Expat Experiences: Norway - Angela Davenport

Who are you?

My name is Angela.

Where, when and why did you move abroad?

Myself and my partner moved to Kirkenes in North Norway in February 2009. It was a job offer with his company that brought us here. Before accepting the position, we did as much research on the area as possible and the only thing that was putting me off was the temperature, which can plummet to around -35 centigrade, or worse, in the winter. Having said that, I am not a lover of hot places, I do prefer the cold.

What challenges did you face during the move?

Our biggest challenges for moving abroad were really from the UK side of things. We had pets that we wanted to bring and found that there was so much confusion over laws, that by the time we had any kind of answers from the UK side we had no time left to arrange what we needed to, so we had to re-home our cats. This was a painful experience and would not have been necessary if any UK vet had have known what the correct procedure was for moving a pet to Norway.

Attempting to arrange for all services to be terminated in the UK was a nightmare. You’d be amazed at how difficult it is for people to understand that you are going to live abroad, therefore will no longer require a phone line or satellite TV etc. You’ll often be penalized if you’re within a contract. You might also find that most of them don’t really believe you’re moving away! The worst offender for lack of intelligence, believe it or not, was the UK police! We had a speeding ticket 2 weeks before moving, it actually took over 3 months to resolve! They even sent us a letter thanking us for visiting the UK and hoped we enjoyed our time there! They couldn’t understand we were UK citizens and just moved abroad...

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