathroom” has become something I understand and am deeply concerned about.

Why I Never Want Wooden Floors Again–Oh, god. Our place here has wooden floors everywhere. You would envy them, were you a normal American homeowner. Except…Except the goddamn wooden floors show every single bit of dust to land on them. Every crumb, every fleck of dust, every bit of dirt you tracked in from inside, they are all there and they are all under your feet all the time. If you track in a bit of gravel from the endless construction–and you will–you will step on it and it will impale your foot and you will bleed to death and die. Fuck wood floors. Give me dat nasty 70s shag carpet any day.

Air Conditioning: More Important Than You’d Think–In a relatively mild climate, I’ve discovered that the most important job of an air conditioner isn’t so much keeping you cool as it is conditioning the air. That filter is a godsend, as I discovered when I didn’t have one. As I mentioned before, those wooden floors are champion dirt accumulators–to the point that we’ll finish sweeping, then discover we’ve left footprints in the newly-laid covering of dust that’s already replaced the dust we’ve just cleaned up. I swear to you, we’ve been cleaning, and watching the dust we’re kicking up swirl around in the beams of sunlight, until it lights, gently, on the spot we’ve just cleaned. I was vaguely aware of the amount of crap the AC pulled out of the air, but combine no AC, no air filter, and always having the windows open for air and circulation, and the floor can look like the moon during the moon landing if you dare to go a day without sweeping. I’m not advocating wallowing in filth here, but sweeping every day is something for the 1930s housewife, not me.