Facts

Alix is a mum of three children who is from England but was raised in two cultures as her dad is English and her mum is French. 

She moved four times already and really appreciates living in Norway now! Alix does not think that she will stay in Stavanger forever, but she would love to stay a couple of more years.

Alix is a geophysicist but she is establishing her embroidery business more and more these days and is selling her work around the whole world! 

Childhood and Youth

Alix spent her childhood and youth in the UK with her parents and siblings. The family was used to travelling to France a lot as half of their family lives there!

For university Alix moved away from her parent’s house to Leeds, where she started off with mechanical engineering. Whilst working on a course team project, she realized that all of her peers were very excited about the topic, only she did not care about it very much! That is where she found out that she did not really want to study mechanical engineering and switched to study a Bachelor’s in geophysics. She absolutely loved her new field of study because it contained maths and physics and it was even connected to geology, which she was also passionate about!

After her Bachelor’s degree, Alix did take a gap year from university and went travelling. She went backpacking for eight months in South America and Asia and worked as a waitress as well as in factories to save for her trip.

Once Alix came back to the UK, she did the best and most exciting Master’s she could have dreamed of: a Master of Research in Physics of the Earth and Atmosphere! As her Master’s supervisor was a Volcano Sciencetologist and was on the Board of Advisors for the Montserrat Volcano in the Caribbean, Alix did her Masters in Volcano seismology and ended up going to the Caribbean’s for a one month’s research!! 

Working life

After graduating from university, Alix got a job with a geophysics company in England which required her to go to Houston for three months as a part of her training. On her flight to Houston she met another novice of the company who as well as her was going to have the same training in Houston. 

They started dating straight away, but were together only for six weeks before he had to go to Egypt with the company! They did not really plan to stay together nor had they broken up, they just tried and got through a lot of phone calls, emails and different time zones! After he had been to Egypt, he had to go to Thailand next and Alix had to move to Oslo for nine months, but they still “stayed together” and made their long-distance relationship work somehow.

All in all, their long-distance relationship lasted for three and a half years. He was working nine weeks away to have a break of five weeks afterwards where he would first go to Tunisia to see his family and then he had a couple of weeks to stay with Alix. 

As they were still so young, she never thought about marriage although they were serious with each other. For her boyfriend though, it was very different because culture-wise he started thinking about marriage straight away when it got serious with her! 

After she came back from Oslo, Alix worked in the UK for the same company for another six months until she got a new job with a company she had also interviewed for after her graduation! It all fell into place for Alix! With the new company she was able to take a position in Tunisia for six months and whilst she had her own flat there, she was able to spend time with her boyfriend’s parents and his family on the weekends to get to know them and their culture better! 

When Alix’ future husband proposed to her, it was a total surprise for Alix! Of course she said yes straight away but they definitely had not planned for it together! He proposed in 2009 when Alix was in Tunisia so that she would be able to get to know his broader family as well, because as culture works in Tunisia, his parents would not have been able to introduce “a girlfriend” to the rest of the family.

After her exciting and one could say life changing half a year in Tunisia, Alix worked in the UK again whilst her future husband was working in Qatar. 

In 2010 they celebrated a full Tunisian wedding in Tunis with friends and family from all over the world. The wedding lasted for five days and had many traditional ceremonies with more than 500 guests!

Who would have thought back then, that in the end she would get married to that man that she had met on the plane!!!

Family life

Unfortunately, even after their wedding, they were still living apart from each other for another year! When they finally decided to settle down together, he received an office job in the UK within his company and soon after they became parents to their first baby in August 2012! 

As they both had insane commuting times to their offices each day, which made their working day much longer, Alix had started working part-time after their baby boy had arrived. This way, her son only had to spend three whole days in childcare, the other two days she was able to spend a lot of wonderful time with him!

In July 2014 Alix’s daughter was born who then joined her son in childcare for three days a week.

Around that time, Alix company was taken over by another company and lots of jobs were going to be lost as well as that the office was to be moved ever further away from Alix home! Therefore, Alix was happy to take the voluntary redundancy package as she did not have many chances to be taken over as a part-time employer anyway. 

For Alix it was a great gift to become a stay-at-home mum because secretly she wished for more time with her children the whole time! But surely, you would not step out of your career without a good reason. So from now on, Alix stayed at home with her daughter whilst her older son started primary school.

A year later, her husband was offered to move to Texas together with his family as expats. Although they knew Houston already, Alix did not really want to move as they had settled in the UK now within a nice community with lots of friends around! It was a good opportunity for her husband though and they wanted to have another baby anyway so why not to have it in the US? Finally they moved and stayed in Houston for 18 months.

After nine months in Houston Alix found out that she was pregnant again and only a few weeks later it was announced that her husband’s company was bankrupt!! Of course, job losses were expected and it was all going to go very quickly! Alix and her family were already getting ready to go back to the UK… At least his boss wanted to keep him, but the UK offices were to be shut down sooner or later…there was so much uncertainty!!!

In the end, Alix’ husband started to search for a new job all the quicker…and he found a job offer in Norway! The interview went so well that he received an offer from them straight away! So much luck in such a situation! The next problem was though, that they did not get any spots for their children in the British school and the move to Stavanger was supposed to be only six weeks after Alix was expected to give birth to her third child!! We can only imagine how stressful and very uncertain Alix’s situation back then was!! Of course they had not been to Stavanger before either and did not really know what kind of a city they were moving to.

Only very soon before they moved to Stavanger, they were able to get spots in schools and nurseries for their two older children so at least that worry was out of the way but they still did not have a house to live in! 

In their first three weeks in Stavanger, Alix and her family had to stay in an Airbnb with their two pet cats, their dog, their two children and their new-born baby…not to forget the owner’s cat!! It all sounds funny now, but I would not have wanted to be in their situation at all!!

At least, Alix and her family were reimbursed soon after, when they found their dream house by the water for their time in Stavanger!

Second career

Alix is not sure if she would want to go back to her career when her youngest starts school as she really likes being there for them in the holidays and making it possible for her children to play with their friends on their street in the afternoons as much as they want!

She would rather like to be able to make a living out of her embroidery business, her second career which she started with her move to Norway! Alix taught herself the art of embroidery in order to find some piece in her challenging moving life and she has the incredible gift of copying people’s faces including their feelings and emotions from pictures to embroidery!! It definitely is worth it to find her work on Instagram (@alixsouissi) or facebook (alixsouissi embroidery art)!

As Alix grew up having family in two different countries, it does not feel strange to her to live far away from her family. She actually could imagine staying in Norway for much longer as she really loves the country and the lifestyle the country brings with it! Of course, as expats we know, we might want things, but they do not always turn out the way we imagined…but I am very curious to see how Alix’s story will continue!!

Facts

Jessica is a mum of three children, who is from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and has moved countries twice so far.

Before she became an expat, she was working in the hospitality industry.

At the moment, Jessica is looking forward to getting to know her next destination, as she knows that her time in Stavanger is coming to an end shortly.

It was a few days after I got to know Nurul (from my last story), that she had introduced me to “another lovely Malaysian lady” and since then, Jessica had brightened up my mood a lot of times with her fun personality!

Early life

Jessica grew up in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia and was raised in the Chinese-Malaysian culture as her grandparents had migrated from China to Malaysia when they were young.

Malaysia has the influence of mainly three different races: there are Malay, Chinese and Indians. Jessica is happy and proud that she grew up in such a varied environment and enjoyed celebrating all the diverse festivities together with her family and friends.

Her first six years of education, Jessica spent in a Chinese Primary School, where she picked up her Chinese. Of course, she had friends from all different cultures! At the age of 13, she went to a Malaysian Sports School, where she started to play Volleyball professionally! Jessica’s dad is a former Malaysian national football player and now a football instructor, so she definitely got the sporty genes from him!

As Jessica was the shortest in her team, she had to work twice as hard as her other team-mates, but she made it work. She was lucky to get the position of “libero”, which meant less spiking and jumping for her, but more ball handling on the ground! Being a part of Malaysia’s junior national team, Jessica got the chance to compete professionally against other teams across Asia! This was the highlight of her teenage years!

After High School, at the age of 18, Jessica bid volleyball farewell and took up studies in hospitality to what her sister had inspired her to. In Jessica’s second last semester at university, she had to do an internship for six months and she was one of only five students picked by her professor to be interviewed for an internship in the Raffles hotel in Singapore! At first, she did not want to go for the interview, because she did not want to leave her family and her boyfriend behind! But then, as she thought, she would not get the job anyway, she went through the phone interview process. Of course, when you expect it the least, you get the unexpected and Jessica got chosen for the internship in the Raffles hotel! As they paid a lot more in Singapore for internships back then compared to Malaysia, she finally decided to go.

It was an amazing experience for Jessica to work for the very prestigious Raffles hotel! It was all about personalized hospitality, that is why she had to know every tiny detail about every guest. She would greet them and serve them as if she would know all their needs and wishes to make their stay one of the best ones they ever had! At least I know now where Jessica’s wonderful ability of talking to people and making them feel super comfortable comes from!

After she came back from Singapore, she finished her last semester at university with a bachelor in hospitality.

To have a break after University, at the age of 21, Jessica travelled to Europe for the first time in her life! All alone! She had one month which she spent with her sister in London and Paris and then with her uncle’s family in Munich. Whereas London was ok for her to discover on her own whilst her sister was working, it was a different story with Munich! Her sister was supposed to accompany her to Germany, but as she was busy at the last minute, Jessica had to fly alone again! She was quite overwhelmed by the German language as she did not think that most people would not speak English to her and that everything would be just in German! But she somehow managed to get around things and managed to survive and explore Munich by herself! Until today, Jessica feels really proud of her adventure!

When she came back home from her lovely trip, Jessica’s dad “suggested”, that she would finally start working again…As the money in Singapore was so much better than in Malaysia, she applied straight away for jobs over there again and finally spent four more years in the hospitality industry in Singapore. She always loved the interactions with guests or even internal interactions with her co-workers but in the end, she was working in the back office in Human Resources. Jessica loved the front line but hated the shift hours!

After living away from her family for such a long time, after four years she decided to pack up and move back to Kuala Lumpur. Soon on one fateful night, her best friend from university took her out partying. She wanted him to introduce her to some friends with whom she could hang out with! Of course, she had old friends in Kuala Lumpur but it certainly would be nice to meet some new people! They were only about to cross a street, when her friend agreed and instantly introduced her to some guy! It seemed to be a joke, but this had been the exact friend he had in mind to introduce to Jessica. They spent the weekend partying together not knowing yet that they were meant for each other!

