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It must be said that growing up in London Suburbia I never thought I’d end up living in Oslo.

Firstly like most Brits in my younger years I regularly confused Stockholm, Oslo, Sweden, Norway, etc. blending them into the amalgamated land of Scandinavia, hearing just of the rumours of gorgeous girls and drunken moose roaming the streets. WHAT A COMBO!

It all sounded idyllic, but so detached from mainland Europe (in my mindset) that I seemed to file it away into the “why would i ever go there” section.

How foolish and wrong of me. Having now (at time of writing 2013) lived in Oslo for one year I continue to be amazed on a daily basis by the lifestyle, nature, beauty and oddities (including men actually named Odd!!) of the Norwegian capital city (Oslo by the way for the Brits out there!)

Some quick facts regarding Norway and Oslo:

– The population of Norway exceeded 5 million people ONLY LAST YEAR (comparison: UK is over 63 million, despite landmass being only 63% of Norway’s)

– Roald Amundsen (Norwegian) discovered / first to South Pole (the guy who beat Scott for Brits!)

– Norway ranks consistently in the Top 5 countries to live in (number 1 rated by UN)

– Norwegians (or their ancestors) “apparently” invented skiing (only really cross-country, so not as cool for a passionate downhill skier)

So then, basically a sparsely populated country up in the North (of the World), covered in snow for 3-12 months (depending on where you are), full of nature, fjords and explorers.

Alas I digress, back to how I ended up here……. simple really, a simple process of reverse-gender-vikingisation. This is a modern concept of the last 10-15 years by where Norwegian women are sent out to scour the World and bring back the crème de la crème from foreign lands…. et voila, this particular specimen (half Brit, half Frog) was hunted down in Chamonix, France!

But knowing what I know now, my only mistake was not moving here 10 years ago.