Spanish Emigrating to Norway

I was born in Barcelona. If I think of the big percentage, 50% of my life I lived there, 25% in the US and another 25% here in Norway. I had also lived other places also, with an average of moving around 18 times.

Of all those times, some took more time to plan, some less, but either way, there were led by one thing:

Planing. Without planing I would not had made it and succeed.

Last time I got together with my friends, all spanish speaking girls, a discussion was brought to the table. Some days ago an article in the local newspaper told the story of Jesus, a man that made some money out of collecting bottles on the streets of Bergen. Right after that, the paper told the story of a family that run out of Spain and was living in Bergen basically in poverty.

I must admit I feel a bit embarrassed and very sad at the same time to read these and another stories. Nobody takes pride by admitting that things are bad, no, really bad right now in Spain. Not only we are -we all are- in the middle of a global financial crisis, but it is my opinion that our last government has fucked things up so badly that things cant get worst -or at least, I hope so.

I moved to Norway on a time that I couldn’t really pin point where the damn country on a map. I came, of course,  because my fiancee was Norwegian. I got a job right away in an Ad agency, got married, got pregnant, got a baby, lost my job when the agency went bankrupt, got pregnant again, got a baby and get divorced. There were so many times I wanted to go home, when home was sometimes NY, and sometimes Barcelona. And all those times I thought, and I planned, and I considered my chances, and I thought again -what was best for my and my children.

Needless to say, I wouldn’t move back at all, to nether NY or Barcelona.

Moving to another country, to another culture, to leave your family, your friends, your life behind is far from easy, and specifically here, in Norway. When you make it, everything settles, but until you make it, the road is way difficult. All the girls agreed on that.

What it comes to bother me with all this, is the attitude some Spanish immigrants have: you cannot move to another country -Norway in this case, without speaking the language, or at least, without a good level of English (excuse me, this “intermediate” English some have is bullshit), without having a proper knowledge of the customs, culture, politics and society. As far as we know, you don’t get automatically a job the minute you cross the Norwegian border. Some wrongly think that  because things are ok here, things are ok to obtain. You know? Far from it…

Olga has written a very interesting and realistic post about what it is to move and to live in Norway. Maybe there you can start your planing.

Good luck!