Jessica started to date her friend’s friend and applied for a job with Le Meridien in Kuala Lumpur. She was hired to work for the Human Resources Department and although it was all very different than in Singapore, Jessica still enjoyed working in the hospitality industry.

Her future husband proposed on the 20.09.2009 (what a cute date!) and in October 2010 all his friends and family from Australia came over to Kuala Lumpur to attend their wedding. As he was working in Kuala Lumpur for more than eight years back then already, his mum, her partner and his dad were used to visiting Malaysia very often. They liked the country and enjoyed spending time with their son in Malaysia very much.

Jessica and her husband had an intimate garden wedding, then a Chinese tea ceremony and after that a dinner reception to combine both of their different cultures! Over the whole day, Jessica changed into three different dresses!! For the tea ceremony Jessica and her husband were dressed in the Chinese emperor costumes and were serving tea to the older family members. In return they were receiving their blessing in the form of a red packet with a small token inside. It definitely must have been a pleasure for her husband’s side of the family to be involved in such an experience!  

As it had turned out, Jessica got pregnant shortly before their wedding, which meant that she was pregnant on their honeymoon! There they were in Las Vegas, supposed to party and have a great time, when Jessica rather craved for a bed and a blanket…she was tired and felt sick! In the end, her husband was exploring Las Vegas alone most of the time.

Jessica had quit her job in Le Meridien before their wedding and soon her husband came up with the idea of opening a wine shop! They had met a wine shop franchisee who had told them all the pro’s and con’s of opening a shop themselves. As there were no wine shops in the area where they lived, they thought the expats around them might appreciate it! A fun fact is though, that Jessica does not drink any alcohol at all!! So being pregnant, she was persuading people to buy wine that she had never tasted before😉…that’s how good Jessica’s communication skills are!!! To be fair, they had been taking wine courses with all the tasting and wine history etc. in order to be able to open up that wine shop. It was an interesting and fun adventure for both of them!

The adventure did not last long though, as one month before their first daughter was born in 2011, Jessica and her husband were being informed that the mall had been bought over by another management and had offered them a pay-out. The timing seemed perfect. They closed down the shop, took the pay-out from the management and soon Jessica was able to fully concentrate on their newborn and enjoy their time together! Then, in 2013, Jessica gave birth to their second daughter.

At some point after her second pregnancy, Jessica started to work out in the gym to lose her baby weight. She was exercising a lot, but still could not lose the kilos! It was a big surprise, when she found out that she was pregnant again!! Only 1,5 years after her second daughter was born their son came along in 2014! It was a bit of a tough period for Jessica, as her youngest children were rather close! But thankfully her family members were around to help out with the three children.

When the oil prices crashed down in 2016, Jessica and her husband started to worry about his job and their future in Malaysia! Her husband was lucky as he received the opportunity to interview for an internal transfer to Norway. In times where the oil industry had to let go of people, he was fortunate enough to secure a new job for himself! Although Norway was never on Jessica’s bucket list, it did not really matter! She had promised to her husband in her wedding vowels, that she would always follow him and as they needed the security that the job provided, she was grateful and got ready for a cold, expensive and small city that she expected Stavanger to be!!!

It was all very exciting, as Norway was on a totally different continent and a totally different experience to their old life!! She did not really know what to expect as she did not even really google long enough about it!! They had never moved as a family before, so all in all it was a very intriguing chapter in their lives!

Only her husband had been to Stavanger before they moved, to sign the contract and secure a fully furnished apartment for his family. So when they all arrived in Stavanger in summer 2017 with not a lot of their belongings, there was NO summer at all! For Jessica it rather felt like winter…It was cold, it was windy and worst of all, they did not pack any suitable “winter” clothing!! Not the best start to their new life!

Slowly Jessica started to enjoy living in Stavanger though. If nothing else, it was a safe environment to bring up young children like theirs. Her children were complaining a bit at the beginning, they especially did not like that it was always so cold (compared to Kuala Lumpur) but after seeing the snow and the beauty of it, they started to feel reconciled.

The girls managed very well in their new school and in their new environment, but her son had a bit of a harder start in the beginning in preschool. Especially the nature walks which they like doing in preschool were tough for him! They made him so tired, that he would fall asleep in the car on the way home or even before pickup in preschool! In Malaysia you simply do not spend a whole day on a nature walk!

Jessica and her husband had agreed on him concentrating on his job and her taking a break in her career. It did not seem to make sense, that they both would work, only to pay for childcare after school so that someone else would take care of their children! Jessica wanted to spend time with her children after school!! She always wanted to be around for the first six years of their lives. Apparently, there is a saying in Jessica’s family, that children will not remember their childhood anyway. For her though, childhood is the most important part of a person’s life! At least, that is to her memories. She wants to give them the warmth and the attention and the love that hopefully will stick to their memories!

At their next destination, Jessica would love to work again, maybe in a pastry shop as she loves baking! Jessica was never baking in Kuala Lumpur, but because beautiful cakes are so expensive in Stavanger, she had to start making them herself and she got really good at it! Baking for family and friends keeps her busy now😊

After four years in Stavanger, Jessica still misses Malaysia very much! She quotes that “you can take a Malaysian out of Malaysia, but you cannot take Malaysia out of a Malaysian”.

It is funny to see that even Jessica and her family joined the Norwegian tradition of hiking at some point, as they were never hiking before they came to Norway! It seems that at some point, everyone starts to go hiking if they only live long enough around the area!!

Jessica and her family were supposed to stay in Stavanger for three years, but her husband’s contract was extended twice already, so now they are curious to find out where they will be going next! Jessica thinks that the chances are quite low for them to go back to live and work in Malaysia as her husband exceeded his 10 years expat allowance, but she would love to go back if there is the opportunity. At the same time she would love to explore and experience more countries and cultures anyway as long as the children are still young!

As her husband had lived so many years in Malaysia before they even got married, Jessica never thought about expat life. Only after they got married, she noticed that his colleagues and friends were moving around a lot and there she realized, she might be living an expat life at some point too! Instead of being shocked, she got rather excited as she is a risk taker anyway, does not mind getting out of her comfort zone and they both like to travel! Jessica and her husband are a good team and they enjoy and are thankful for all the positive sides that expat life brings them!

Although Jessica and her children miss their family in Malaysia a lot, she does not see herself retiring in Malaysia as she would prefer a more stable country. She sees herself more in Australia in the end, as the government looks after their citizens more and provides better healthcare and benefits for their elderly! Her dream destination would be something like coastal Spain or Italy.

What Jessica learned from her expat life is that the future is not static, it is constantly changing, but it all comes into place. She feels blessed that although they live far away from both their families, everyone is healthy and doing ok! She believes that you have to be open minded, accept the challenges that come along and toughen up! Always give everything a chance, because that is the only way you learn and gain experience in life! She believes that if you focus on the good, the good gets better!

Jessica’s motto seems to be “smile is free, do not be stingy”” and that is exactly how I know her!!

Facts

Nurul is a mum of two children who was born in Kuala Lumpur and already moved around the whole of Malaysia when she was a child/ young adult.

She has moved countries twice so far, but she knows that she will move again at some point.

Nurul worked for the government of Malaysia back home and is eager to return to her job soon, as she went through an unbelievable application process to get that job in the first place!

How I met Nurul

I will always remember Nurul as the first expat to welcome my family and me in our new situation in a very warm way!

School had only just started, we had only been in Stavanger for a couple of days, when she was organizing a birthday party for her son including all the children in his class.

I had no idea what to expect, as in my (old) world nobody would invite the whole class and to be honest, I was not even feeling ready to talk to or meet up with new people! Of course, for my son to get to know his classmates in a more relaxed environment than school, I did call Nurul to let her know that we would be coming.

That lady on the phone was so chatty and sweet, asking me loads of questions like where we were from and how we were feeling and if we were ok and it gave me the feeling that maybe the whole experience in Stavanger would not be too bad after all!!

Childhood and youth

Nurul’s dad was a naval officer, so she was used from early on to move around with her family and to always start fresh on getting used to a new place and finding friends.

She was a good child and a good student. Although her mum was very strict on her and her siblings, she did not really realize it. She was studying hard and did not bother that she was not allowed to go out for parties by herself! It definitely helped though, that the parents of her two best friends were also rather strict on that subject. Unlike her other classmate’s parents, her mum preferred that Nurul would invite friends to their house so that she would be able to get to know the children Nurul was friends with. This way, Nurul never had the feeling that she missed out!

Until today, Nurul’s mum is a big part of her life although she is thousands of kilometres away and she still knows all of Nurul’s friends – old and new ones!

Maybe it’s her mum that made Nurul the family-oriented person she is today! Ever since, she was very close to her family. Even now, having a family herself, she is close to all the loved ones near and far and would not like it to be any different!

At the age of fifteen, Nurul went to boarding school on her own, but only at the age of eighteen, when she went to university in 2003, she started to go out by herself! Having so much freedom was a kind of culture shock for Nurul, but of course lovely Nurul did not do anything silly anyway!

Instead, already in the introduction week of university, she fell in love with her mentor! In the second week of university, they started dating and Nurul was over the moon! Although she had boyfriends before, they would only meet in school and would speak on the phone in the afternoons. Now she was able to finally have real dates!

As Nurul was very active at university with being in a choir and other activities, her mum did meet her boyfriend eventually at one of her performances, but she only introduced him as a friend amongst other friends.

Nurul graduated from university in July 2007 with a Bachelor of Science and Mathematical Industry. She wanted to continue studies as she was interested in teaching Maths, but her parents convinced her to try to apply for a government job after her bachelor’s degree. Since at that time her parents were living in Putrajaya, the government district of Malaysia and were very much involved in government life, it seemed the right thing to do. Nurul returned to her parent’s house and started a long-lasting application process.

Exhausting job application process

When Nurul sent in her application for that government job, she was one of 300.000 candidates! She did not really have a job back-up plan but if she would not get that job, she could still go back to university and do her Master’s.

In the meantime, Nurul was travelling with her parents and her brother to see new countries and places such as Hawaii or Japan. Other young grownups would maybe have chosen differently, but Nurul preferred to spend that time with her family.

Three months after she had sent off that application, she received a call where they invited her for a one-day theory test! With her, there were still 30.000 other candidates who received that invitation!

