I was initially a little hesitant to start this blog because I don't identify myself as a writer by ANY means! But since this won't be published as a book and more just to share our story, I'm hoping you dear readers won't pick it apart too much! :-)
Since this is the first post, I figured I would start from the beginning of our journey here. Overall, it was pretty smooth.....besides saying goodbye to our beloved friends, family and last but not least, our fur baby (she is in great hands as she is in the love and care of Case's parents). It's very comforting knowing that we have so many resources literally at our finger tips with FaceTime, Skype, text, email, etc. to help ease our homesickness.
The first leg of our trip was from Seattle to Reykjavik, which was about 7 hours 15 minutes! I'm was pretty pleased with that! I was able to watch 2 movies and Case covered about 15% of a book he just started. Coming into Iceland, the country totally sold itself! It looks absolutely beautiful and I think we'll be visiting VERY soon.
We had a short layover there and then got on the last leg from Reykjavik to Oslo which was 2.5 hours. When we arrived in Oslo, our relocation expert picked us up to bring us to our temporary housing that we will be in for 2 months. Her name was Gro and let me tell you how grateful we are for her! She, for one, is SO nice and she reassured us that at any time if we need anything in regards to our housing or business with the chamber of commerce that we shouldn't hesitate to contact her. Either today or tomorrow she is going to give us an orientation tour of the city. Even though we have been here before and became acquainted with the city layout, she's going to help us find our basic needs such as local grocery store, doctor offices and other things we might not think about but utilize every day.
When we got to our apartment, we took a 3 hour nap (which was originally going to be an hour). After our nap we walked to an Italian restaurant for dinner that had the most cozy and quaint ambience.
Bathroom complete with a very confusing washer/dryer
The view from the kitchen
The refrigerator and freezer
9 hours of sleep later....
Since we have a pretty well equipped kitchen and restaurants aren't the most budget friendly, we figured we should stock up the pantries. Case did a little research on what a traditional Norwegian breakfast consists of and from that we based our grocery list! The grocery store is about 2 minutes from where we are staying which we are both thrilled about. It also has a large variety of things that I didn't think we would have the luxury of finding here such as jam, sweets or peanut butter. They also have a huge variety of things that I definitely expected to find such as fish, cheese (yeeesssss!), bread and lots stuff to spread on bread.
All this cost 347.00 NOK = $44.00
Our plan for the rest of the week is to get enrolled for language classes, get our personal numbers (similar to a social security number) and maybe even get signed up at the gym that's just a block away!
I'm prepared to deal with some homesickness but I think we'll both adjust pretty quickly. The city is full of beautiful architecture, it's clean, safe and so far all the people have been friendly. We're excited for what adventures and excursions lie ahead in our very near future and all the memories we'll make! Stay tuned!
