Tromsø / Norway, Part 2...

As mentioned in my previous blogspot post, we started our second stay in Tromsø / Norway in the meantime. Well, actually, I should talk about living in Northern Norway since we are literally here and there and currently spend a great deal of time "on the road".

During the past few weeks, we visited three open air festivals and an extremely lovely wedding in the stunning archipelago of Lofoten. As soon as I have a bit more time on my hands, there will be pictures of all those events on this very blog. 

In August 2015, when we moved to Tromsø the first time, some people were looking forward to see glimpses of our life in Norway. Although we took thousands of pictures at that time, I did not feel like sharing any of those, mainly because of what life in Tromsø turned out to be like: Catastrophic conditions in the offices / at the public authorities (More details about it here, here and here), a local housing market which is absolutely horrible, continuous power failures, false fire alarms, the water supply being turned off repeatedly without any notification beforehand... And the working life here did not turn out to be brilliant at professionalism either. So, when my love received a very tempting job offer in Finland, resulting in us moving from Norway back to Finland in the middle of December 2015, I wasn't sad at all about the surprising turn of events. Quite the contrary. But we had to move to Norway for a second time in early summer 2016, so my love could finish his exchange year in Tromsø after his temporary employment in Finland was accomplished. I was not looking forward to it. Not at all.

Don't get me wrong: There were some brilliant highlights during our first stay in Tromsø, but most of the time was a deep shadow, dark as the polar night, due to one disappointment after another.

And then we moved to Tromsø for the second time - and life became as bright as the midnight sun! I definitely didn't see that coming... Wow! ♥ 

As mentioned before, we decided to move abroad at the end of the year 2014, so my love could seize the chance of having an exchange year during his studies while I would regain job and career opportunities which I simply don't have in Finland and increasingly craved for. I had regained those opportunities no sooner had we arrived in Tromsø the first time in August 2015 - but now, since June 2016, those opportunities seem to skyrocket. And with that, some other things fell into place, too. Not all things, but... Things are moving forward. And so I'm willing to share pictures from our second stay in Norway. ;o) 

Our first stay in Norway was what it was, mainly negative, and it won't be relativised by the fact that our current second stay in Norway is thoroughly positive. However, putting both stays together, our life in Norway has become better. Much better. And there is a reason why I don't use a term like "happy ending" in this context - because our current second stay in Tromsø may be followed by further stays in Tromsø in the future. The job and career opportunities here as well as the friendships we have built up in the meantime are just two reasons in favour of that thought. Well, we'll see what life will offer next... :o)