After a short visit with my parents, my son and I got on a 747 and headed east - way east. I can tell I've become a little spoiled. Service in first class was slow - they forgot to cook my dinner but didn't let me know. They served all of the other passengers but me. I felt like I was picked last for the baseball team in gym class. Well, not really but a little like that. You get the idea. My spoiled attitude not withstanding, we had a good flight over to Amsterdam, ran through the airport as usual and made it to Stavanger as planned.
This is my son's first time visiting Norway so, of course, I watched his face to see what he thought as we collected the baggage, found our rental car and traveled to our apartment - all under the watchful eye of our young classically beautiful female Norwegian relocation expert. Over the last few years my son has adopted a somewhat typical young male approach of not visibly or verbally reacting to any situation (except to correct my driving or point out one of my ill thought-out decisions). He did, however, agree that our guide is a beautiful woman.
After some hours here I think he reached the same conclusion that my hubby and I reached during our house hunting trip. Stavanger isn't a dream location but it's a great place and has a ton of interesting attractions to see and, yes, it is close to the rest of Europe for easy traveling. It should be a great place to live for several years.
My son will be here for a month before returning home for college. It is likely that his final opinion of Stavanger will be based on his ability to drive a vehicle through the area and explore unencumbered by one or more parental units. Hmm.... I hope to set up a "play date" with some of my coworkers kids so he can go out with people his own age and have fun.
After getting settled in our modern Scandinavian furnished apartment we went across the street to the local grocery store and embarked on our first food shopping exercise. Here's what we bought for $200 US.
- Cream 1 pint
- Chicken 4 breasts
- Beer - 2 six-packs of the local stuff
- 1/2 kg of lunch meat
- Jarlsburg cheese
- Sweet goats cheese
- 20 eggs
- potato salad
- jam
- peanut butter
- 2 liters of soda
- crackers 200 grams
- loaf of bread
- french bread
- brownie mix
- 500 grams of macaroni
- 3 bananas
- 6 peaches
- 2 tomatoes
- 2 avocados
Does this seem like a good deal? I usual judge if I get a good value based on the number of grocery bags I get for the money. This equaled four bags. Is this good? Hard to tell.
After we got home we unpacked the food - driving the need to decide our recycling philosophy - which is expected and required - paper, plastic, food waste and residual waste (that's the stuff that isn't paper, plastic or food). Is a candy wrapper paper or plastic? Hopefully we'll get it straight and won't be socially ostracized for improperly mixing wastes!
My most important purchase here is a hair dryer (bought today). You can't bring a U.S. hair dryer to Europe without a 100% probability of frying, at the very least, the internals of the hairdryer. I wasn't very excited about buying a $45 hairdryer that costs $20 at home, until I found the $75 hairdryer that costs $20 at home. I am super excited about the $45 hairdryer!
So a few words about the time change between Stavanger and my home in Alaska - it couldn't be worse. Talking to the family requires some planning so I get to sleep but there's no way to plan around the phone calls at 3 a.m. from businesses and other individuals I need to talk with. I can't just ignore those calls even though I really really want to pretend like they don't exist. While my life in Norway is beginning, my life in Alaska is ongoing and will continue with or without my presence. My life in Alaska requires input and the timing is damn inconvenient!
Finally, I am extremely proud of myself. My driving here is just fine (although my son may claim differently). I'm doing the roundabouts like I'm a pro! Nice. We did a drive to my office with no problems so commuting should be a breeze right? : )
So, I guess I'll have to wait a few years to be able to answer my question but until then, as my son reminded me yesterday, (when we were talking about what beer to buy) we are here to learn and do things differently. It will be quite an adventure into the unknown.
One of my coworkers recently told me "When it comes to change that you have some control over, it is all about the attitude that makes it good or bad." Hopefully, as our journey progresses, this quote will remain in my thoughts and drive my attitude.