Nurul was studying hard for this day, learning about all the government policies and asking all their (government) neighbours for help and their knowledge!

Throughout her whole university time, she was dating her former mentor without ever telling her mum. When he graduated and invited her to his university ending dinner, her mum did not allow Nurul to go!! It was a five-hour trip by car from her parent’s house and who was that guy anyway??

In the end, her dad allowed her to go and Nurul was lucky, because her boyfriend had to leave for his first assigned job to Saudi Arabia even before his congregation!

Another three months later, Nurul received her theory test results and was one of the 3.000 candidates who made it through to the next round. This time, it was three days of tests in Johor in the training centre of the Public Service Department!

Nurul says it was the most stressful three days of her life! There were not many freshmen amongst the candidates and the tests which they had to do where much more than just knowledge checks! Besides a physical test and a public speech, she had to prepare for a pretend parliament discussion with real officials leading it! She had never done something like this before and back then you could not ask your smartphone for help!

They had one night to prepare themselves towards a certain broader topic and then they had to hope that they would be allowed to speak about one of the topic areas which they had researched for!

Nurul called her brother from her prepaid phone and here her family bonds came into favour, as her brother called her back straight away and researched the whole night together with her on their parent’s laptop at home. Once more, Nurul did very well and again three months later she was one of the last 1.000 remaining candidates to be invited for an interview!

At the time of her interview, her parents were away without her on a pilgrimage to Mecca. She was alone with her younger brother and her granny and was really feeling the absence of her beloved mum and dad, who always supported her!

Nurul was lucky, as whilst she was waiting for her first interview in her life, she was so nervous, that she started reading the newspaper, what she normally never did! When the officials asked her, if she was reading about current issues in the newspaper, she was perfectly prepared to discuss why the Prime Minister had just met with the Secretary General of the UN in Spain!

300 candidates received a job offer after the interview process and Nurul was one of them!! Finally, in March 2008, she started her well-deserved government job.

After some orientation time, Nurul and her new colleagues were separated into different departments. Nurul was working in the Prime Minister’s Office and was managing the government properties. She was also following the Prime Minister into meetings, writing speeches for him and travelling a lot. Although she was one of the youngest employees, she had already a big department to manage where most of her co-workers were older than her! With her positive attitude and charming way though, Nurul managed to gain their respect.

Nurul started to dream of ending up as a diplomat after 20 years in her job…Of course, she would not give up a job she worked so hard for surely?!

Nurul’s love

So let’s come back to Nurul’s boyfriend…After every three months of work in Saudi Arabia, he was coming back to Kuala Lumpur for a month not far away from where Nurul used to live with her family and of course he wanted to see his girlfriend in that time! Only Nurul still had not introduced him to her mum as her proper boyfriend, who he was since she was 19! She was still asking her mum, if she could go out with him and her mum was still asking him, at what time he would bring her home! Of course, Nurul’s mum would speak to him and inspect him whilst he was picking her up.

Nurul’s boyfriend was a true gentleman and very patient indeed. He was getting along with Nurul being a bit shy about him around her family and he somehow also lived with it, that he was only able to see her about four times in the time when he was in KL!

Finally, Nurul’s “open secret” was disclosed, when her boyfriend, whilst being in Saudi Arabia, sent his family with all his relatives, to propose to Nurul!!! Of course, Nurul knew about it, but she was still very excited and could not wait for their proper engagement ceremony in the beginning of 2009.

In fact, her boyfriend had proposed at that time, because shortly after, in March 2009, she and her 300 colleagues who had started the job together with Nurul, were sent off for a six months training! He could not see her go for so long without making clear that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her!!

Since their engagement, Nurul’s fiancé would always engage with her family and would be very attentive with her siblings and parents. Finally, he was able to show them properly how much she meant to him!

In April 2010, Nurul and her fiancé got married, but they only had as much time together after their wedding, as he still had to return to his job in Saudi Arabia!! At least, Nurul knew from the beginning that her married life might include some longer periods spent abroad at some point…

Married life

Nurul and her husband continued their long-distance relationship, as he could not just get out of his contract! When Nurul got pregnant with their firstborn though, her husband started to ask for a relocation back to Malaysia.

In 2012, after Nurul’s first baby was born, her husband was finally sent back to Malaysia, only that his new job was still 4 hours away from Nurul’s work and home! Nurul was living in one of the official government houses with their baby, whilst her husband had to stay on the East Coast of Malaysia on the weekdays. After her three months of maternity leave were over, which she was able to spend together with her husband, Nurul was able to count on her parents help again.

Although Nurul had a maid, her parents took over and looked after her son, when Nurul was at work. Of course, that was perfect for her, as she knew that her parents would do everything for her son! Since then, her son has a very strong bond with her parents too!

Nurul’s job had been rather busy and the travelling was getting a bit too much with the little one by her side. At some point though, she was able to switch departments and started to work for the Ministry of Higher Education where her life got a bit calmer. She still had to go on delegations but not so often anymore and sometimes she would even take the baby and her parents with her too!

After two years in her new department, Nurul gave birth to her second child in 2014 and did not return to her job after her maternity leave anymore…

Being an Expat

In the three months of maternity leave, her husband came home with the news of being sent to Abu Dhabi. Since they had spent so much time apart already, it was not a question for Nurul, if she would join him! She took two years of unpaid leave to take care of her children and was sure, she would return to her job after that!

It was the first time for the family to finally be living together! It was also the first time that Nurul travelled as an Expat.

Nurul loved her time in Abu Dhabi! She says it is one of the best countries to live in as there is so much going on and life is so vibrant! Her husband had fixed working hours, so he was around more than ever and she finally had a lot of time with her beloved children and finally even started to cook properly herself! She met a lot of other expats and enjoyed her time with them having many play dates and other activities.

After two years in Abu Dhabi, it seemed that Nurul’s husband would soon be moved to another destination. When he was offered a contract in Norway though, they were both surprised as they had expected totally different countries!

Nurul knew a bit about Scandinavia already, but she would have never thought that she would once be living in Norway!! She got very excited and did a lot of research about the country and also received useful tips from friends. She was looking forward to Norway’s beauty, but was a bit concerned about the weather awaiting her there…mind you being from Malaysia and currently living in Abu Dhabi, Nurul was used to a bit higher temperatures than Stavanger had to offer!

Nurul’s office was kind enough to give her another unpaid leave to follow her spouse and two months after the news they were already on their way. As with Abu Dhabi, also this time Nurul did not know for how long they would be staying in Norway.

It was August 2016 when Nurul’s family moved to Stavanger and they fell in love with it straight away! The weather was still nice and Nurul and her children started to explore the city and adapt physically and mentally to that new environment whilst her husband was already working. After a couple of months, her son started year one and her daughter went to nursery. That is, where Nurul and I met.

As interested as Nurul’s mum was in her friends and friendships, as interested Nurul is in her children’s friends. Every time our children’s school would look for volunteers for an excursion or a baking afternoon, you would definitely find Nurul (and me😉) there!

Nurul loves how different the Norwegian system pays attention to children’s development and their education than she is used from Malaysia! She enjoyed seeing all the happy children, teachers and even mums in the “åpen barnehage” and then in her children’s school as well. The positive school environment helped her children but also herself to adapt easier in the new school but also in their new home city. After a while her children also started to join after school clubs where they would learn new skills and enjoy themselves. Of course, Nurul found friends too and feels lucky to have met so many kind people from all over the world! As we expats do not have our family with us, friends often are like extended family!

Outlook

Time goes by and Nurul is still here, not knowing for how much longer they will be staying in Stavanger. Her work agreed to an unpaid leave until 2022, but of course she does not know when her husband will get a new contract and for what country! Nurul is full of hope that they will somehow work it out. She definitely wants to return to her job in the end!

Nurul still feels very Malaysian after all that time abroad and still wants to return to Malaysia to settle down and live there. She believes that her children will also be fine to move back to Malaysia as they are happy as long as they are happy as a family! She would not send them to a Malaysian school though and would want them to continue an IB education.

Nurul says that she will definitely miss the feeling of being an expat. The challenges, when you are trying to adapt to your new situation, meeting new friends like expats but also locals, trying out all of the local’s activities (in Stavanger’s case skiing, hiking, camping etc.) and getting used to the weather (four seasons in comparison to Malaysia’s tropical weather all year around). Nurul will of course miss her new “extended family” too!!

She is a bit concerned if her life back in Malaysia will not feel a bit ordinary, like if the “adventure” is over and now she has to start fresh. But she hopes that once she will settle again, she will live her life to the fullest again!

As Nurul is always around now, it will definitely take some time for her children to get used to the fact that their mum would be working. But as they are older now, Nurul feels it should be easier than before as they are more mature now. In any case, I am quite sure that Nurul’s parents would be more than happy to help out again!  

Nurul is a very friendly and super positive person! My first experience with her made such an impact on me, that I am still trying to make newcomers in the school feel as welcome as she made me feel back then😊 But most of all, I have to admit, I admire her family-sense and her mum-ness. You can just feel that Nurul lives for her family to be happy!   

Facts

Daniela is a mum of two daughters who is from the beautiful city Foggia in a region in Italy called Puglia.

Daniela moved countries only once so far, but since traveling is in her blood, she has been to a lot of countries already and her big dream is to move to England and live there forever😊

Although in her last profession, Daniela was a baker owning her own bakery, she did try out a whole range of jobs before that!

Early years

Daniela spent all her childhood and youth in the picturesque region of Puglia and only left for another region of Italy to start her studies of language and foreign literature. As her independence was always very important to Daniela, she started to look for a job in the meantime, but it was not easy to find one at that time.

When the opportunity came up in 1995, to do an on-the-job training to be a physiotherapist, where she would be able to earn her own money in a hospital, she decided to drop out of her studies. Unfortunately, after a while she did realize, that that kind of job was not for her, as she was feeling down to see the fates of the patients and could never shut her mind off after work.

Daniela quit the training in 1997 and started to work at the check-out in a grocery store in a big shopping mall. She knew that this job would not be forever, but for the time being it suited her independence just fine.

As travelling was a common thing for her to do in her childhood and youth – both her parents worked on trains and used to take her for little trips around Europe – after three years she was wondering if she couldn’t make that her job too!

