Anyone in Norway

[Pepa]

My husband and I are considering a move to Norway and I wanted to get some honest opinions about life there.

We live in Canada but are originally from the UK. We really want to get back to Europe and DH has lots of job opportunities in Norway.

We have 3 DC's aged 6,4 and 2 and were thinking about enrolling them in ano English language school.

We have friends in the south and they recommended Kristensand as a good location.....all our friends are Norwegian so I would be really interested to hear from folks who hve had the immigrant experience.

Its a big decision but I have the feeling we will regret it if we don't jump :)

I'm in Norway (but not in the south, rural central norway about an hour and a half from trondheim)
I also have three DCs 6,4 and 2 but they were all born here and their dad (DH) is norwegian.

Personally, I think its a great place to have kids :-), good affordable childcare, good parental leave, an open and fairly safe society and employers and society in general are relatively understanding of the needs of young families.

That being said it is not neccessarily the easiest country to settle in. The cost of living (excluding childcare) is high, the availability of 'foreign' goods is not great and you get levied a fairly hefty charge if you buy anything costing over about twenty pounds from outside Norway. Many people also feel that it is hard to become a real member of the community, with people often socialising predominantly with the friends they went to school with. That has not entirely been my experience but there is a certain degree of truth in it.

I think it can vary depending on location, but if you really want to be part of the norwegian rather than the ex pat community then being able to speak/learning norwegian is going to be a very big plus.

My kids are all in the norwegian kindergarten/school system so my only experience of international schools is through friends, and those are schools in trondheim rather than the south so i can't say too much about that. They do seem to be more part of an ex pat community rather than a norwegian community but I have no idea how much that has to do with schooling and how much to do with personal preference.

let me know if I can answer any more specific questions :-)

Thanks VikingLights. Thats exactly the kind of information I needed. Sometimes those people born in a country don't have the same experience as immigrants.

How difficult did you find learning Norwegian? I'd would like the children to integrate into Norwegian life but also to maintian their English skills in case we came back to Canada or went onto the UK....can I ask how comprehensive you have found the english curriculum in Norwegian language schools?

By the way, sorry for the delayed response - I've just come back from holiday. Planning our escape is now top of mind!!!