Visiting writer: Happy foreigner in Geilo

Geilo is a centre in the municipality of Hol in Norway, in the valley of Hallingdal, with around 2,300 inhabitants. The Bergen Line facilitated Geilo's development as the first skiing resort in the country, and it is still one of the largest. It is also famous for having some of the most luxurious and expensive holiday cabins in Norway (Wikipedia).  That was everything I knew about Geilo before I moved here with my girlfriend ten months ago. I work as massage therapist in a spa at Vestlia resort.  Some clients ask me why Norway and why Geilo. There is no simple answer for that.  Actually I didn´t even apply for Vestlia myself. It was a coincidence that we are here. We both applied for several different places including Trysil. Miia was traveling to Trysil for a job interview as ski instructor and I had a massage therapist job interview.  Miia left to Norway two days earlier than me. Miia had a job interview at phone for ski instructor positon in Geilo. Miia got the job and through Miias new boss I got phone number for the owner of the spa at Vestlia. I called to Tone and now I had two job interviews at the same trip. We drove together to Trysil and I continued alone to Geilo. When I got here, I just knew that this is going to be our first home here in Norway. And so it is. Before Miia moved here she hasn´t never been in Geilo.

This is my first time living outside Finland. I still can´t speak Norwegian, I do understand some. My English was also really bad before moving here, and it still is quite, well not so fluent. It´s something that we call in Finland as rally English. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af5uVexJ7U0. Moving here was a little bit scary partly because of my bad language skills.  I still knew that we will survive. I haven´t had any bigger problems at work or anywhere else. Miia speaks some Norwegian. One time she bought a local newspaper from Rema 1000 along some groceries. Cashier looked at the paper then me and asked, are you going to read this? An honest question. In English of course. I had to say that it´s for Miia.

We have enjoyed our stay in Norway. We do lot of things we love. We have done lots of skiing, biking, tent trips, life outside is life well lived. We don’t have many things to be stressed from. We have our bikes, skis and each others. What else we could need? We have met a lot nice people here and we both have nice friends to work with. That have made our stay here easy. One thing is quite funny though. Most of the people we know have moved here from other countries. Like my Viking friend Nina from Germany.

I know that my parents weren’t too happy about my move to a foreign county. It really meant a world to me when they visited us and said that now we understand why you are living here. I believe that they are truly happy for us.

- Antti Ollila