Norway - First impressions

After almost one month in Skien / Norway, I'm right now sitting on my desk and thinking, "and now what"?

It seems that I will live here for as long as possible, maybe permanently so I need to plan my life here.

I know it's great to live in Europe, we can travel sometimes, but what to do between one travel and another? The problem is that it isn't that easy to just go out after the work or go to pubs in the weekends these days of the year because it is becoming colder and colder and I don't know if it is just me or is stay home the best option here? At least I have the first thing to do while living here:

-Travel sometimes.

I can completely understand why a very comfortable house is a must here, because if you are suppose to spent most of your time at home, nothing better than have a very comfortable house, I mean big TV couch, nice sound and that kind of stuff. In Brazil people spend money more in shows/parties because it's easy to go out, here we need to think if we really, really want to go out, specially if it is < 3o degrees outside. I've tasted some Norwegian beer and it's just not that good, but going to pubs is always one option:

-Visit Pubs.

I know things will change near the summer, but what to do before? I think now I'm starting to understand why social networks are important to just socialize, as in Brazil I thought social networks was suppose to be used more as a biz tool, because it was easier just go somewhere else at night and drink beer if you would like to socialize, and it was really strange for me to see people using social networks just 'to socialize'. So, here's the first thing to do:

-Use facebook.

Another thing I'm thinking about is to learn Norwegian. English is a very known language here, but sometimes I feel bad when people start to talk with me in Norwegian and I need to wait the person stop to talk just to say that I don't know Norwegian, so the person needs to say everything again in English. And learning Norwegian is a must to participate in most of conversations. But I will officially start my norsk lessons in January, anyway, here's another item of the list:

-Learn Norwegian.

Lately I'm feeling very like ungrateful to ez community as long I'm here most because of my contributions to the community in the past 12 months or so, so I think I need to be an active member of the ez community again, so I will be learning even more at the same time, which is the next item of my list:

-Contribute to eZ community and eZ publish.

As long as I will be at home and I have a very nice broadband compared to the one I had in Brazil now I'm able to watch some TV series and movies. I will need help choosing here, so I accept suggestions.

-Watch series and movies.

Living in a city with the name Skien (speaks Scheen) and with a very cold winter, full of snow, naturally I would like to:

-Ski.

Hell! i would like to do some exercises, not that much, but this is the thing I think is the most complicated here, there may be just one option, go right from the work to the nearest gym and do it fast, because if I get back to home I just doesn't want to go outside, I prefer stay home because it's warm :) . So here's the next item, but not this month.

-Gym

Play games? Maybe, I just need to find a good game:

-Play

Last, and maybe the most important, learn to cook, I mean, really learn to cook, because eating everyday outside home isn't that cheap and eating not healthy food is not a smart thing to do. By the way, eating outside home isn't a cheap neither a good option, it will not take that much of time to me start cooking better food than the one we find outside home here. I was used with Brazilians restaurants, so I expect a good dinner if I pay a reasonable price for it, it is not true that Norwegian food is terrible, but it is not true that it is the best culinary of the world, so cooking at home is a good option. And this is another item:

-Master the millenarian cook art.

I would like to learn to play guitar but I forgot mine in home, so... no guitar lessons.
Most of this things listed I could do in Brazil, so why stay in Norway? Simple:

-Salary: much better than Brazil, and yes, I can have a much better living standard here even with the prices being higher.

-Work conditions: Not as stressful as Brazil, less hours and nice people.

-Work environment: this is the big point, as long I'm an eZ publish developer, live in Europe is the best place to live, most of eZ publish biz is here, and most of the professionals too. It's very nice to work with people that knows the same, or even more than you about a certain topic, and here I have this. In Brazil I was the only developer at the company with enough skills in eZ publish, now here I'm working with some of the most qualified professionals, and in living in the city where eZ was born. So it is a good environment to learn, and by learn I mean really, really learn a lot of things.

-Security: you won't be killed by traffic accidents (35k deaths/year) or homicides (40k deaths/year) here  as easy as in Brazil, and it's a good point, believe me, traffic accidents is becoming a real problem in Brazil. And neither you would be stolen from from easily here too. I need to say I locked my bike outside home and forget the key in the lock, for my surprise the bike wasn't stolen in the other day when I checked, in Brazil it would be a completely different story, when I was young I was just shop by five minutes and I got my bike stolen.

-Religion: I can say to anyone that I'm atheist and the interesting is that most of the Norwegians I know officially has a religion but describes themselves as agnostics or atheists, it is a really really good thing to live in a place we have freedom to think and talk about our beliefs or lack of them, in Brazil we need to hide that we are atheist, in fact, it's better to say you are a drug addicted or even a criminal than an atheist, buy a Richard Dawkins book is a bad experience. People would say I'm lying and Brazil is a tolerant country, but it isn't, even if people say they don't care about atheism, they won't hire an atheist, or worst, they won't hire someone related to an atheist, so your family have social risks if you say you are atheist.

-Location: as human being I think it's good to live in Europe because you can easily travel and learn about new cultures easier, and it's not that expensive. It's also an opportunity to learn a new language or just practice English, and it's a point in itself:

-English: Yeah, it's nice to improve your English skills. Most of the best programming communities and content of the world are in English, so it is nice to traini the English skills, and to improve your reputation world wide it is a must, and living in Brazil is very hard to improve it because we really don't need to. Most of movies are translated, most of the books too, and as long everyone speaks Portuguese... In Norway we can talk with most of people in English, so, it helps to improve and helps when you want to learn. By the way Norwegian English isn't that difficult to understand, I think it's easier than American, maybe because it isn't the native language, maybe because they talks more like Britain English.

The conclusion is, Norway has pros and cons, but it is way better, at least for me, to live than Brazil, specially because eZ publish is my profession and I love it ;)