First Passion

She applied for a job in a local travel agency in 2000 and although the owner knew her and suspected she would be a hard worker, he still wanted to test her first and see if she was made for the job…he suggested that Daniela should not quit her existing job just yet but that she should come for an unpaid trial of one to three months to his agency.

As Daniela rather likes to put her money where her mouth is, she took the risk anyway, quit her job and was hoping for the best! Her courage paid off, as only fifteen days later, the agency owner offered her a proper working contract and since then she was working for him!!

She loved her job and especially enjoyed the travelling a lot, visiting places like Seychelles, USA, Caribbean, Mexico, Europe etc. and jetting around the world. At some point though, about four years later, she was feeling a bit stuck in her development and the only way to change it was to leave her employment and open up her own travel agency!

Daniela opened her travel agency in 2004 together with a colleague and it was a huge success! They were good in business and she enjoyed being her own boss and having her dream job!

That was until the internet got bigger and people started to buy their holidays on the internet for lower prices than she and her colleague were able to offer…people started to only ask for the cheapest prices and not for their expertise anymore! It got frustrating for Daniela, as working hours seemed to extend in order to be able to compete with the internet but the income was getting lower and the profit was going against zero!

Somewhere in between, Daniela met her future husband and they got married in 2007. He was working for the army in the region of Abruzzo but they both always dreamt of living abroad someday.

After giving birth to her first baby in September 2009, she did not want to continue like this. She was not ready to lose precious time with her baby by working overtime and not even earning enough to pay the rent for the agency, so she decided to sell her half of the agency to her colleague.

Second passion

Since it still was not easy for jobs in her region in Italy, Daniela started to brainstorm what she could do, what she was good at! She did not want to stay at home, but she wanted to work normal hours to have enough time with her child and earn decent money! She knew that her cakes were always very much appreciated and a success amongst family and friends…and so she started to sell them to her friends for all different occasions.

Daniela’s friends started to recommend her and her new business idea was slowly growing! She rented a tiny house with only one room to store her baking equipment which was growing steadily and also to bake without messing up her own kitchen in her family house every time! In 2012, Daniela gave birth to her second daughter. Both girls were with her whilst she was baking and trying out new creations until they were old enough to go to nursery.

After about three years of baking, Daniela was able to make the big step of opening her own bakery in the town centre of her town in 2013!! It was a beautiful business where she was working alongside her best friend, who was a wedding planner. They worked hand in hand for weddings besides the usual trade in the bakery and it was going amazingly! Daniela had nearly forgotten about her and her husband’s dream to leave the country and anyway, why would she do that, now, when she had a flourishing business to call her own?!

Meanwhile, Daniela’s husband was sent abroad a lot, but without his family. It was hard times for Daniela, as having your own business and caring for two little children on your own is rather challenging!

In January 2018, Daniela’s husband announced that finally he received a job offer abroad, as they always wanted! Daniela was supposed to be impressed and happy, but as life has it, at that point she was unsure if she still wanted to move! It would mean that she would have to close her bakery for which she had been working so hard! She was not even sure what to think of a place called “Stavanger”!

Maybe it was faith that helped her to know what was the right thing to do. As her dad got terminally ill, she decided to close the bakery anyway in March 2018, to spend some last quality time with him…

Shortly after her dad died, Daniela’s husband took her for a look and see trip to Stavanger for a few days. At first, all of her mixed emotions made her not want to move to Norway! She was an Italian who was supposed to live in Italy and she did not want to leave her mum alone in her new situation back home, as Daniela has no siblings at all!

The few days in Stavanger though made her fall in love with that city and the upcoming possibilities, so they decided to move to Stavanger in August 2018. Mind you, not everyone was in love with Stavanger in the beginning!

Stavanger

Although Daniela and her husband saw moving abroad and learning a new language as well as seeing something different and new as a gift to their daughters, the beginning for them was not so positive!

Especially her older daughter, being nine years old at that time, was not convinced that she wanted to jump into another life without her friends and no knowledge of either English or Norwegian!

Both daughters started to attend the British International School in Stavanger and whilst her younger daughter quickly found herself some Italian friends to translate for her in her year group, her older daughter did not have such an easy start. At some point, Daniela saw herself packing boxes again to go back to Italy… When both granny’s came to visit the family in December 2018 though, also Daniela’s older daughter started to feel more comfortable in Stavanger. She understood that although she is far away from her family and friends in her old school, she still was not alone, they could still be together in their heart and visit each other!

As for Daniela, she decided that although she could be working as a baker in Stavanger, as she had received proposals, she did not want to work here. She had worked a lot in Italy in many different jobs and now she wanted to have a sabbatical (for four years) and just care and be there for her family. It had been a lot of stress in the recent years with her husband away a lot and managing the family on her own and also her dad’s death. Besides, she knew that it could be challenging for her girls to start a new life and she wanted to be there for them, to help them to overcome their struggles. She knew that if she would be working, she would not be able to be there for them as much as they might have needed her!

Now, she enjoys her family to the maximum and is very happy with her decision. Daniela still bakes, as it is her passion, but just for friends and family. She is happy when she can provide loved ones with a cake when they crave for it, as it is her biggest joy to make someone happy with her creations!

In the time, when her daughters are at school, Daniela enjoys Stavanger and its surroundings to the fullest. She is not someone who sits around and is miserable! She enjoys her life and spends her time well with friends and many things to do!

Whilst having her bakery in Italy, Daniela had a kind of blog about baking, as it was good publicity. She continued to write for it when they moved to Stavanger but eventually had to stop as she was still getting requests for cakes from her hometown!

Instead, she started a new blog on facebook last year about travelling and her adventures in and around Stavanger with her family: https://www.facebook.com/littlegoestonorway/.

Daniela has changed a lot since they moved to Stavanger, she even says that she feels like another person! She did not change her heart though, but she opened up her mind a lot and is more open to people and things now than she was before! She writes the blog to share these insights with her family and friends in order to share her experiences with everyone who cannot just go abroad and experience what she is able to experience! She wants them to be also able to see the new and different and exciting things that she is able to capture!

Daniela is thankful to have the chance to get to know a whole new culture and she is not missing Italian food or other Italian things right now. She takes Norway in with everything it gives her! She loves to try out and learn new things. Daniela always tries to see everything in a positive light and sees struggles as a challenge to overcome and learn from them!

Future

When Daniela and her family will leave in 2022, they will not go back to Puglia, but to another city in Italy and she hopes that maybe they will also have an international school there, to keep their daughter’s English up!

Of course, Daniela will start working again, as she loves working and really needs her independence! She did not tell me though, if it will be within her first passion travelling, or her second passion baking, or if she even will invent herself once more😊

Daniela will miss Stavanger, the people from all around the globe, the lifestyle and the differences to her own culture! In her heart, she is not the Italian she was before anymore, she will remain an Expat forever, no matter where she will be living!

Facts

Amanda is a mum of two children and she is from Jakarta in Indonesia.

Although Amanda moved countries only once so far and has been living in Stavanger for over nine years now, I still count her to the expat community.

Back in Indonesia, she was working in marketing and is currently polishing up her Norwegian to find a job in the marketing/logistics field in Stavanger.

About us

Amanda is one of the mums in the expat community, which I know for the longest time.

When my family and I moved to Stavanger, my younger son had a rough time in preschool as he did not know the language nor the people and he was in a completely new environment overall. It was Amanda’s son, who finally made my son more comfortable and less miserable in the mornings.

When my son wanted to have a play date with his new friend after four months of living in Stavanger, I was really happy!! Only, it was not easy for me to approach his mummy, who always seemed to be rather busy. Keep in mind, I was new too, I did not know her and I had no idea how play dates looked like in this new world of mine!

I remember how surprised I was, when we finally agreed on a play date in our house and Amanda just let her three-year old son go home alone with us! For my son that would have been out of question!

That afternoon, my son was more than happy and since then, we got to know Amanda and her family more and more.

Amanda’s first home

Amanda spent the first part of her life in Indonesia in Jakarta and being the only girl among three brothers did not make her turn out as the most girlish girl.

Whilst her brothers all went to New Zealand for studies, Amanda was the only child in the family who stayed back in Jakarta for university, where she studied marketing. She did not mind too much though and enjoyed her time at university, whilst spending a lot of her free time in nature going hiking, diving or camping.

In 2007, just after finishing her bachelor thesis and even before receiving her degree, she started to work for a construction company for a gas project in Jakarta.

Only one year later, the company sent her off on a contract to Papua for a project there. As Papua is the most eastern island of Indonesia, over 3000km away from Jakarta and furthermore, rather remote, her family was not too happy about her going there, simply because it is not common in Amanda’s family to work so far away from home!

Amanda found her way around her family though and started her new job far, far away! She was coming back home every six months and only the journey in itself used to be an adventure! Besides a commercial plane, she had to take a propeller plane and before that, she had to take a boat. Yes, rather remote.

For the small propeller plane, not only her luggage had to be weighted, but also Amanda herself, so that the plane would definitely only carry as much as it was able to! She describes one flight in that propeller plane back to Papua as a “real experience”, when one of the propellers stopped working in the middle of nowhere…!!

After about one year, Amanda had enough of experiences in and with Papua, so she took the opportunity of a job interview with another company in Jakarta whilst being there on a business trip. 

She was lucky enough to get the job and started to work back in Jakarta soon after her interview. In 2009, she met an expat from Germany, who was working for the same company as herself. They got to know each other better and ended up in a relationship.

Two years later, Amanda’s boyfriend was about to be sent on a new assignment to Norway, so she made the life changing decision to leave everything behind her and go to Norway together with him!!

As already others in her family wedded foreigners before her and moved away with them, this time her family did accept her plans rather quickly.

Amanda’s second home

At that point, Amanda was not even aware, where Norway was, as from the Indonesian point of view, Norway was rather an unimportant country.

Before the big move, Amanda and her boyfriend wanted to get married. Amanda had been to Germany before, to meet her future husband’s family, and somehow, she liked the idea of getting married in Germany as she thought it would be more intimate. To be allowed to get married in Germany though, Amanda had to pass a German exam in Jakarta first! What a coincidence that she had taken a German course before even meeting her future husband!

In the end, they got married in Germany in July 2011 and moved to Norway straight after their wedding!

To say, that it was a culture shock for Amanda to come to Norway, would be an understatement…it all went very fast and was a rather crazy time in her life!

In her mind, Stavanger was a big city with lovely old and pretty buildings. There surely were a lot of places and things to discover with shops and restaurants full of life and she imagined that it would be beautifully white in the winter!

