After much thought and deliberation Alex and I have decided to move our family to Oslo, Norway! We are extremely excited for the opportunity to live abroad. I hope this blog post helps answer all your questions. I am also going to cover my new goals and vision for this blog while we are abroad.
Let’s get these answers going…
Why?
Alex recently got offered an opportunity to transfer within his current company. We love the idea of being emerged in another culture.
For How long?
Don’t worry, we are not leaving forever. Alex has a 2 year contact, so we will be there at least 2 years. We will have the option to extend if we really like it there. The great thing is the company will move all of our stuff back when we decide to move back to the States.
Where will we live?
For the first 2 months we will be given corporate housing. We will use this time to figure out exactly where we want to live. We are still deciding if we want to live in an apartment in downtown Oslo or a house a little outside of the city. Currently we are leaning more towards the apartment to get more of a European experience.
What is happening to our Seattle house?
We are planning on renting out our house. We will ship all the furniture and things we need over to Norway. Everything else will be sold, donated, or put into storage.
The Pets?
Zoey and Keagan will be making the trip with us. There is no quarantine period so we don’t have to worry about that. They will have to endure the 10 hour + plane ride but we are sure they will be okay in the end.
Moving Zoey into an apartment is going to be interesting. The good thing is Norway has many public parks with no leash laws for most of the year. Oslo allows dogs on their transit system for the fare of a child ticket so we will be able to bring her places with us. We will also look into getting her an EU pet passport so she can make weekend trip to other countries with her.
Moving Zoey into an apartment is going to be interesting. The good thing is Norway has many public parks with no leash laws for most of the year. Oslo allows dogs on their transit system for the fare of a child ticket so we will be able to bring her places with us. We will also look into getting her an EU pet passport so she can make weekend trip to other countries with her.
When is the move?
Alex will start his new job on January 21st. We will be moving sometime the week before.
What about my Job?
I am currently in the search for a Mechanical Engineering job in the Oslo area. I can apply for a work visa through my Alex’s company as soon as we get into Norway. From my job searches and talking to people it doesn’t seem like I will have too much of a problem finding work even though I don’t speak the language. Most of the job postings I have come across require fluent English and this is the langue most commonly used in the work place.
Future of this blog?
There will be a little bit of a shift to what is talked about on Domesticated Engineer. The big change is that I will be posting a lot more about travel and our experiences on Europe. As of right now I have a goal of posting a craft of some sort every other week. I am also going to start a photo of the week post because I am sure I am going to be taking tons of pictures. I am sad that I will have to put a lot of the woodworking to the side for now, unless we end up moving to a house or somewhere with a garage.
Cars?
We will be selling our cars before leave and have no plans on buying cars in Norway. There are way too many taxes for that. We plan on using the public transit systems (trains, trams, and bus). We might rent a car if we have to go to areas these do not reach.
I hope this answers many of your questions. We will add to this post when others come up.
We are so excited about this adventure we are about to embark on. We hope to keep everyone updated through this blog. Follow Domesticated Engineer on Facebook to get all the updates. I hope to have an e-mail update system up soon as well.
