Big Nordic Announcement

Before I met Hubby, the closest I had ever come to moving was my trek to and from Halifax, Nova Scotia for university every year. Hubby, on the other hand, was a Navy Brat, and moved around quite a bit until he started high school. When we married he promised me we would not move around a lot. In fact, he even put a number on it: five. His promise that we would move no more than five times never came with consequences should that number be exceeded. That, it turns out, was a mistake on my part.

As the calendar turns from 2009 to 2010, Hubby and I will be moving from our desert home in Cairo, Egypt to the rather chilly climes of Oslo, Norway. Hubby has elected to leave his contractual post here at the Institution for a permanent position at The Company where he will be a researcher. His job here gave him a phenomenal love of teaching but various circumstances beyond his control have led us to once again to pack our things and leave behind the wonderful colleagues and friends we have made here.

One of our biggest problems in Cairo has been the air quality. We had been warned that Cairo was one of the most polluted cities in the world before we arrived but didn’t think much of it. After all, we thrived in Delhi – a city with an equally bad reputation for unbreathable air. Sadly, the air here has drastically affected me. When I cough, I sound like a crack addict with a six-pack a day cigarette habit and I don’t smoke. A local gentleman with TB, whom we called Coughing Guy, once heard me and told me to go see a doctor. It’s that bad.

Hubby has also had some work related problems including a commute that takes eight hours out of his life every week. Due to the state of traffic in Cairo, these are not even hours he can use to read or work. These eight hours are time he could be using to research, work with his students, or, you know, spend with me.

This decision was not easy for us as Hubby truly intended to stay here in Cairo and settle down into what has been a fairly comfortable life for the most part. The confluence of events that led to our mutual agreement is not easily explained in one post. Hubby and I have visited Oslo several times now and even met some wonderful people. We are looking forward to the challenges of living in the developed world for a change and are excited about the possibilities and challenges this new move has in store.

I will definitely be posting more about this more in the weeks to come. Feel free to ask questions in the comments and I will try to address as many of them as possible in a future post. Rest assured that this one time Delhi Typ0, Nairobi Typ0, and Cairo Typ0 will still be blogging from Oslo. After all, what would a blog about Wandering the World be without a new horizon to explore?