Although Amanda’s husband warned her to lower her expectations (he had been on a business trip to Stavanger before), it was still a huge challenge for Amanda, when she discovered that Stavanger was everything else than she had imagined it would be!

Already the weather itself was very challenging for Amanda in the beginning! Coming from a hot and humid country, the rainy, rarely sunny and often dark city of Stavanger was tough for her!

Also, the size of the city and the quietness worried her…she was brought up in a big adventurous city! What would she do in a sleepy city like Stavanger??

Amanda told me, that most people in Indonesia have maids and therefore she was not used to cooking or cleaning. She was neither used to taking the bus when she wanted to go somewhere, but here, her Indonesian driving license was not valid, so she had no other choice!

In her old life, she was used to eat out a lot and go to the cinema every week! She has had a good life in Jakarta and now she was feeling as if her life had fallen upside down!

Her whole new life in Norway was a learning process!! She was trying to get used to the weather and she was not really enjoying taking the bus. Her husband was teaching her how to cook and she was desperate to find some friends, who would understand her sorrows.

Luckily for her, it turned out that Stavanger has a really nice and big Indonesian community, where she became a part of very quickly.

As she was technically still employed by her company in Indonesia (she had taken a one-year leave) and her husband was now working for their Norwegian branch, Amanda tried her luck and also applied for a job with them in Stavanger. Unfortunately, they had preferred locals at that time, who of course would speak Norwegian… 

Amanda started to take part in a Norwegian course and began to meet up with people from Indonesia more often. In the beginning, the contact with people of her own culture was very important for Amanda, as they seemed to have gone through the same challenges that she was going through at that time.

Obviously, her husband made sure, that she discovered the positive sides of Stavanger and Norway, so that she would hopefully learn to like her new home a bit more. They explored a lot of the south of Norway back then!

An additional challenge to everything else was, that Amanda got pregnant soon after arriving in Norway. In the beginning she was a bit anxious to give birth in the country she did not know and with no family around either! But she tried to relax and take everything easy and it all turned out to be fine in the end. Amanda gave birth to her first child in 2012.

When Amanda got her Norwegian driving license in the beginning of 2013, she started to feel more comfortable and relaxed in her new hometown. At least, she was not relying on buses anymore and could now see her friends whenever she wanted!

As Amanda and her husband came to Norway as Expats for three to five years, she was excited to get to know other countries as well after that assignment. She liked to travel and had already been to Europe before marrying her husband. She wanted to see more of the world and was hoping for Houston or Paris next, as her husband’s company was sending people there a lot!

Having a daughter already, Amanda was still dreaming of a boy. She was lucky, as in 2014 she gave birth to her second baby, and yes, it was a boy!!

It was lovely to take care of her two beautiful children, but at some point, Amanda got a little bit frustrated with her situation, as she was very used to working and earning her own money! Of course, she had her husband’s support but she could not warm to the idea, to never earn money herself anymore!

She started to apply for jobs, but in a city as Stavanger, you better have a background in oil and gas or you should be speaking Norwegian to find a decent job…after a while, with no positive feedback in her job hunt, something had to change and so Amanda enrolled for a Master in Business Administration at the University of Stavanger in 2017! The reason, why Amanda had been so busy when I first met her!!

Having classes at university and studying at home in between taking care of her family and their household must have been rather challenging! It was a tough time for Amanda as well as for her family, but after some ups and downs and nearly giving up at some point, she finally graduated in 2019!!

As it often happens to Expats, that somehow they stay longer in a certain country than they were planning to initially, after about seven years in Stavanger, Amanda finally gave up on waiting to move somewhere else, because that uncertainty started to drive her mad!! She now fully committed to a life in Stavanger and stopped seeing herself as an expat.

If the possibility would appear though, she would definitely be happy to move! Also others have said it before, that after a certain amount of years, Stavanger becomes a little bit narrow…

Since the oil industry had a rather big shake, it got even harder to find a job around Stavanger, because of course a lot of Norwegians are on a job hunt now too.

That is, why Amanda restarted to take Norwegian classes after a few setbacks in the job hunt. Before, she only tried to learn the language for one semester and did not put her full heart onto learning it, but this time she wants to learn it for real! As the days go by, she is getting better and better and hopefully getting more fluent in Norwegian will soon help her to find the desired job!

Amanda has also just finished her “språkpraksis” in one of the Norwegian nurseries, where she had to actually use her learned Norwegian and luckily she now also got the opportunity to work for them from time to time as a replacement for absent teachers!

Conclusion

Amanda never intended to marry a foreigner and leave her country. If it would not have been for her husband, she would still be working and living in Indonesia. In North Sumatra, where her parents were originally from, people are very family oriented and the family gets involved in your life a lot. Family sticks together a lot.

Now, she does not feel, that she belongs to Indonesia anymore, although Indonesia is always in her heart! She feels at home in Norway by now and is happy here. Maybe that also has to do with the fact, that she only goes to see her family every second year as traveling to Indonesia especially with children is quite challenging.

Although she misses her family and friends as well as her culture, she is thankful for the Indonesian community in Stavanger, through which she feels much happier than in the beginning!

After I got to know Amanda better, I started to think, that people from Indonesia must be the friendliest people in the world! I have honestly never met someone like her before!

Amanda seems to be the sweetest mum to her children, but also the most helpful and caring friend. No matter what small or big crisis her friends in the expat community will have, she will always try to figure it out, take someone else`s kids home with her, to give a friend a break or just give you a hand to get things done.

She is the most selfless person I have seen for a long time, who does not only take care of her friends but also tries to reach out to people in the community.

Every now and then, I wonder how Amanda became the person she is and every now and then I tell her, that I really want to be a little bit like her😊

Facts

Carmen was born in Spain and spent the first part of her life in her hometown Murcia until she was 20.

She is a mum to two children and works in the oil and gas industry.

Until now, Carmen moved countries four times and she can imagine to move again.

Carmen is another mum I got to know through my son’s Spanish football friends in his year group in school.

Normal life

Carmen used to live a rather “normal” life. She spent her childhood and youth in Murcia and then started to study physics at her home town’s university. The last two years of her studies she spent in Madrid, well aware of the fact, that this was only possible, because her sister already lived and worked in Madrid by that time. Otherwise, her family would not have been able to pay for the expensive accommodation in Madrid!

After getting her degree in physics in 2005, Carmen was not sure what to do next, so she applied for several options.

1. She applied for a grant to stay in the research team of her university, where she was a member of the last year of her studies anyway.
2. She applied for a grant to train and work in an oil company.
3. She applied for a job to work on microscopes.

She was lucky, as she received the possibility to stay at her university and continue working in her research team. Only, when she was offered that possibility, she already had changed her mind! She did not like the research to be so slow and bureaucratic.

Carmen then received another acceptance and started to work on the microscopes, but after working for that company in Madrid for a month, she received the grant to work and train within the oil company!

As with that grant, Carmen would have the possibility to study in English for the first time in her life and to even go to Edinburgh for 3 months, so she quickly handed in her notice in her “old” job and decided to go with the oil company!

Now she says, back then, she did not even really understand what it meant to work for an oil company! She took that decision purely for the English and the entirely new possibilities for her and she was right, as this decision changed her life completely!

It was still at the interview process, that she met that young interesting man from Madrid. Both of them made it through the whole process and both of them started to train and work for the company. Only at the end of the one-year Master program, they fell for each other!

It was an intense year for Carmen, as she had to study whenever she could! The first three to four months, they were learning a lot, as all of her co-students were from all sorts of different backgrounds and they had to reach a common level first, before going deeper in the subjects.

For the first time in her life, Carmen was surrounded by people from a lot of different countries, they were all studying together in English and she loved it! She loved it to deepen her English and she loved it to be surrounded by everyone from all the different cultures!

New life

After finishing the Master program, Carmen received the offer to go to Argentina with the oil company and lucky her, her new boyfriend received an offer to go to Argentina too!

She was very excited for the opportunity to live abroad for the first time in her life, but because it was for the first time in her life, she was also rather anxious! For the first time, she would be far away from her family and even her boyfriend would not work in the same city as her!

In the end, she was not going completely alone, as others from the Master program were offered a job in Comodoro too.

I was writing about Comodoro in Ivon’s story (who Carmen met there eventually) already and Carmen likewise says, that it is not her favourite city, as especially back then, it was really very remote! It is also definitely not easy to get used to the weather, because the constant wind is quite challenging and there is no proper summer nor winter!

Nevertheless, Carmen enjoyed her experience in Comodoro very much! Because of its remoteness, the city had a lot of young people coming for work from all over Argentina and from other countries too. With their families being far away, the youth built up a lovely community, where they would stick together and support each other. They were young and carefree and enjoyed each other’s company in their free time!

One negative aspect of the remoteness of Comodoro for Carmen was, that although Carmen and her boyfriend were in the same country, it was not easy to see each other! The plane connections between Comodoro and Neuquén, where her boyfriend was working, were not very good, and so they spend hours and hours (up to 15 hours!!) on the bus to see each other at least every second month!!

After three years of living in Comodoro, Carmen was finally allowed to change jobs within the company and was then able to work in Neuquén too. That was wonderful of course, lastly, she was able to see her boyfriend every day! The city of Neuquén was also much more enjoyable, there was more to see and to explore and the weather was better there too! They stayed together in Neuquén for two more years.

Back to “normal”

In 2011, Carmen and her boyfriend moved back to Madrid, as Carmen’s first niece was born and she was missing her family a lot by that time. As Carmen is a family person, who is very close to her loved ones, she felt that she needed to resettle within her broader family again!

Still, returning to her “old home” was hard! People had moved on of course, as she had and although she lived in Madrid before, a lot of things had changed in the last five years! Carmen was struggling to reconnect with her friends and even with family, but in the end, she was happy, because her family and friends back home were exactly what she had missed and dearly needed!!

Life in Madrid went on, Carmen and her boyfriend both continued working in the same oil company and finally got married. They bought an apartment in the outskirts of Madrid to settle down and soon had their first child.

Maybe it was then, that Carmen started to notice how much time she was loosing, because of Madrid being that huge city as it was, where everything was moving super-fast! Besides work, there was not much time to see friends, as the working hours they had were very long!

Maternity leave back then was only four months, so Carmen took all of her holidays in addition to that to spend more time with her baby. After that, her mother in law took over, until her first child was able to start creche.

