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Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Happy Up Here


It’s that time again. The party’s over and we are all trudging back to work after our summer holidays. The kids are resigned to it, the parents look quietly relieved and reasonably rested, and me? Well let’s just say as my first summer in Norway comes to an end, I can’t say I am ready for the finale.

Summer vacation in Stavanger really has borne little resemblance to summer vacation in Canada, with the exception that Norwegians, like Canadians, prefer to do most things outside during the summer months. This is manifested in our intense need to eat every single meal on a patio, balcony or in some sort of garden. Basically, you will find us anywhere we can drink while wearing sunglasses and pitying those who are NOT on a patio. Poor suckers.  Of course, my tolerance for sitting outside is drastically reduced when you throw in a temperature of 12 degrees, an Ikea polar blanket and electric heaters. But the sunglasses and the pity are the main criteria for enjoyment. Oh, and the beer.

So it was in this spirit of summer that I decided to take a last minute trip back to my homeland. In early August, I spent a week in Toronto visiting friends and family, dedicated to hitting every patio within city limits. I should mention here that a week back home usually does little for my attitude as an expat, and never has. I generally come back homesick with visions of a cheap, carefree lifestyle of nightly get-togethers and restaurant dinners dancing in my head. Consciously, I know it is ridiculous to make comparisons but realistically, I like buying lots of cheap stuff and being able to afford to go out to a different part of the city ever night with a never ending round of friends and family who are ridiculously excited to see me. Things weren’t exactly like that when I lived in Toronto. Especially the bit about being able to afford stuff.

As I arrived back in Stavanger, it was clear that the aforementioned bad attitude was firmly in place. For the first time since I arrived in Norway over 9 months ago, I started to question whether I really was happy up here.

I rolled back into work, brain and body still in a big city state of mind. Everything in Stavanger was exactly as I had left it a few weeks before. Same buildings, same weather, same old same old. I walked back and forth to work with tunnel vision. Nothing new to see here. The bright lights and big city of Toronto had left me totally tuned out.

It took 4 days for me to see it. A great big banner in the center of town, that in my zombie state, I had been too blind to see.


The event; a festival in Stavanger sentrum in one week’s time, and the headliners, a Norwegian band I, and a good number of my friends in Toronto, would be thrilled to see. Should I mention the fact that they were playing for free? I can only pray my 36% income tax contribution is going towards some more of this.

 When I stopped jumping up and down and squealing like a pre-pubescent Belieber, I had to recognize that maybe at the end of the day, life here is not about the non-stop excitement of the big city kind. For all this city has to offer, it will never be London, Houston or Toronto. Up here it’s more about the enjoyment of the everyday, punctuated by moments of unexpected delight. The party of summer may be over, but something tells me that in this town, those perfect moments of summer happiness will never be too far away.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

Four O'Clock, Norway Time


So a month ago, I took the plunge. I went out and got myself a job. I know, I know. The last time we spoke I was visa-less in Stavanger, waiting for the gods of Norwegian immigration to smile upon me and offer me sanctuary in this eye-wateringly expensive, slightly soggy, albeit perfectly formed little town. Well, I am pleased to announce that I recently became the proud owner of one extremely attractive residence permit which has allowed me the dubious pleasure of employment. And as hard as it may be to believe, I couldn’t wait to get back to work.

Now if I believed the expat whispers around me, I was about to hit the coziest, cushiest, most laid back work environment outside a vegan pet yoga spa in rural California.  My day would begin at eight and end at four, there were five weeks of holiday on offer, and the entrenched Norwegian belief that “alle er likverdige” (everyone is equal) meant that we were all going to be one big happy work family. Norwegians, I was told, do not really socialize too much with their fellow co-workers, but instead prefer to come in, get the job done in the eight hours allotted for that stuff, and head home to their families. Great, I thought. I will be there at eight every morning, work my hours and disco on out of there at four-thirty or five at the latest. OK, five if I don’t take a lunch and five- thirty if I happen to get distracted on Facebook at lunchtime. Six at the absolute latest. Sweet.

It all sounded so easy to adapt to, this eight to four lifestyle. But there is something entrenched in the Canadian psyche that tells me that eight hours is not enough. Canadians count every millisecond they are at work. We wear it like a badge of honour if we spend more than eight hours there a day, bragging to our friends about the time we slept under our desk or worked a twenty hour shift on heavy machinery without losing an appendage. If we spend less than eight hours at work, we are the masterminds of the most elaborate scam since Oceans 11  (“At ten to five, while my boss was reading over the month end stats, I , like, did this baseball slide, right under her desk and straight into the elevator, it was awesome, man. She didn’t see a thing”). Work hours are counted on a daily, weekly and monthly mental abacus, added and subtracted constantly to account for our presence or absence, and justify the funds bestowed upon us each month. Sick days and holidays are unequivocally viewed as a sort of weakness, something you are forced to take when the guy who sits across from you really cannot stand to look at your sad mug for another day.

So what happens when a clock watcher is plopped down into this land where no one seems to be watching?

Not a lot. Until the clock strikes four.

This is the moment when everything changes. Home time. The Norwegians, looking calm, cool and collected, are capable of getting out the door in a flash. Me? I can feel the tension mounting as I see them packing up. I know it’s time to go, but there is reticence, trepidation, and yes, even a little bit of guilt in my demeanor. Four o’ clock is not my leaving time. I wasn’t brought up on it, and it feels all wrong. It’s like being in a new time zone, like my body can’t quite adapt to the rhythm and routine of daily life in this new part of the world.

I can easily spot those expats who have adjusted to the Norwegian time zone and those who haven’t. Those of us who have learned that the day comes to an end at four regardless of how late you COULD stay to pour over another spread sheet, breeze easily out of the office, while those who are still living in their own native time zone stand around, awkwardly packing and repacking their bag while they mutter excuses.

“I have to go pick up the twins at barnehage (daycare),” a fellow expat once sheepishly announced to our office, directing his gaze at the boss. “I came in a little late this morning so I owe you about twenty-seven minutes.” His Norwegian boss looked at him and raised one eyebrow. “O-kaaaaaaaay,” he said quietly, obviously wondering why in God’s name anyone would count their work hours by the minute.

And he’s got me wondering, too.

I wonder if there there a way to let all of this incessant hour counting go. I wonder if my mental calculator will ever stop, and repeal the time constraints it has lived by for so long. I wonder if four really will eventually become the new five-thirty. But mostly I wonder if I will ever be able to change this habit in the way that I change time zones: have a coffee, adjust my watch and sit back and wait for my jet-lagged body to finally adapt to the fact that things are not the same.