Goodbye Prague, hello Liverpool!

Yesterday, I moved from Prague to Liverpool, where I'm going to live from now on. I had nine great months in Prague. I got to know of of the pretties cities in Europe, and I met a lot of nice people from all over the world, most of them through work. I am going to miss a lot of the people, and I am going to miss that great city.

Life as an expat brings loads of joys that you do not get at home. But there are also things that I have missed while staying here. I don't know if those things will be easier to get the hold of here in the UK, but I'll list them up:

1. Norwegian television. It's not that I really watch a lot of television, but I have missed it a bit. Mainly, I miss the two channels NRK and NRK2. It is possible to watch some programs on their websites, but that's not quite the same. And there is one website called zattoo.com on which it is possible to watch those channels live. Sadly, zattoo isn't avaiblable in the Czech Republic. Hopefully it will work in the UK.

2. Some Norwegian foodstuffs; liver paté, Bamsemums, Mill's Caviar-mix, and brown cheese. Those are things that Norwegians will have a hard time living without. And whenever some Norwegian expats get visitors from home, you can be sure that at least two of those items will be brought over. However hard it has been, I have surpisingly enough managed to live without these particular types of food for several months in a row. Granted, my parents brought Bamsemums, brown cheese and some caviar when they visited for Christmas, but still.. One other thing I've really missed is coarse bread. Real Norwegian bread. That is hard to get here; I found it once, but the next time I went to that shop to get it again, they didn't have it anymore..

3. Norwegian Easter. I didn't go home for Easter this year, so I kind of missed that a lot. Going skiing, driving the snowmobile, icefishing.. I missed having the oranges and the "Kvikklunch", a particular kind of chocolate bar we always eat for Easter while out on trips.

Coming to Liverpool, there are some things that I really look forward to. For one, it will be totally great to live someplace where I actually understand everything that is being said. Living in Prague, I worked in an international company where the working language was English, and whenever that was not spoken, Norwegian was. But outside of work, Czech was the language. I did not learn much Czech, mainly due to my own laziness, and thus I had a hard time communicating with people who didn't speak English. Living in the UK, it is going to be a relief to actually to be able to understand and communicate with everybody.

Another thing is that I think Brits and Norwegians are closer to each other, culturally, than Norwegians and Czechs. While living in a country that is further away culturally can be really interesting - and it has been - I think that I am going to feel more like home, somehow, here than in Prague.