It was not easy for Carmen to hand over her little son to day care for such a long time that her working day was! So in the end, after struggling with herself, she asked for shorter working hours to be able to pick her child up from day care in reasonable hours.

Although her boss was being really nice about it, what is not very common in Spain, Carmen was still working more than her hours would have made possible and was send on business trips up to 10 days too…

With her second child, Carmen was already more informed and had learned from her experiences with her first son. This time, she did not reduce her working hours, but asked for home office for the remaining hours, which she would not work in the office because of picking up her children.

Carmen was lucky that just recently another woman had asked for the same, so for her it was a lot easier to get that allowance. She would work her remaining hours when the children were in bed and she stayed longer in the office on Fridays, when her husband was able to finish early.

Her children were growing and Carmen was trying to be with them as much as possible, always being in a hurry for pick up whilst managing commute and traffic.

At some point, Carmen’s and her husband’s job were getting a bit boring, as they worked in the same positions for a lot of years by then! They started to fantasize about going abroad again and soon they began to apply within their company for international jobs. As they needed two jobs at the same time, they had to reject some offers, but in the end, they both were offered jobs in Stavanger!

Expat life

Prior to moving to Norway with the whole family, Carmen had a few business trips to Stavanger. She knew, that Ivon, who she met in Comodoro, was already living there, so she received all of the first-hand information she needed.

Carmen and her husband were excited for the move and were looking forward to that opportunity, but especially with her older son, it was a different story!! He seemed to be very unhappy and sad, that they would move! He did not want to leave his friends behind and was being upset a lot!

As the children had changed Carmen’s mind setup, she started to question herself, whether they were doing the right thing! She definitely did not want her son to be unhappy! In the end, they took on the challenge and moved to Stavanger in summer 2018.

Their start in Stavanger was not easy at all. Surprisingly her older son settled in into school really quickly, maybe because he was in an English school in Madrid already.

It was her younger son, that Carmen got really worried about. He did not speak any English at all, when he started in the international nursery. He struggled a lot with his new surroundings and did not enjoy the huge amount of nature play with all the heavy rain gear at all! In Stavanger, children learn quickly, that rain is a part of the day and that the rain gear is their second skin!

Her son had a rough time and Carmen was feeling anxious for him, but on the other side, she had to put on a happy face at work and prove herself in her new job! This lasted until Christmas and only then Carmen was able to begin to relax, as finally her younger son got into a routine and started to enjoy his new life.

In the end, Carmen and her family had a really good time in Stavanger! They found a lot of Spanish friends and they also got very close with Ivon and her family! They enjoyed their jobs and also the fact, that in Norway, your job is not everything! They were able to spend more time with the children and enjoyed family life!

Carmen and her husband also appreciate the fact, that their children had the opportunity to live abroad and experience a multicultural international school. They learned to be open minded and how to be friends with children from loads of different cultures!

Carmen’s family was supposed to stay in Stavanger for three years, but because of COVID-19, they had to leave earlier like most of her Spanish colleagues in summer 2020.

The goodbyes were sad as always, but at least her older son was to return to his “old” school in Madrid and to his “old” friends. Carmen was very sad to leave, as she enjoyed the beautiful nature and she will definitely miss the work-life balance Stavanger was giving her husband and herself. On the other hand, she missed her family a lot once more, so she was really looking forward to seeing them more often again!

Home again

Carmen and her family moved back to Madrid nearly two months ago. Her husband and herself are working again, still in the same company and the children just started school.

For Carmen, it is very important to stay connected with her home country and she also wants her children to know where they belong/ where they come from. She wants her children to be as connected with her family in Spain as she is!!

Although Carmen enjoys living abroad, with all its opportunities, there is always a part of her suffering and missing home and her family a lot! That’s why she finds it very important, to come “back home” after each adventure!

Some facts…

Ivon is a mum of two children, who was born in Colombia.

She works as a drilling engineer and has moved countries four times so far.

Her last move was a couple of weeks ago and I just made it to talk to her about her life before she left Norway.

I got to know Ivon about two years ago, when she invited my son to her son’s birthday party. Somehow my son was really good friends with all the Spanish speaking football boys in his year. I remember feeling a bit funny in between of all the Spanish speaking parents and only my son and another boy not being or speaking Spanish at all!

Colombia

Ivon spent her childhood and youth in Colombia, but already in school she started to have the desire to move out of her country one day.

As she was good in maths, later in life she wanted to be an engineer and ended up studying petroleum engineering, what she thought was very different to other subjects and therefore interesting.

In 2005, Ivon started to work in the oil and gas industry in Colombia, but because of the financial crisis, she was not able to find a position with an operator company. After working for two years, Ivon had saved up some money and she began to think properly about leaving her country.

Ivon always knew, that Colombia, due to the political situation, would not be able to offer her the life she wanted! She wanted to get to know new cultures and places and she wanted a secure life. A lot of her friends felt alike and also left Colombia sooner or later.

Patagonia

Ivon was very young and rather nervous, when she decided to move to Argentina, where she would be able to do her Master in Oil and Gas. Even losing her voice from being anxious could not change her plan to move. She would stay a couple of years and would then maybe return to Colombia after that.

Soon after arriving, Ivon was offered a studying spot in Patagonia, where she would be able to study and start as a “new professional” with an operator company all at the same time!

As I had never heard about Patagonia before, Ivon described it to me in a very rough way: the city of Comodoro, where she lived, was awful and quite remote and the weather was much worse than in Norway, apparently always and every day there is a strong wind in Patagonia.

Just about the surroundings a young woman would wish for with her first move! Not.

Ivon made the best of it though. At least the culture in Argentina was close to that of Colombia! The people in Argentina were very open-minded and soon she found a nice group of friends who supported each other.

The first three months she received a training and after that, she was working in the company for about two and a half years.

Ivon tried to travel and enjoy Argentina, with the nearest touristic city being five hours away, but in the end she got used to living so remotely.

In Patagonia, Ivon also got to know her future husband, who was working as an expat in the same company! When it was time for him to head back to Spain after a year of them both knowing each other, Ivon, who had a local contract, persuaded HR to find some job for her in Spain too!

In the end of 2010, after being apart for a year, Ivon was finally offered a drilling position in Madrid and she could not wait to being closer to her boyfriend again!

Madrid

Ivon was very excited to move to Spain! The company helped her with the move and she was speaking the language of her new destination already, so she was really looking forward to that new life in Europe!

It turned out to be pretty perfect! Ivon and her boyfriend were working in the same company and also lived together and very soon she got pregnant. She continued to work until her maternity leave started.

When Ivon’s first child was only little, it was the first time she and her boyfriend went back to Colombia to see her family after a long while. It did not make Ivon to want to move back though!

Whilst Ivon was living in Madrid, they traveled a lot around Spain, as she was excited to learn more about the country. They were planning their holidays along with their work schedules and the schedule of their child’s nursery, what always meant a lot of logistics! They quickly learned their tricks around it and it was not long when Ivon got pregnant again! After their second child was born, Ivon had another tiny break from work for 7 months.

As Ivon was working in a drilling position again, it meant that she had to travel sometimes for a week to the UK, Russia or other countries. Then her brave boyfriend would juggle work, life and two small children all alone!!!

At some point, Ivon had a Norwegian boss and he then offered her a position in Norway in 2017! As they had a position for her boyfriend too, after seven years in Madrid, the whole family was ready for a new beginning in Stavanger!

You might have noticed that I keep writing about Ivon’s “boyfriend”. Of course, he was already much more than “just” a boyfriend, but Ivon’s family life was so busy, that they never managed to get married! So shortly before their move to Stavanger, they got married in Madrid in May 2017!

Stavanger

Ivon had two business trips to Stavanger before they moved in summer 2017, so she knew that it was a beautiful safe place where they were moving to and hence she was not anxious at all. She was looking forward to experience a new country with her family.

Yet again, also with this move, Ivon and her family had the company support, so there was a lot taken care of! They as well had received a lot of advice from friends about houses, cars and schools, so making decisions about where to live and which school to choose was much easier!

As her children did not speak a word of English or Norwegian, they had quite a rough start in nursery and school. Thankfully the international schools have it, that normally there will be other children to speak your mother tongue too and so her children soon found Spanish speaking friends who would help and translate for them and would make them feel welcome.

They were enjoying life in Stavanger, exploring its beautiful surroundings and also the rest of the country! Sure, their first summer was rather rainy, but they were still happy to see and experience new surroundings!

In 2019, her company offered her a job on the oil rig, nothing Ivon would have ever even thought of doing!

As it was hard for her as a woman and furthermore as a mother in that business anyway and definitely always harder to get a promotion than her colleagues, she finally overcome her fear and decided to go offshore.

Not only did that mean night shifts in an office on the rig, helicopter flights back and forth and being in the middle of the sea the whole time. It also meant being away from her children every four weeks for two weeks for a period of a whole year!!

Thankfully, Ivon had the support from her husband who once again would manage his job and his both children’s lifes at once alone!

Already the preparation course for going offshore was quite stressful for Ivon! As you have to train for several emergencies, she had to overcome a lot of fears in that course already and still had to work on a lot more with starting on the rig!

When she finally went out to the platform with the helicopter for the first time, she had a lot of respect for her new job. She went further than out of her comfort zone and actually she even now is not sure how she managed it all.

Ivon was feeling alone on the rig at times, as it is a hard job to be in the middle of nowhere, and most of her colleagues were men. It did not help that the official language offshore was Norwegian!

Sometimes also the feeling of being a bad mother overcame Ivon, as normally you do not leave your young children alone (with your husband) for two weeks at a time…but on the other hand her children gave her the strength to go through with it, as especially her older child was showing her a lot, how proud he was of his mum overcoming all of her fears and accepting the challenges!

After nine rotations her job on the rig was done and she is still happy and proud of herself that she was brave enough to ignore her nerves and go for it!! Hopefully now, she will be taken in consideration for a broader range of positions in her career.

Their contracts had been for two years initially, but they had received an extension for another year. They knew, that in summer 2020, they definitely had to go back to Spain and with the COVID-19, other Spanish co-workers, who got their friends now, are leaving earlier that they wanted to, together with them back to Madrid as well…

Madrid

Ivon just started to work in her new position in Madrid, whilst her children are enjoying their time with the grandparents as school in Spain starts a bit later.

For now, Ivon and her husband hope to be able to stay in the office for a while.

