About Me

Hi, my name is Jon O'Connell and welcome to my Norway site. I lived in Norway for about a year and a half in the early 2000s, which was one of the hardest but best experiences of my life so far.

So how did I come to live in Norway in the first place? Well, I was working for IBM UK Ltd at the time in Portsmouth and whilst there I met a Norwegian girl. She had transferred from IBM Norway over to the UK for a work experience period and joined my department. We got together and lived in the UK for a few years, then decided to move back to Norway together.

Sadly the relationship did not last and after a year and a half living in Norway we broke up and I had to move back to the UK and start again. One of the main reasons for us breaking up was because of the differences between the UK and Norway and how I was not prepared for the transition. Looking back there were things I could have done differently and if so I may still have been living there now, but it was not meant to be.

However, I made a lot of good friends in Norway whilst over there and still have regular contact with many of them even though I am now a thousand miles away. I regularly travel to Norway and see it as my second home. A friend of mine even decided to drive from Norway to the UK to see me, but not via the ferry to Newcastle, instead he drove through Europe and went via the channel tunnel!! (mad!).

So I decided to produce this site, in order to inform you of what I experienced, what to prepare and look out for so that you might have a better transition should you be thinking of moving to Norway.

I found living in Norway very tough at times, but also extremely amazing and is an experience I would not swap for the world. I am glad I had the courage to give it a go and even though it didn't end the way I had imagined, I would have regretted it if I hadn't tried.

I love Norway, the Norwegian people and their way of life and if I was given the chance to go back and live in Norway I would not hesitate to do so.

I still have much more of Norway to see and do, such as to experience the midnight sun in the North, the aurora borealis, the fjords of the west, snowboarding, to name but a few, so I regularly travel to Norway (when I am able) to experience something new.