The children will continue their education in an international school, as Ivon and her husband are not sure, for how long they will stay in Madrid. As they really enjoy expat life and discovering new places, they are keen to move again and see more of the world! They do miss Norway, with its nature and its quietness at the moment though.

Conclusion

Although Ivon is so far away from her family for a lot of years now, they do support her and are happy to see her happy! At least they are talking on the phone every day! Very rarely families have so much contact, even when they life close!

Ivon is very proud of her children, that they were able to learn English so quickly! She is happy about the opportunity for them to speak a different language now and she is happy that they got braver and more open-minded. Her hope is that it will teach them for the future, that they do not have to be afraid of changes, but are able to cope and adjust to whatever will come!

She states, that expat live is definitely not for everyone. It is lovely to get to see new places and maybe learn a new language, but it is always hard to say goodbye or see friends around you leave. To move every couple of years and start completely new, to get to know a new culture and new people, that is not always easy! You definitely have to find your group of people in every new destination, to have some support and a nearby “family”.

Ivon seems to be made for expat life though! As she knows that she has only a given amount of time in every country, she makes sure to make the most of it and see whatever interesting places the given country has to offer! Unlike her family and friends in Colombia, who always stay in the same place and do not even think about travelling, Ivon makes plans for nearly every weekend and holidays to experience all of the given possibilities!

This is also the biggest difference between her and her family and “old” friends. She is definitely not the same person anymore as she was before and with every new country she lives in, she changes again. She thinks it would be hard to live a “normal” live again and is not even sure, if that is possible after all!

Having said, that Ivon is perfect for expat life, I was astound when she told me, that she is a rather nervous and frightened person! Not the type of person I would send off to live an expat life! She has a trick though and tells herself, when others did a certain thing, she will be able to do it too! She never accepts the limits her fears are trying to set her and always tries to accept the risk! In the end, the appetite for seeing the world is stronger than all of her worries!

Apart from all the expat buzz, it is hard for Ivon to find a good balance. On the one hand, she wants to succeed in her career, but on the other hand, she wants to spend as much time with her children as possible. It never seems good enough either way, but I suppose, as with everything, there is no 100% perfect!

Facts

Alison is a mum of two children from Kent in England. She spent most of her life in the UK, until she met her future husband.

She worked hard to be a solicitor, but in the end gave up on her own career to accompany her husband and travel the world.

Alison has already moved countries four times and is now awaiting her next destination.

I got to know Alison two years ago. Although our children are in the same school, our paths did not cross until we both volunteered to take over the school’s second-hand uniform shop. 

In the time we spent together selling uniforms I got to know her better and when I started this blog, I knew that I would DEFINITELY have to tell HER story! In fact, she was one of the mums that inspired me to start that blog in the first place.

I had to be quick with Alison though, as she was about to move this summer! When we met for a coffee at very short notice, their plans had changed again…

Alison’s “normal” life

Alison’s life seemed to be very UK-based with no plans to live abroad. She started studying in Aberdeen, where she met her future husband and after changing her subject to law, she ended up studying in London. 

When they both completed their degrees, Alison’s boyfriend had to go to the Netherlands for work and Alison joined him for a year before she would start her own career as a solicitor in the UK.

There, she did a short intensive Dutch course and also volunteered at a local international school. Additionally she wrote and edited articles for her husband’s work expat magazine.

When Alison started her solicitor training in London, they started to fly back and forth for weekends and holidays, as her boyfriend’s contract in the Netherlands was for four years altogether.  

They got married in East Sussex in the UK and when friends and family questioned them, where they would be living as a married couple, they had no answer to that and were just continuing a separate, although married life for another year.

Keen to resolve this issue of being MARRIED but still living APART, they were trying hard to find a solution, when Alison’s husband was offered a job in Houston in 2006!

Alison’s work was both interesting and challenging, with getting to know and learn in a new law department every six months, but something had to change and her husband got her thinking about a total transformation of her life.

The weekends away or even the long drives to and from the airport to collect her husband on a Friday night and send him off on a Sunday night again were getting a bit stressful. It sounded like an exciting opportunity to go to Houston and she would not have been offered such a chance in her own job.

Alison was also keen to have children around that time anyway and she had seen colleagues struggle with their job as solicitors when they became a mum. There were always problems with childminders and deadlines and it all seemed to be rather stressful.

She now had the choice between trying to find the balance amongst having children whilst staying in her job or escaping it all to a whole new world! Four years in Houston would not harm anyone, she could have children and then return to her job in the UK after that time!

Alison would never had thought that the start of the assignment in Houston would send her off to be an expat mum for many years to come!

Houston

As Alison and her husband had never properly lived together before, they had to have two shipments to Houston. One from the UK and one from the Netherlands.

Alison had taken a HUGE exciting step to a new future and quit her job even without ever been to Houston before!! At least, they would finally live together.

The day after they had arrived in Houston, they were shown four houses, from which they chose the first one without making a big deal out of it. Everything seemed so easy being just the two of them!

On the other hand, it was rather hard for Alison to meet new people being just the two of them. The Houston expat scene revolved around the international schools, so without having children, it was a lonely beginning for Alison.

After a while, they got a Golden Retriever to keep Alison company and she found some expat ladies for coffee mornings, whose children already had left their house. It was lovely to talk to other women, as you need the exchange with people in a similar situation as yours, but they were still in a different stage of their life’s than Alison.

As Alison had done that before, she once more volunteered in a school and helped out with Maths and English what brought her joy.

When her first child was born in 2008, she automatically came in touch with a lot of mums and she started to enjoy motherhood with all the experiences that Houston had to offer, e.g. hurricane season or poisoned snakes!

Alison was living a happy life, but she knew that the next change was around the corner. It was the week, when she found out that she was pregnant again, that they found out about their new destination…

Brunei

It certainly was an EXOTIC new destination they had agreed on in 2010 although both Alison and her husband never had been ones of these big world explorers. Still, they both had decided, that Brunei would be a good place for their little family. 

As with Houston, Alison had never been to Brunei before, but this time, having a little child and also being pregnant, she was more anxious as with their last move!!

For the first month they had an apartment which was not in the best condition and even kept hidden hazards for a small child! Therefore, Alison was very relieved when they were able to move into a much nicer house.

Very shortly after arriving in Brunei, Alison had to find out, where it would be best to deliver a baby! She was lucky that English and Malay were joint first languages in Brunei.

She decided she would not opt for the government hospital but for the sultan’s hospital, which was supposed to be better. The only tiny dilemma was, that they were not as experienced in delivering babies!!!!

Speaking of babies, what do you do with your first born if you fancy having your husband at your second baby’s birth when you just moved to a country million miles away from your family???

Well, as it is common to have maids in Brunei, the maids without a job would just knock on people’s doors and offer their labour. Alison of course never had a maid before nor did she know how to hire one, but she knew that she had to go to the hospital for a check-up soon. She finally hired one of the knocking maids for that appointment to see how it would go.

The trial run of looking after her child during that first appointment in Brunei went well and the maid then moved in with them.

As if that wouldn’t have been enough to stress out a highly pregnant woman, there were huge thunderstorms and heavy rains in the week before Alison gave birth to her second child!!

To finish up the unbelievable story about Alison’s first experiences in Brunei as a pregnant woman, it was just as well that she had found help early, as around three weeks later, another routine appointment, where she left her two-year old first born with the maid, took a little bit longer than expected…

…and when she came back home to her first born, she already had given birth to her second child!!!

After this rather crazy first six weeks in Brunei, Alison slowly got used to her new life. 

In contrast to Houston, in Brunei they had more than a proper expat community. Here, they lived on an expat camp in their closed expat world. 

All of the expat children were going to the same school and even food shopping was mostly done in a special international supermarket located just off the camp.

The only needed clothes were summer clothes, but it was not easy to buy „our“ type of clothes in Brunei and Alison was shopping for the whole year when they were on vacation in England once a year.

There were a lot of house parties on the camp, and with most people having childcare, sometimes it felt a bit like being back at university.

Of course, also this time, Alison found herself jobs to keep herself busy. As everything on the camp was run by volunteers, it got rather easy to feel useful. She was helping out in the school again and she was on the committee of the camp dance school.

Nevertheless, when after three and a half years the opportunity appeared to go back to Houston, Alison was rather happy to move on!

Houston AGAIN

This second start in Houston in 2013 was a lot easier. This time they knew exactly where they wanted to live and what Houston had to offer. At least this time Alison had been to her “new destination” before!

Although they moved to the same community, some of their friends there had moved on, but so had Alison. As this time she had children which were in school already, she easily got in contact with the other mums.

Again, she volunteered at a school, but also helped out in the Houston food bank.

She very much enjoyed having daily morning dog walks with the other expat mums after dropping off the children to the bus. There, they could exchange sorrows, laughs and issues, what is so important when you are so far away from friends and family.

Time flew by quiet easily and soon it was 2016 and for the first time Alison was hoping that her husband would not get the job in the even more adventurous country they had agreed on beforehand. Bolivia.  Her hopes were heard and her husband did not get that job.

When his next application was approved, Alison was super excited, as Norway was her DREAM DESTINATION!!

Norway 

As Alison moved so many times already and she really was looking forward to Norway, she didn’t feel anxious this time.

Unfortunately, she still went through some kind of culture shock, as she did not speak Norwegian at all! Of course, most of the people around Stavanger will speak English to you if you ask them nicely, but until now, all her destinations had English as a first language!

It took some time, but with the first friends came the feeling of settling down. Institutions like the PWC (People Who Connect) definitely helped her, as there loads of expats get together and do several activities together.

Of course, Alison could not be without any jobs to do, and so she volunteered in our children’s school and shared the responsibility for the second-hand uniform shop with me.

Alison loves to live in Stavanger and enjoys her time here very much!

Summing up…

So, when I rushed to meet up with her, she was nearly leaving for Kuala Lumpur or maybe London. She then told me, that plans had changed, they will stay in Stavanger until December!

It seems, that in December they will go back “home“ to the UK, but until then it’s a lot of months and everything can change 180 degrees again!

Although Alison does miss her job sometimes, she loves being an expat and would have made the same decisions again. She is convinced that the expat life gives her a safer and more content life, than they would have had if her and her husband would still work in London and commute half of the time!

Alison seems to be a MASTER of finding herself jobs in the community as well as finding other expats in organizations like the PWC in Stavanger to enjoy herself in her free time. She seems to have found the perfect BALANCE between not mourn after her job, being there for her children and in the same time feeling content and needed through several tasks she takes on at every one of these assignments.

Some might think, that it is a lot of pressure for the children to move every three to four years, but Alison’s children are happy with how their life is! Maybe it also comes down to their mum being around whenever they would need her. On the other side, Alison enjoys being around her children when they come back home from school. Something, that in her “old life” would not have been possible.

Her children also seem to be very open to new situations and are getting along with everything new or different rather easily. That will definitely be useful in their further life’s.

If they will return to the UK in December, Alison will have to retrain after such a long break in her job. She definitely would want to have some kind of job, but actually she is not even sure if she wants to return to her profession.

Alison’s dream would be, to end up living in the UK close to some of her expat friends. Of course, she still has some old friendships in the UK, but a lot of these crumbled off, as everyone is continuing with their own lives and she and her family often do not fit in anymore.

Alison is sure, that repatriation in your home country is the hardest bit of the whole expat process, but still, she would always do it again and never change a thing!!

A few facts

Tanya is a mum of four boys who spent her childhood and youth near Lviv in the Ukraine. She studied economics in Lviv and co-founded a company for car components where she worked in logistics.

Tanya moved countries twice so far and hopes to spend another summer in Stavanger.

I have heard about Tanya even before I knew who she was or how she looked like! It turned out that we had a common German friend who, about two years ago, was spending some time in Stavanger for work. When I met up with that common friend, she told me that her friend’s children just joined the same school as my boys and if I knew her.

I very soon found out who Tanya was and a close friendship arose. We not only share a mutual background in Germany but also in Eastern Europe, so we got along very quickly.

Tanya’s first “new life”

Tanya was basically living an expat life, depending on how you define it, even before she heard of that terminology. As she spent the first half of her life in the Ukraine, she finally left her job in her home country to follow her then still boyfriend, to Germany in 2009. 

He, being from the Ukraine as well, had been working in Germany for quite some time by then, but she had also already been in touch with her new home country. Whilst studying at university, she decided for a one-year break to be an au pair in Germany to deepen her school German language skills.

When she joined her boyfriend in 2009 to start a new life in Bremen, at least she knew the language and was dreaming of finding a job in Bremen as well.

At first, she was living from savings and was trying to get used to her new life, but she was also planning for their wedding to happen in the Ukraine very soon. Then, as life has it, they had to relocate to another city in Germany, so she was planning for the move. 

When they arrived as newlyweds in a tiny city called Emlichheim, she was already pregnant with their first son and soon Tanya started motherhood. She really enjoyed having a baby, so they didn’t wait long to have another child, and not much later their second son was born. 

It turned out that having two little children at once was rather tough with no family around so Tanya postponed her plans to work and fully concentrated on her family.

When both boys started nursery, Tanya was ready to work again, but the nursery was only open from 8-12 and without a job to go back to, it was rather impossible to find a part-time employment.

Since they had two lovely boys already, Tanya was still dreaming of a girl…and so in 2015 they had…yet another boy!!!

With the two older ones perfectly settled in nursery, Tanya enjoyed her days with her new baby at home. She always loved being a full-time mum and taking care of her children. Trying out new recipes for some lovely lunches or baking yummy treats, that was her thing!

With the arrival of her next son in 2017, Tanya gave up on dreaming about a daughter and announced her family to be complete with a total of four boys!!! (very brave mummy!)

Ready for a second “new life”

Before Tanya was able to properly get used to being a mum of four children, her husband came home with a proposal to leave everything behind again and move to Norway!!

They were all happy and settled in Emlichheim, with a lovely house and a great neighbourhood. The two older boys already being in school, the younger one in nursery and the youngest one at home, they had a perfect life!

But as everyone around her was always talking so positive about Norway, and her husband was keen for a while now on going abroad anyway, Stavanger as a destination seemed to be a good offer and Tanya being adventurous enough quickly agreed!

Not without keeping in mind a million of uprising problems though, e.g. to convince the older boys that changing school to an English one (without speaking a word of English) would be “fun”, that it might be tricky to move with a little baby, that it wasn’t problematic at all to ORGANIZE a move to another country with a baby, that it wasn’t a problem that she already had learned another language (German) and had to get going on English now….!!!

In January 2018, Tanya’s husband left for Stavanger, leaving her behind in Emlichheim with four children and the daily organization of school runs and afternoon clubs, so that the older ones could at least finish the school year…If it hadn’t been for the help of au pairs, Tanya would have struggled a lot! 

Living a great life (most of the time)

In summer 2018, Tanya and the boys followed her husband to a life in Stavanger. 

Since then, a lot has changed in their lives! Coming from tiny Emlichheim, Stavanger felt very big in the beginning, but also offered more possibilities for the whole family!

After all 4 children had settled in the new school, nursery and new environment (you have to keep in mind that it’s not only hard for grown-ups to leave behind what you know with all the friendships and security), after Tanya got used to the fact that she is not always able to reply to nursery teachers as she wants to (simply because her language skills do not allow), for the first time since having children, Tanya started to really enjoy herself!

She loves the expat life and is very happy that her husband earns enough so that she does not have to work and is able to explore Stavanger and surroundings whilst the children are in school. She is happy about the possibility to get to know another country with its culture, but also about the possibility, as an expat in Stavanger, to get to know so many more cultures and their people!

Tanya joined lessons to improve her English, she also very much enjoys her hiking group and loves the nature surrounding us here in Stavanger. We go for runs along the fjord together and she appreciates the open swimming pools although it barely gets warm around here.

More recently, Tanya started to learn Norwegian too and sometimes I wonder when she sleeps because of course the children come back from school every day and need to be fed and get to their after school activities and play dates, but she has all of it perfectly under control too!

She is also happy and thankful that her children are in an international school learning in a different way to what they were used to and that they are getting open minded and open to the world.

Of course, Tanya’s thoughts sometimes circle around the question about her future and how it will continue workwise for her at some point. But for now, she is living the moment and enjoys it as long as it lasts!

The diverse community with expats from all over the world and all of their stories also gives Tanya a lot of insight for her own life what on the other side makes it tricky sometimes to get along with old friends who do not always understand her new view on life. Nevertheless she is very happy about that experience which she will keep in her heart forever, when they move back to Germany in probably about a year’s time.

Tanya is such a positive mummy, always seeing the bright side of things and always keen to keep the negative side small without allowing it to grow. She barely ever moans or complains and is simply happy about the possibilities life has given her.

Some facts…

Chiara is a mum of two children and she is an Interpreter and Translator for German and English. She is from a little village in Italy and she moved countries twice so far.

At the moment, Chiara waits for her husband’s work decision, to know where they will send them next in summer.

When I met Chiara, she was pregnant. We knew each other, but we were not close. About a year ago we got closer and I made her join me in teaching the religious education class in church.

The journey begins

As a lot of expat stories do, in the beginning Chiara’s life looked a bit different from how it turned out to be.

Chiara’s boyfriend at that time was working in Milan and felt that he needed a change. He asked his company if there was a possibility to go abroad and when they found a vacancy for him in Singapore, Chiara was anxious but curious enough to take a 3-week holiday of her job to see how life in Singapore would be like.

Before Chiara was able to go on that holiday though, everything changed and her boyfriend was sent to London for a year.

A year, they thought, would pass by quickly, so they tested themselves in a long-distance-relationship and Chiara started to like her weekend trips in and out of London.

Of course, that one year was extended to two years and Chiara decided to take a sabbatical year from work to follow her boyfriend to the UK.

As Chiara enjoyed her time in London more and more, in the end, with another extension of her husband’s contract (in the meantime they took a holiday to get married back in Italy), she quit her job to fully commit to a life in London without even noticing what happened to her!

Since the beginning Chiara was keen to find a job herself, and as she was young and open minded, she did not think this could be a problem! As it turned out, it was rather challenging, so she started to work on her English skills until she was lucky and found a job in a small company. Nine months later, the company was closing down, so Chiara was once again challenged to find some work to feel the same satisfaction her husband was feeling too!

She then found a good job in a finance department which she really enjoyed! 13 months later though, Chiara got pregnant, but as the department was due to move, it was actually all timed perfectly. Until now she is grateful that she gained that experience in that company!

The next adventure!

After spending 4 years in London, when Chiara’s first child was 13 months old, her husband was asked to move to Norway. 

Chiara never thought of Norway before, so she was a bit worried in the beginning. However, after her husband went to visit Stavanger, he was able to convince her, that it will be a lovely new place for them. After all, they would just stay for a year, maybe two…

One would say, another country, another adventure! Yet new beginnings are never easy, as you have to start all over again.

Getting settled in a new flat or house, getting used to a whole new environment and learning about a new culture and country can be quite challenging until you start to find new friends. Only then you start to feel more relaxed again.

As Stavanger gets loads of cruise ships in, especially during summer, Chiara decided to take a course as a tour guide. Here, her knowledge of Italian came in handy as she started to do tours for Italians whenever she could fit them in with the baby still being at home!

Of course their time in Stavanger got extended and so Chiara, always being full of energy, founded the group “Summer mums of Stavanger” in 2014 to prevent herself from sitting at home alone all day with the little one! She met up with international mums nearly on a daily basis for several activities with children in and around of Stavanger. With that initiative she even made it into the Stavanger Aftenblad!

Chiara gave birth to her second child in 2018, which soon made her take over a baby group for international mums!

Saying goodbye again

In summer 2020 Chiara will finally leave Stavanger after living here for 7 years!

After 7 years you do not really feel like an expat anymore, you think you belong here! So she will leave with one sad and one happy eye. Sad, because it feels like home after so much time, sad because you always leave friends behind! Happy though, because Chiara loves to be an expat and is excited to find out where she is moving to next!

Although Chiara admits that the beginnings are tough and this time her new beginning will be not only with one child but two, she really wants to travel around a bit more. At some point she would like to settle down, but until then she would love to meet some more people from different countries and learn about their cultures.

If Chiara had to sum up her experience as an expat, she would say that she got to know a lot of people from a lot of different countries, and although we all have different backgrounds, in her opinion, in the end, we are all the same!

If I had to sum Chiara up, I would have to say that she is a wonderful person! She is helpful to everyone, welcomes every newcomer with an open heart and always tries to remain positive and calm! It will be sad to see her leaving as sometimes it seems that she is the glue to a lot of us expat mums!